Anju Links for 16 Jan 08

ISN’T IT TERRORISM when someone won’t release a captive without a payment?  Still, paying ransom is undeniably an improvement over paying the money and letting your POW’s and their families  die in place anyway.  I wonder how much this’ll cost.

TAZE ‘EM AGAIN, BRO!    The Korean  police are finally talking about  arresting and using a degree of force against violent protestors.   No doubt, this has something to do with the change of government in Seoul.  I’d like to see if under Lee, South Korea can actually master the tricky Scylla-Charibdis passage between excessive police force and what we’ve seen in South Korea’s recent past — violent hoardes of Red Guards, fueled by government funds, terrorizing both the local population and innocent Swiss people.  Democracy can’t work in either of those circumstances, because both of them stifle free and open discussion.

KCNA WATCH:  I think it’s fair to characterize this as North Korea calling for a purge of the Korean left.  Am I going too far to infer that they’re also  calling for a purge of the Democratic Peoples Labor Party?  I link, you decide.  The “national liberation” or “independence” faction  certainly looks like  a North Korean front, and to hear this guy tell it, the North Koreans are pretty much in control of the party  now.