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Monthly Archive: April, 2009

April 7, 2009

Tearful Kim Jong Il Apologizes to Starving Subjects for Blowing Their Kids’ Lunch Money on Missiles

I did not make this up, and I have the link to prove it: North Korea’s state-run media reported Tuesday that Kim Jong-Il shed tears of regret during the country’s controversial rocket launch because he could not use the launch funds to provide aid to his people, the AFP reported. [….] Kim “felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people’s livelihoods and was choked with sobs,” AFP quoted ruling communist party paper Rodong Sinmun as...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 7, 2009

Eberstadt: Kim Jong Il Has Looked Better (Update: See for Yourself)

Never mind missiles or the U.N., says Nick Eberstadt. The real North Korea story is still Kim Jong Il’s health: In the most recent official footage, undated but released late last month, North Korea’s leader looks like one of the beneficiaries of an extended stay in the Yodok political prison camp. In an alleged outing to a swimming pool at Kim Il Sung University, his signature belly is gone. Indeed, to judge by the picture, this sepulchral figure can barely...

Categories Kim Jong Il
April 7, 2009

The OFK Plan Hits Mass Circulation

Recently, I wrote a post offering effusive praise for a piece by Chris Badeaux in The New Ledger, a publication I hadn’t yet heard of, but which features such first-class talent as Badeaux, Ben Domenech, and Pejman Yousefzadeh. After a series of friendly e-mails, I’ve published a ten-point plan for dealing with North Korea’s WMD threat there, and I’m told that it will be published in Real Clear World tomorrow. Hopefully, this will answer some of the false laments that...

Categories Missiles/NK Economics
April 7, 2009

Suddenly, Everyone Has an Opinion About North Korea

HILLARY CLINTON IS STRUGGLING at the U.N., as she pleads with China and Russia to agree on a resolution that John Bolton predicts will mean nothing in practice: The initial draft Security Council resolution responding to yesterday’s missile launch, written by Japan and the U.S., is weak. It essentially only reaffirms Resolutions 1695 and 1718, and minimally tightens existing enforcement mechanisms. Moreover, China and Russia made it plain before the launch they had no interest in stricter sanctions — even...

Categories Anju Links/Missiles
April 5, 2009

What President Obama Should (But Won’t) Do About North Korea’s Missile Test

[Update: The nations are not united. The U.N. Security Council fails to agree on the text of a very angry letter. You don’t say.] [Afterthought: So can we conclude that the Obama Administration views even “soft power” as excessive force?] Our Words Mean Nothing Even for North Korea, today’s missile test was an especially flagrant, telegraphed, and premeditated provocation. Whether the missile carried a satellite or not, to launch it was a clear violation of two U.N. resolutions. That the...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Missiles
April 4, 2009

We Can’t Ignore North Korea’s Proliferation Threat

I’m a very big fan of B.R. Myers and very seldom disagree with him, but he’s dead wrong when he tells us that the best way to deal with North Korea’s threats is to ignore them. First, the idea would only be practical if B.R. Myers set editorial standards for all the world’s news media. In fact, Kim Jong Il is very good at not being ignored, and if the media comprise the fourth branch of our government, any minor...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation
April 4, 2009

Psalm for a Lost Utopia

And the era of cowboy diplomacy ended, and the war-gods were banished from the great city, and the world was uplifted on the wings of Hope and Change. And utopia dawned across Mother Gaia, and our wisest emissaries were sent to talk to our enemies rationally, carrying the word of His love and promises of much treasure. And all was calm and placid. Peace was at hand, double rainbows shone over the sacred mount, and stimuli of expropriated cheese and...

Categories Humor/Satire/Missiles
April 3, 2009

3 April 2009

THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF NORTH KOREA’S TRADE REPRESENTATIVE in Shanghai have defected to the South: The woman, identified only as Ri, arrived in Seoul in early March through the South Korean Embassy in Singapore and is now going though questioning like other North Korean defectors, North Korean sources said. Ri reportedly sought protection at the embassy in Singapore in January while her husband was in Pyongyang for a meeting. She decided to defect to South Korea after a troubling...

Categories Anju Links
April 3, 2009

Hill’s Nomination Held, But Senate Could Override the Hold Today (Update: Hill Still Not Confirmed!)

[Update: The gods of the Senate calendar were not kind to Chris Hill today. Harry Reid and John Kerry tried to bully him into it, but Brownback stood his ground and did not lift his hold. Hill was not confirmed. It may be a short-lived moral victory. After the recess, it will be in the hands of the Senate leadership to get the nomination to the full Senate floor. In any event, North Korea’s missile test will have happened by...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
April 2, 2009

KCNA Stands Up for Press Freedom!

North Korea, which was ranked 172nd out of 173 countries on last year’s survey of world press freedom and which is currently holding two journalists hostage, has lent its moral authority to the oppressed purveyors of the fraudulent P.D. Diary in South Korea, which inspired last year’s violent mad cow demonstrations. The Citizens Federation for Democratic Media of south Korea issued a statement on March 27 denouncing the present “government” and the ruling party for their undisguised moves to put...

Categories Censorship/Media Criticism/Unintended Humor
April 1, 2009

1 April 2009

FISTS STILL NOT UNCLENCHED, APPARENTLY: North Korea threatens to shoot down U.S. spy planes, and the threat is classic KCNA: “If the brigandish U.S. imperialists dare to infiltrate spy planes into our airspace to interfere with our peaceful satellite launch preparations, our revolutionary armed forces will mercilessly shoot them down,” the ministry quoted the radio as saying. [AP, Jae Soon Chang] JAPAN’S REACTION TO NORTH KOREA’S MISSILE THREAT IS “JUSTIFIED:” Not an especially surprising statement, until you see who said...

Categories Anju Links
April 1, 2009

Reporters Without Borders Petitions for the Release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee

Fittingly, Reporters Without Borders has launched an online petition for the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who are now facing a North Korean “trial” for allegedly crossing the border between China and North Korea. Regardless of which side of the border Ling and Lee were on, or your views about North Korea policy, every reasonable person should agree that holding Ling and Lee is unjustified; indeed, it’s clear that North Korea is holding them as “bargaining chips,” which...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Media Criticism/Refugees
April 1, 2009

South Korean Man Still Held at Kaesong

That South Korean man arrested at Kaesong continues to be held incommunicado. It’s staggering that South Korea would invest so much economic and political capital on something as poorly thought through as Kaesong. I didn’t have time to find an estimated total cost for the entire Kaesong fiasco, but this UPI report puts the cost of Kaesong’s recent expansion alone at $2.5 billion, just a small portion of more than $11 billion committed by Roh Moo Hyun to upgrade North...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics