6 May 2010

Another reason not to hike the DMZ these days:

NORTH Korea has completed deployment of about 50,000 special forces along the border with South Korea, a report said on Wednesday, amid high tensions over the sinking of a Seoul warship. The deployment began two or three years ago and seven 7,000-strong divisions are now in place, an unidentified senior government official told Yonhap news agency.

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North Korea’s “unofficial spokesman” Kim Myong Chol has constructed an elaborate theory blaming the U.S. Navy for sinking the Cheonan. It will be interesting to see whether theories of this kind gain any traction in South Korea, but so far, it looks like the vast majority of those who have strong opinions blame North Korea.

Another report on those North Korean suicide squads.

Some work-safe pictures of Kim Jong Il’s pleasure squad dance troupe. What’s striking about the photographs is how obviously staged they are. For the women out there: do you ordinarily travel in brightly colored silk clothing and full make-up? For those of you who’ve traveled in China, are all of the train conductors that hot? (If so, I’d love to have a look at the flight attendants.) Not that I’m usually opposed to a little eye candy, but so soon after the Cheonan incident, and during the Korean families’ traditional mourning period, it’s completely insensitive of China to make such a garish display of its cozy relations with Kim Jong Il.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Auslin argues that in Northeast Asia, it’s now South Korea providing the adult supervision while Japan behaves like an adolescent. How times have changed. There are certainly aspects of Lee Myung Bak’s presidency that I wouldn’t favor if I were a South Korean voter, notably his profligate spending on grandiose projects, but there’s no denying what a difference it makes to have an adult in charge in the Blue House in a time of crisis.

Hey, man. Nice shooting.