My God, how I would love to attend one of these:

Around 150 people gathered at a park at Imjingak near the border to release ten giant balloons carrying some 100,000 leaflets, 300 DVDs and 1,000 one-US-dollar notes. An activist shouting ‘Down with Kim Jong Il’ ripped up a North Korean flag with a knife. Another wore a traditional Korean funeral hat with the message ‘Congratulations, Kim Jong Il’s death’. The leaflets and DVDs criticised Pyongyang’s human rights record and carried detailed claims that it sank a South Korean warship in March, with the death of 46 sailors.

Unfortunately, the winds didn’t cooperate and blew the balloons back into South Korea, but no matter. They might do just as much good if they land on any college campus in Seoul.

One day, they must be held accountable for crimes against the English language: “They, at the same time, powerfully demonstrated the will of the strong revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu to mercilessly wipe out the U.S. imperialists and their stooges hell-bent on the moves to ignite a new war by the force of arms of Songun bolstered up and defend the socialist country as firm as an iron wall if they dare intrude into even an inch of the inviolable sky, land and seas of the DPRK.” That’s one sentence. And there’s more where that came from.

I’m glad to see that Angela Jolie is “very concerned about the North Korean people,” as generic a statement as that may be, but I wish she was more concerned about how little the UNHCR seems to share that concern. If she knew more about how badly the UNHCR has failed to fight for the rights of North Korean refugees in China, a few well-chosen words could really do some good.

Burma, North Korea, and Nukes: The evidence just keeps piling up.

Those joint naval exercises in the waters off Korea have ended without incident, and probably without much useful deterrent effect, either.

Like Kushibo says, China’s biggest problem is China: “A Japanese government panel will recommend deploying more armed forces in coastal areas where Chinese naval traffic has increased and relaxing rules on nuclear arms transfers.”