Open Sources, January 7, 2013
AP EXECUTIVES ON KCNA’S NEW FRONT PAGE! Like OFK, KCNA has made some changes to its web page. (In my own case, a hack attack led me to upgrade and update, which fixed the mysterious problem with the menu that had frustrated me for months — thanks, pro-North Korean hackers!) In KCNA’s case, their header now features (directly above His Porcine Majesty) Tom Curley, the AP’s now-retired CEO, and John Danizewski, its Vice President and Senior Managing Editor:
If George Orwell had produced a season of Hollywood Squares, I’m pretty sure it would have looked something like this layout. In the Charles Nelson Reilly position, immediately above and to the right of Curley and Daniszewski, is a picture of some unfortunate New York hipster, now immortalized in contemplative observation of the fruits of the AP-KCNA Exhibition in New York.
Anyway, there’s a lot to be thankful for this new year, aside from getting my menu fixed. First, we’ve kinda resolved that whole debate over whether the 8th Floor Exhibition was propaganda, and second, we’ll have new reasons to smile every time the AP’s top executives appear above KCNA’s announcements of Kim Jong Un’s supernatural feats, its calls to disembowel Park Geun-Hye or turn Seoul into a Sea of Fire, or the occasional sighting of a mythical beast.
HT: Adam Cathcart.
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FOR ONCE, JEAN H. LEE MUST BE APPALLED: North Korea bans nail polish. Funny, I thought North Korea was a land of Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, strapless gowns, and little black dresses!
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PREDICTION: CHINA WILL INVADE NORTH KOREA: Here’s my prediction: North Koreans would resist, and some South Koreans would help arm them, if only clandestinely. If a North Korean intervention becomes China’s Vietnam (or, more accurately, its second Vietnam) then it would be another unifying focus for internal dissent and protest in China and the Outer Koguryo Autonomous Zone. Word of Chinese casualties couldn’t spread in 1979, but it could today.
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MUST-READ: Daniel Pinkston argues that neither sticks nor carrots will cause North Korea to stop its WMD testing and development. I mostly agree. I’ve long since abandoned the belief that sanctions would change the regime’s basic pathology, but sanctions do serve a purpose if they’re properly designed, targeted, and enforced. They slow North Korea’s proliferation, weaken the regime overall, and depress its capacity to oppress its people so that the internal balance of power becomes slightly less unequal. If the regime consequently shows signs of significant internal instability, both North Korea and China might get serious about negotiated disarmament, but not before then.
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MUST-READ: Bruce Bechtol discusses scenarios for North Korea’s collapse.
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AJUMMA POWER: North Korean men can’t provide for their families, so women step into the void.
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DID NORTH KOREA SINK THE CHEONAN BECAUSE South Korea refused to pay up?
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THERE IS NOTICEABLY LESS ACADEMIC INTEREST in this not-at-all conciliatory message from North Korea:
Traitor Lee and his group, letting loose a spate of such malignant outbursts that the south should defend “the northern limit line” and “the north may perpetrate provocations based on the mode of striking the west while making noise in the east”, are getting frantic in the war maneuvers against the north while calling for “punishment” of someone. They hurled human scum into the operation of scattering leaflets.
The madcap confrontation racket kicked off by the group is an outright challenge to the aspiration of all the fellow countrymen for peace and reunification….
There is a limit to the DPRK’s patience and the spirit of its service personnel and people for annihilating the enemies is sky-high. Those who pursue confrontation with fellow countrymen and war are bound to ruin. [KCNA]
Tea leaf-readers take note — KCNA began equating Park Geun-Hye with Lee long before she was elected. It’s just a matter of time before she becomes the new Goldstein.
President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, and President Obama has seen no reason to revisit that decision. Discuss among yourselves.