I’ve been tagged for music now. What track has been running through my mind lately? Easy answer. Prokofiev’s sublime Symphony No. 5. When I brought it up in my book tag, a reader e-mailed me to tell me that he’s played orchestral piano for it at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, where the symphony first premiered. What is so remarkable about the Soviet composers of that era is that they managed to testify vividly about the grimness, the...

With the news that Rep. Henry Hyde, R. Ill., Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, will soon retire, the race for succession appears to have begun in earnest. Two of the names most frequently mentioned as successors are those of Republican congressmen Dana Rohrabacher of California and Dan Burton of Illinois. Other candidates include Republican Reps. Jim Leach of Iowa, Chris Smith of New Jersey, Ed Royce of California, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. With the exception of Burton,...

Seventy years of being run as a Soviet colony have left Mongolia resource-rich but people- and technology-poor. Half of the Mongol nation is, as they love to say in Beijing, “part of China.” Mongolia is squeezed between two great economic and diplomatic powers, one declining but still formidable, the other growing in power, arrogance, and appetite for resources. Nothing gets in or out of Mongolia without crossing the land or airspace of Russia or China. Little wonder that Mongolia is...

If you thought the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act last year appropriated money to drop radios into Korea, you were as mistaken about the congressional appropriations process as I was. In fact, the NKHRA authorized appropriations that run into the tens of millions for assistance to refugees, democracy promotion, and radios, among other items. The vast majority of that amount has yet to be appropriated, however, with the notable exception of the $2 million democracy promotion grant,...

Our blood allies in Korea are asserting their “maturity” again. While we’re gathering to tell the world about a few-million odd North Koreans starved to death by a regime that always seems to find the ready cash for cruise missiles and fuel rods, “progressive” South Koreans are on the way to Inchon to tear down the statue of MacArthur. Fears of a violent clash mounted Friday after progressive civic groups wanting a statue of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in Incheon...

The Chosun Ilbo has a big story on it today, although you pretty much read it all here weeks ago. Otherwise, this was the only amusing part: The meeting, which will be a highly visible platform publicizing the Pyongyang regime’s rights abuses, comes only a week ahead of a fresh round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. Freedom House’s North Korea director, Dr. Ku Jae-hee, said his group’s position was that human rights need to be a part...

This was a week of disturbing signs that the Bush Administration was going into the next hastily-arranged round of disarmament talks with North Korea prepared to make ill-advised compromises. Today was a day the administration tried to reassure those of us who wondered whether it was about to do another Agreed Framework. South Korea has already promised the down-payoff of massive energy assistance. Past events suggest that this is probably just part of a mystery gift bag whose precise value...

North Korea’s industrial sector is now so broken and looted that it’s trucking its raw iron ore to China. Having worked in a few mines myself, all I can say is how ridiculously inefficient it all is. Simply milling, crushing, and smelting the ore vastly improves its value and saves millions on transportation (not to mention wear-and-tear on roads and trucks). Indeed, moving iron ore over any significant difference is almost always done by rail in a normal economy. The...

Demonstrations in Iran: But how big, and for how long? Publius has details and a photo, along with encouraging signs of White House support. Now, someone please tell me what our government is doing to improve conditions in Uzbekistan.

Payoff With a Proviso: South Korea is promising to rebuild North Korea’s electricity grid and juice up the wires, but that would require South Korean control over the fuse box. I’m actually lukewarm on (as opposed to adamantly against) projects that give the outside world more leverage on North Korea. There are two problems with this: first, Kim Jong Il won’t allow it for that very reason; and second, who will exercise leverage over South Korea when it insists on...

How profitable is China’s slave labor industry? More than previous studies have suggested, according to this.

Demonstrations in Iran: But how big, and for how long? Publius has details and a photo, along with encouraging signs of White House support. Now, someone please tell me what our government is doing to improve conditions in Uzbekistan.

Gateway Pundit has a must-see post, with BBC video, here, featuring Kang Chol-Hwan and Michael Horowitz. The British press has done a far better job of covering this issue than its American counterpart. I suspect that the Nelson Report is at least a partial explanation for this. North Korea recognizes that talk about human rights is a mortal threat to the survival of its system; such talk has likely been responsible for its new flexibility on nuclear talks. There is...

In the unlikely event it’s caught on tape, a scapegoat will have to be found and punished.

This is a Saturday, at 2 p.m. The Chinese Embassy is at 2300 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. The sponsor is the North Korean Freedom Coalition. This is in coordination with the Korean American Church Coalition’s prayer vigil, scheduled for Sunday, August 21. The subject of the protest will be China’s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees back to North Korea, sometimes with cables through their noses. Past Chinese treatment of these refugees has also included using electric cattle prods...

Two cheers for the Human Rights Commission! I’m absolutely stunned to see this post by on The Marmot’s site. The HRC is actually talking to the South Korean people about racial discrimination against mixed-race Koreas. It is a subject that demands introspection, change, and the questioning of long-held prejudices. After all of the lost oxygen over diaries, Iraq, and haircuts–in short, everything except serious human rights deficiencies–I’m stunned to see signs of the HRC’s relevance, much less a flirtation with...

South Korean anti-Americanism appears to be more than a passing fad, although I note that much of the reaction here is not unlike public anger we’ve seen in the United States recently. Nobody likes eminent domain. But being that this is South Korea, those with other motives decided to join the festivities. Judging by the photographs, the violence does not appear to have been the work of a small fringe element, either. I will long remember my seven months at...

South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun, who recently lost his parliamentary majority, has some very novel ideas about power-sharing. The idea that this is meant to forestall the gridlock that sometimes comes from divided government is about as plausible as any that comes to mind, which means “not very.” He’s now revealing the specifics of his plan for “coalition government,” but I can’t make a whit of sense of this: Bringing specifics to President Roh Moo-hyun’s recent talk of “coalition government,”...