Rebecca MacKinnon is calling “horseshit” on Microsoft’s (admitted) abetting of Chinese censorship: I lived in China for nine years straight as a journalist, and if you add up other times I’ve lived there it comes to nearly 12. I don’t know what students and professors Scoble met with, and what context he met them in. But to state that Chinese students and professors have an “anti-free-speech stance” is the biggest pile of horseshit about China I’ve come across in quite...

There is no cause to bash the U.N. this time; Special Rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn was clear and direct, taking a first step toward redeeming the U.N.’s miserable performance on North Korea thus far: China should stop repatriating North Koreans who flee their country and give them refugee status instead, a UN human rights envoy said on Monday. . . . “The people coming from North Korea are not just hunger cases but they are more than hunger cases because they...

The growing influence of the human rights constituency for North Korea showed itself yesterday when President Bush invited Kang Chol-Hwan, author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, for a 40-minute meeting in the White House. One can’t miss the significance of the timing, so soon after Bush’s meeting with Roh. Reuters adds a comment from the White House: “The president read the book, it is a compelling story. The president is very concerned about the human rights situation in North Korea,”...

The Joongang Ilbo has an interesting story on how the NK power structure has changed during Kim Jong-Il’s reign. The pattern appears to be combination of “military first” politically, and whatever-it-takes economically. You can make a strong case that North Korea’s hasn’t been doctrinally Marxist for years, but unless you’re Selig Harrison, there’s nothing credible to suggest that North Korea has a viable faction of diplomatic or political moderates. Recent reports do indeed suggest that Kim Jong-Il remains firmly in...

Is Kofi Finished? A new e-mail message from Oil-for-Food contractor Cotecna, which the latter discovered in its files “by accident,” suggests that Kofi Annan assured Cotecna of his support ten days before the U.N. contract was awarded. Annan’s son, Kojo, was a Cotecna employee. If that is all true, it is what lawyers refer to as a “smoking gun. The story of the message’s “accidental” discovery should be a fascinating one.

Two more cabinet ministers have spoken out in favor of Chen Yonglin’s asylum bid, dimming the chances that he will be sent back to face a Chinese firing squad or a tenner in the laogai. The good news permits a degree of amusement at the ministers’ surnames, and the headline that results: “Abbott, Costello back asylum for Chen“ As James Taranto asks, “What about Hu?” Let’s hope the news continues to be good.

The real news from the Roh-Bush meeting is starting to surface, after both administrations’ admirable job of slathering over all of the actual news with diplospeak. For the most part, this story seems to have gotten it right: Roh gets one more chance to convince KJI to come back to the table and negotiate in good faith. There may have been some ancillary agreements, too. Thus far, neither side is engaging in leaky angst to try to sabotage whatever deal...

My only reaction to this story of how Chinese peasants in Huanxi rose up against the authorities and turned their village into China’s first “liberated zone” since 1989. It’s proof of what brave and desperate people can do. Imagine what they could do with guns. As farmers’ stones rained down and the crowd pressed closer at about 6:30 a.m., the police lines collapsed and panicked officers ran for their staging ground at a schoolyard 150 yards from the tents. Some...

Rebecca MacKinnon is calling “horseshit” on Microsoft’s (admitted) abetting of Chinese censorship: I lived in China for nine years straight as a journalist, and if you add up other times I’ve lived there it comes to nearly 12. I don’t know what students and professors Scoble met with, and what context he met them in. But to state that Chinese students and professors have an “anti-free-speech stance” is the biggest pile of horseshit about China I’ve come across in quite...

There is no cause to bash the U.N. this time; Special Rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn was clear and direct, taking a first step toward redeeming the U.N.’s miserable performance on North Korea thus far: China should stop repatriating North Koreans who flee their country and give them refugee status instead, a UN human rights envoy said on Monday. . . . “The people coming from North Korea are not just hunger cases but they are more than hunger cases because they...

The growing influence of the human rights constituency for North Korea showed itself yesterday when President Bush invited Kang Chol-Hwan, author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, for a 40-minute meeting in the White House. One can’t miss the significance of the timing, so soon after Bush’s meeting with Roh. Reuters adds a comment from the White House: “The president read the book, it is a compelling story. The president is very concerned about the human rights situation in North Korea,”...

The Joongang Ilbo has an interesting story on how the NK power structure has changed during Kim Jong-Il’s reign. The pattern appears to be combination of “military first” politically, and whatever-it-takes economically. You can make a strong case that North Korea’s hasn’t been doctrinally Marxist for years, but unless you’re Selig Harrison, there’s nothing credible to suggest that North Korea has a viable faction of diplomatic or political moderates. Recent reports do indeed suggest that Kim Jong-Il remains firmly in...

Is Kofi Finished? A new e-mail message from Oil-for-Food contractor Cotecna, which the latter discovered in its files “by accident,” suggests that Kofi Annan assured Cotecna of his support ten days before the U.N. contract was awarded. Annan’s son, Kojo, was a Cotecna employee. If that is all true, it is what lawyers refer to as a “smoking gun. The story of the message’s “accidental” discovery should be a fascinating one.

Two more cabinet ministers have spoken out in favor of Chen Yonglin’s asylum bid, dimming the chances that he will be sent back to face a Chinese firing squad or a tenner in the laogai. The good news permits a degree of amusement at the ministers’ surnames, and the headline that results: “Abbott, Costello back asylum for Chen“ As James Taranto asks, “What about Hu?” Let’s hope the news continues to be good.

The real news from the Roh-Bush meeting is starting to surface, after both administrations’ admirable job of slathering over all of the actual news with diplospeak. For the most part, this story seems to have gotten it right: Roh gets one more chance to convince KJI to come back to the table and negotiate in good faith. There may have been some ancillary agreements, too. Thus far, neither side is engaging in leaky angst to try to sabotage whatever deal...

I’ve never considered myself a great fan of Brookings or Michael O’Hanlon, but I may need to reassess my thinking. His comment in today’s Washington Times is one of the more insightful things I’ve seen in the last five years. Has O’Hanlon migrated as much as I suspect? We should test North Korea’s willingness to reform economically and even politically, Vietnam-style. If Pyongyang proved willing to do so, the United States and its allies could help — for instance, aiding...

Has it really been five years? Ask anyone who’s gotten married, had two kids, changed jobs, changed continents, cars (twice), and homes (four times) during the same period and that person may agree that it can seem like both an instant and an eternity. But it’s a very long time for such a bold and dramatic diplomatic initiative to have accomplished so little. I’ll let those neocons at the BBC summarize: But the BBC’s Charles Scanlon in Seoul says much...

I’ve never considered myself a great fan of Brookings or Michael O’Hanlon, but I may need to reassess my thinking. His comment in today’s Washington Times is one of the more insightful things I’ve seen in the last five years. Has O’Hanlon migrated as much as I suspect? We should test North Korea’s willingness to reform economically and even politically, Vietnam-style. If Pyongyang proved willing to do so, the United States and its allies could help — for instance, aiding...