Thanks to an anonymous source for referring this: Canadian Maurice Strong, an influential entrepreneur, withdrew as U.N. envoy for Korea on Wednesday while investigators probed his ties to a lobbyist suspected of bribing U.N. officials with Iraqi funds. Strong, who has served in a variety of U.N. posts since 1947, was a part-time adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the six-party talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.” He is suspending himself with the secretary-general’s...

Bolton Update: Michelle Malkin has assembled most of the important developments, or links to them. I’m frankly surprised that anyone sees an issue here, at least as advertised. I mean, take a look at what the New York Times parses as “what Democrats portrayed as troubling new accusations that cast doubt on Mr. Bolton’s temperament and credibility”: Among those highlighted by Mr. Biden was a statement from Melody Townsel of Dallas, a former contract worker for the Agency for International...

Europe Has a Conscience After All: BERLIN, April 14 – Europe seemed farther away than ever from lifting its 16-year-old arms embargo on China on Thursday, after statements by the German foreign minister and a vote in the European Parliament, both of which urged linking the embargo question to human rights.

Claudia Rosett has another column in today’s Wall Street Journal. The information I was hoping to see, but didn’t, was more about this tantalizing excerpt in another one of her recent columns: [Maurice] Strong is a Canadian tycoon with extensive experience at the United Nations, where he has served as secretary-general of the 1992 Earth Summit, as chief architect of the Kyoto Treaty, and as the world body’s guru of governance in the 1990s. Mr. Strong also has abundant connections...

Ministry of Bad Timing. Inflaming already tense relations with China, Japanese lawmakers said yesterday they plan to visit a shrine that glorifies Japan’s militarist past . . . . No, state-sponsored thuggery hasn’t inspired the right reaction in Japan after all. Everyone in East Asia now appears to be completely stoned on testosterone, a drug best known for suppressing all capacity for introspection. Legitimate grievances are being devoured by a snarling pack of illegitimate tyrants and cynical politicians.

“Elephants Rampage Through South Korea”

Bolton Update: Michelle Malkin has assembled most of the important developments, or links to them. I’m frankly surprised that anyone sees an issue here, at least as advertised. I mean, take a look at what the New York Times parses as “what Democrats portrayed as troubling new accusations that cast doubt on Mr. Bolton’s temperament and credibility”: Among those highlighted by Mr. Biden was a statement from Melody Townsel of Dallas, a former contract worker for the Agency for International...

Claudia Rosett has another column in today’s Wall Street Journal. The information I was hoping to see, but didn’t, was more about this tantalizing excerpt in another one of her recent columns: [Maurice] Strong is a Canadian tycoon with extensive experience at the United Nations, where he has served as secretary-general of the 1992 Earth Summit, as chief architect of the Kyoto Treaty, and as the world body’s guru of governance in the 1990s. Mr. Strong also has abundant connections...

Ministry of Bad Timing. Inflaming already tense relations with China, Japanese lawmakers said yesterday they plan to visit a shrine that glorifies Japan’s militarist past . . . . No, state-sponsored thuggery hasn’t inspired the right reaction in Japan after all. Everyone in East Asia now appears to be completely stoned on testosterone, a drug best known for suppressing all capacity for introspection. Legitimate grievances are being devoured by a snarling pack of illegitimate tyrants and cynical politicians.

Why can’t I manage to work myself into a lather over the “news” that North Korea has shut down Yongbyon–suggesting that it may be getting ready to reprocess more fuel rods? Part if it might be that Selig Harrison is one of the source, although he’s not the only one. I suspect it’s because every one of the players is about to feed us the same line of crap they’ve tried to feed us for the last half-decade or so....

Score another one for Claudia Rosett: NEW YORK — Maurice Strong, a prominent Canadian businessman and envoy for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, acknowledged ties yesterday with a South Korean businessman accused of wrongdoing in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong, Mr. Annan’s special adviser for North Korea, said in a statement that Tongsun Park invested in an energy company with which he was associated in 1997, but denied any wrongdoing. “Ties,” being the key word. Does this mean that Strong was...

Lankov on the Great North Korean Soccer Riot: I’ve disagreed with Andrei at times, but you can’t ingore the views of someone with such an exceptional depth of experience in North Korea. Not given to alarmist conclusions, but limited as we all are to speculation, Lankov sees something very significant: Pyongyangites have demonstrated that they are able to fight with police over the outcome of a soccer match. But what will come next? Does this not mean that one day...

Score another one for Claudia Rosett: NEW YORK — Maurice Strong, a prominent Canadian businessman and envoy for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, acknowledged ties yesterday with a South Korean businessman accused of wrongdoing in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong, Mr. Annan’s special adviser for North Korea, said in a statement that Tongsun Park invested in an energy company with which he was associated in 1997, but denied any wrongdoing. “Ties,” being the key word. Does this mean that Strong was...

Lankov on the Great North Korean Soccer Riot: I’ve disagreed with Andrei at times, but you can’t ingore the views of someone with such an exceptional depth of experience in North Korea. Not given to alarmist conclusions, but limited as we all are to speculation, Lankov sees something very significant: Pyongyangites have demonstrated that they are able to fight with police over the outcome of a soccer match. But what will come next? Does this not mean that one day...

Another fisherman-goes-North story, this one involving an abductee. It’s apparent that the man is under some form of extreme duress not to return to the South. And yes, he has relatives in the North. Updated post. Thanks, Hmmm.

Enough With the Textbooks, Already: Not quite. This is the first article I’ve read on the subject that isn’t steeped in the nationalism of one of the protagonists. Interesting. The Chosun Ilbo seized on one bit of criticism, which I think the Chosun blows out of proportion by taking as a slam against Korea rather than as a simple statement of the fact that on the distortion of history, everyone’s full of it: In South Korea, which democratized in the...