Human Rights Updates: A British Junior Foreign Minister who recently visited North Korea has told the BBC that conditions there appear to be getting worse. The report, which quotes Yodok survivors on the conditions they survived there, is somewhat at odds with the new report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea. The U.N. report goes out of its way to note recent improvements, despite the fact that North Korea barred the Rapporteur from entering the...

The Pulitzer Committee did not select Claudia Rosett this year. I can’t criticize the result too much without having read the winning entries–nor am I opposed to the idea of “pungent columns that provided a voice for the underdog and underprivileged”–but it seems to me that the corruption of an institution in which some would invest “global test” powers has broader implications.

Talks to Restart? Take this announcement with a grain of salt, and when it comes to the hope of any real progress there, unscrew the lid from the shaker: “Even if we get past the worst and the six-party talks restart, ultimately we cannot be optimistic” since North Korea is now saying the six-party talks should be mutual nuclear disarmament negotiations. What’s this? My exclusive OFK satellite eaves-ear-dropper has produced a transcript of the meeting: China: The Americans will refer...

Human Rights Updates: A British Junior Foreign Minister who recently visited North Korea has told the BBC that conditions there appear to be getting worse. The report, which quotes Yodok survivors on the conditions they survived there, is somewhat at odds with the new report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea. The U.N. report goes out of its way to note recent improvements, despite the fact that North Korea barred the Rapporteur from entering the...

The Pulitzer Committee did not select Claudia Rosett this year. I can’t criticize the result too much without having read the winning entries–nor am I opposed to the idea of “pungent columns that provided a voice for the underdog and underprivileged”–but it seems to me that the corruption of an institution in which some would invest “global test” powers has broader implications.

I guess the next step is for South Korea to start calling itself the Outer Koguryo Semi-Autonomous Zone. This story from the Chosun Ilbo is almost too amazing to believe: Military exchanges between Korea and China will intensify to a level similar to those between Korea and Japan, the defense ministry said Monday. “China, more than any nation, wishes for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, so we plan to strengthen our military exchanges with China, including making defense...

The Taliban’s Last Gasp? The fighting season has started in Afghanistan. We’ll soon know whether they have the capacity to put a significant crimp in reconstruction.

Note to “local pundits:” Get a life! UPDATE: You guys, too. Lives, you must get. Now, you must get them. What, us? Racist? The nerve!

It takes one to know one: Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Sunday fired a broadside at Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, saying his criticism of Japan was a “a third-rate political technique” to recover popularity at home. Appearing on a Fuji TV interview program, Ishihara said Roh’s repeated criticism of Japan over its colonial abuses and the Dokdo Islets was “a stopgap measure for President Roh to recover some of his popularity.” He added, “For a politician it’s a third-rate technique.”...

Zimbabwe Update: Publius reports that Robert Mugabe appears to have gotten away with using electoral fraud to amend his country’s constitution. Zimbabwe has superb land, a relatively well-educated work force, and a tradition of following the rule of law. It had one of the two best judiciaries in the region, along with South Africa. Now, all is being looted by one of Africa’s last surviving Big Men.

Christopher Hill to the North Koreans: “I think they ought to come to the table, and if they want to make sarcastic statements, they can make them to me. And stop with these silly press announcements,” Mr. Hill says.

The Family Business: The Chosun Ilbo has an interesting story about the “family business” of black marketing. What my wife and I never understood is why, given the dizzying variety of good-quality and inexpensive food in the Korean markets, anyone would pay extra for black-market American food. We always scratched our heads when we saw the ajummas with their shopping carts loaded with 16 packages of bacon, 30 packs of hot dogs, 25 cans of infant formula, and five 20-pound...

Scroll down for updates. The Korean government is ruling out “renegotiation” of its “tenative” cost-sharing agreement with the USFK, which is no surprise given the likely consequence of losing face to the Yankees just four weeks before the next bi-election. I’m suspicous about the use of the term “tentatively agreed” in the Herald story. Either there’s a binding agreement that was authorized for public release or there wasn’t; if the latter is true, it’s a negotiation, not a renegotiation. Perhaps...

Talks to Restart? Take this announcement with a grain of salt, and when it comes to the hope of any real progress there, unscrew the lid from the shaker: “Even if we get past the worst and the six-party talks restart, ultimately we cannot be optimistic” since North Korea is now saying the six-party talks should be mutual nuclear disarmament negotiations. What’s this? My exclusive OFK satellite eaves-ear-dropper has produced a transcript of the meeting: China: The Americans will refer...

The war rages on in the letters page of the Washington Post. No one lives on Tokdo. Twenty-two million people are living in North Korea, including about 200,000 in concentration camps, where about 20% die each year. Approximately two million of them have already starved to death. Nero, too, is said to have fiddled why Rome burned, but then again, nobody knew the political value of a good circus like Nero.

I guess the next step is for South Korea to start calling itself the Outer Koguryo Semi-Autonomous Zone. This story from the Chosun Ilbo is almost too amazing to believe: Military exchanges between Korea and China will intensify to a level similar to those between Korea and Japan, the defense ministry said Monday. “China, more than any nation, wishes for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, so we plan to strengthen our military exchanges with China, including making defense...

The Taliban’s Last Gasp? The fighting season has started in Afghanistan. We’ll soon know whether they have the capacity to put a significant crimp in reconstruction.

Note to “local pundits:” Get a life! UPDATE: You guys, too. Lives, you must get. Now, you must get them. What, us? Racist? The nerve!