A Kazakh news site says that Japan says it is planning to impose a “tough step” against North Korea. So does the Korea Herald. Hmmm. Funny, none of the Japanese papers I’ve read are reporting this.

Amazon has this link to the American Red Cross. The first day, it seemed a disaster of horrifically ordinary scale. The next day, I saw a picture of a father grieving over the body of his baby son. His son looked like my son, and I haven’t been quite myself since. That day, I left work early to spend a completely computer-free evening with my own (we learned that rolled-up socks make superb father-son projectiles; I learned that such opportunities...

If you don’t recognize the name of New York’s most overrated intellectual, consider yourself fortunate, move on, and go wrestle with your kids or something you’ll be glad you did when you die. If you’re still reading, it may be because you were confused by fawning tributes like these, inspired partly out of doctrinally mandated reverence and partly out of another kind polite societies (in contrast to this site today) offer cheaply to the deceased. Speaking of which, here’s Susan...

The L.A. Times is giving reports of Kim Jong Il’s demise the Big Sneer: But the speculation may have less to do with political forces inside North Korea than outside. In particular, President Bush’s reelection has emboldened critics of the North Korean regime in the United States and in Asia who want Kim ousted. The North Korean Human Rights Act, passed in October, allocates up to $24 million to promote better conditions for North Koreans, and has revitalized an activist...

Who are the real reformers in North Korea? Forget Kaesong. It might just be these people.

From the Chosun: North Korea is one of the world’s foremost providers of missile technology, but experts say there is still no evidence that Pyongyang has shared its suspected stocks of nuclear materials or chemical and biological weapons. “You’d have to export a lot of these things to make a significant difference, that’s something that would be highly observable, and again, something that countries themselves might be able to accomplish without having to rely on North Korea,” [the expert] noted....

The Christian Science Monitor has a fairly detailed and balanced report on South Korea’s Fugitive Slave Act Anti-Human Smuggling Initiative. South Korea, North Korea, and China–one big, happy co-prosperity sphere.

A Kazakh news site says that Japan says it is planning to impose a “tough step” against North Korea. So does the Korea Herald. Hmmm. Funny, none of the Japanese papers I’ve read are reporting this.

Mongolia has reportedly promised North Korea that it will not host refugee camps on its soil. I was afraid nothing good could come of a Mongolian official’s visit to Pyongyang. Never a good thing to arrive empty-handed, you know.

The WaPo reports (via KCNA) that a KGS employee has defected to North Korea! No word yet on whether the Unification Ministry will suspend talks due to this latest expression of Pyongyang’s subversive, hostile policy. And of course, North Korea is conducting stringent background checks to make sure that the man wasn’t aided by any of those human traffickers.

Amazon has this link to the American Red Cross. The first day, it seemed a disaster of horrifically ordinary scale. The next day, I saw a picture of a father grieving over the body of his baby son. His son looked like my son, and I haven’t been quite myself since. That day, I left work early to spend a completely computer-free evening with my own (we learned that rolled-up socks make superb father-son projectiles; I learned that such opportunities...

If you don’t recognize the name of New York’s most overrated intellectual, consider yourself fortunate, move on, and go wrestle with your kids or something you’ll be glad you did when you die. If you’re still reading, it may be because you were confused by fawning tributes like these, inspired partly out of doctrinally mandated reverence and partly out of another kind polite societies (in contrast to this site today) offer cheaply to the deceased. Speaking of which, here’s Susan...

Mongolia has reportedly promised North Korea that it will not host refugee camps on its soil. I was afraid nothing good could come of a Mongolian official’s visit to Pyongyang. Never a good thing to arrive empty-handed, you know.

The WaPo reports (via KCNA) that a KGS employee has defected to North Korea! No word yet on whether the Unification Ministry will suspend talks due to this latest expression of Pyongyang’s subversive, hostile policy. And of course, North Korea is conducting stringent background checks to make sure that the man wasn’t aided by any of those human traffickers.

South Korea’s Anti-Unification Ministry has recently flailed to portray its new anti-defector policy as a politically neutral effort against human smuggling and asylum fraud, and some of the media seem willing to buy that line. The Minister must now wish he had chosen his words more carefully in this recent OhMyNews interview and not issued that now-withdrawn set of proposed regulations, which clearly show that his intent is to keep out virtually all defectors, and keep in all NGO reps...

Call Karl Rove. Somebody needs help with their message control. Monday‘s headline: Pyongyang Makes Positive Assessment of Inter-Korean Relations South and North Korea have joined in a struggle to unify the two countries, a senior North Korean official said Monday. Jong Tok-gi, a secretariat section chief of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, said anti-unification activities become more vicious this year but the inter-Korean intention to forge unification has become stronger. Tuesday‘s headline: N. Korea Blames S....

Could free medical care for ordinary North Koreans be one of the few good things to come from the Kaesong Industrial Park? It would if the North Korean authorities actually allowed it, but they won’t. Their engagement strategy is to insulate ordinary North Koreans from the kindness of the outside world. Meanwhile, a second plant, this one slated to make auto and semiconductor parts, is slated to crank out its first wares at Kaesong next week. The plant will eventually...

South Korea’s Anti-Unification Ministry has recently flailed to portray its new anti-defector policy as a politically neutral effort against human smuggling and asylum fraud, and some of the media seem willing to buy that line. The Minister must now wish he had chosen his words more carefully in this recent OhMyNews interview and not issued that now-withdrawn set of proposed regulations, which clearly show that his intent is to keep out virtually all defectors, and keep in all NGO reps...