Search Results for: Demick

For new readers, here’s my original post on the violent 9/11 anti-American protests in Incheon, by North Korean sympathizers who want to tear down a statue of General Douglas MacArthur. Today saw the first major coverage by major U.S. media. This L.A. Times piece by Barbara Demick, though an incomplete picture, was much better than nothing. First, what the article does say: On Sunday, more than 4,000 anti-MacArthur demonstrators armed with bamboo sticks clashed with an almost equal number of...

Everything you didn’t learn about Seoul Mayor and presidential aspirant Lee Myung-Bak in my piece on him last week is here at the L.A. Times, by Barbara Demick. Unlike me, she leaves out most of the dirt. Lee is right, of course, to say that Seoul is an ugly city and shouldn’t be, although I happen to be one of the billion or so people who would have preferred a different approach than paving over swathes of city–including some places...

We may have our answer. About a week ago, I linked to this report showing a Japanese NGO’s pictures of what appeared to be international food aid for sale in markets in North Korea. I suggested that this was evidence of diversion of food aid, most likely by heartless and corrupt officials. James pointed out that North Koreans sometimes recycle the sacks, which are made of strong fiber. It was a plausible possibility. Today, I finally got around to watching...

Disturbing reports of a dramatically worsening famine continue to filter out of North Korea, notwithstanding the regime’s Maoist mobilization of schoolchildren and office workers to the countryside. It’s not working, according to South Korean agricultural expert Kang Jong-Man, via the L.A. Times: The rice paddies are thin and uneven. Potato plants are pale and stunted. The fields are not properly graded. Barley still on the stalks should have been harvested weeks ago so that the same fields could be used...

During our own Civil War, General Winfield Scott and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the Rumsfeld of his time devised an economic blockade that may have been more decisive to the Confederacy’s defeat than Gettysburg. They called it the Anaconda Plan for its stated goal of constricting the South until it could no longer breathe. The L.A. Times (free subscription required), via Barbara Demick, now reports that the Bush Administration is laying the groundwork for “other options” if the talks...

During our own Civil War, General Winfield Scott and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the Rumsfeld of his time devised an economic blockade that may have been more decisive to the Confederacy’s defeat than Gettysburg. They called it the Anaconda Plan for its stated goal of constricting the South until it could no longer breathe. The L.A. Times (free subscription required), via Barbara Demick, now reports that the Bush Administration is laying the groundwork for “other options” if the talks...

During our own Civil War, General Winfield Scott and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the Rumsfeld of his time devised an economic blockade that may have been more decisive to the Confederacy’s defeat than Gettysburg. They called it the Anaconda Plan for its stated goal of constricting the South until it could no longer breathe. The L.A. Times (free subscription required), via Barbara Demick, now reports that the Bush Administration is laying the groundwork for “other options” if the talks...

The L.A. Times’s Barbara Demick, who was fiercely criticized for some of her past coverage of North Korea, has a new piece out about the North Korean dissent video that emerged in January. She even located an interviewed the person who made the tape. Links, partial translation, and some more interesting info here, at my original post. Translation of a longer excerpt here. For new viewers who are interested in some of the videos that have emerged from North Korea...

The L.A. Times’s Barbara Demick, who was fiercely criticized for some of her past coverage of North Korea, has a new piece out about the North Korean dissent video that emerged in January. She even located an interviewed the person who made the tape. Links, partial translation, and some more interesting info here, at my original post. Translation of a longer excerpt here. For new viewers who are interested in some of the videos that have emerged from North Korea...

The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Congress will vote on the North Korean Human Rights Act this week. No, this bill is not as strong as the original North Korean Freedom Act, but great things have small beginnings, and a strong response from voters can help build toward better things later. In brief, this bill does the following: 1. Increases funds to broadcast to North Korea for more hours every day, and to find ways to get tunable radios to...

The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Congress will vote on the North Korean Human Rights Act this week. No, this bill is not as strong as the original North Korean Freedom Act, but great things have small beginnings, and a strong response from voters can help build toward better things later. In brief, this bill does the following: 1. Increases funds to broadcast to North Korea for more hours every day, and to find ways to get tunable radios to...