South Korean hostages, German plot, UK, Islamic extremism, Mother Theresa, Iranian human bombs and UNSC in Sudan

 More on the liberation of South Korean hostages: remember the guy who was killed by 10 shots and whose death was blamed on natural causes? Well, really it was not because of natural causes, it was because he did not submit himself to Allah.

The youth pastor who was leading the group of 23 South Korean aid volunteers in Afghanistan was killed for refusing to convert to Islam, the head pastor of the church revealed after the final 19 former hostages arrived home.

“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-jo, pastor of the hostages’ home church, Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital Seoul.

“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to Christian Today Korea. “Especially it is known that the reason Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert.”

Infidels Are Cool » Blog Archive » Convert or Die: South Korean Pastor chose death

Is there anything wrong about this??? Well, yeah, have you considered that there is no video showing us the faces of these hostages during their kidnapping asking for release?

But hey, what do you know?? There are idiots -this time is Canadian, but intelligence is not a consequence of nationality so tomorrow it would be from other country- saying that this should be the signal for other countries to start negotiating with the Talibans.

The hostage agreement reached last week between the Taliban and South Korea has profound implications for all countries fighting in Afghanistan. It puts the lie to those, including the current Canadian government, who say it is impossible or counterproductive to strike a deal with the Islamist insurgents. Clearly South Korea found the talks quite productive.

Hey, the Talibans are going to be exultant because of the results of their actions… What a moron!!!

Hehe: at least, one of the kidnappers has had what he deserved. He was already preparing an assault on a police post.

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About the German plot: German police is searching for 10 more people, both inside Germany and abroad:

BERLIN (AFP) – German police have launched an international hunt for 10 accomplices of the three men held over a foiled Islamist plot to blow up airports and US installations in Germany, a top official said Thursday.

“Terrorist attacks need preparation. We are trying to identify all of those who were working in the shadows,” Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told ARD television.

Police were searching for “the 10 people who were behind this” within Germany and abroad, he added.

 

The arrests were made at a vacation home, pictured, in Oberschledorn. The suspects had rented the house to store chemicals to make explosives, officials said, and were preparing to leave when security forces swooped in.

But there is more about the already detained:

Newspapers reported on Thursday that investigators believed Fritz Martin G. to have been the ringleader of the plotters.

He had been living in Neu-Ulm, a town in southern Germany seen as a hotbed of Islamist radicals, and was involved in a mosque there which German police have long believed to be a base for extremists planning attacks.

Investigators said an Islamic centre in nearby Ulm was among more than 30 places the police raided early Wednesday. Offices seized documents and computers they hope can point them to those who helped to organise and finance the well-advanced bomb plot.

The three main suspects, pictured in the press wearing blue prisoner overalls, appeared before an investigating judge in Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany on Wednesday.

The authorities have said the men gathered at their Sauerland hideaway on Sunday to start making bombs to use in “massive attacks” with the 12 drums of hydrogen peroxide (left) they had stashed in the garage. 

Sources close to the case told AFP the police were looking into the group’s plans to use military detonators to set off bombs because this could provide important clues in the investigation.

They also phoned British colleagues.

Several calls to British numbers are said to been made from mobile telephones linked to two of the men being questioned in Germany. One is said to have been a “known” number.

Remember that there were also 8 people detained in Denmark accused of preparing more Islamist terrorist attacks? Well:

“On August 31, 2007, the Islamist website {name removed}, hosted by SiteGenie LLC in Rochester, Minnesota, posted a document calling for “martyrdom [i.e., suicide] operations” in Denmark. The author, who identified himself as a member of Al-Qaeda, urged the Muslims not to forget the incident of the Danish cartoons, and promised the people of Denmark that the “brigades of martyrdom seekers are on their way… and will soon carry out blessed operations” in their country. He called on the Muslims to register on the site as candidates for these suicide operations.

Once again this means only one thing: they can go from one place to another and they can communicate to each other, very easily. And we are all menaced, whatever the policy our Governments make.

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Elder of Ziyon has an appaling story which happened in London. A woman enters a café in Edgware Road near Marble Arch and asks for a juice. She sits down and waits for it, noticing she is the only female customer. When the waitress brings it to her, she complaints because it was fermented and tells the woman it needed to be conserved in a refrigerator.

But the waitress answers “No– English”. So exasperated, she shouts:

Is there no-one working here who speaks English? This is Paddington – this is still a London neighbourhood.’
A well-dressed man came over and said ‘I speak English.’ I thought he was going to intervene on my behalf but instead came out with this astonishing observation:
‘You are a racist! You are a racist ape! Look at you– you are an ape!’[…] Shocked, I glared at him, but he had to finish things off : ‘You want them to speak Hebrew, don’t you?’

😯 This man has a problem with geography…

I got up from my seat and went over to him and at the top of my voice said I would be proud to speak Hebrew if I could, it being the language of the Torah and of an ancient culture going back six-thousand years. [Heh, imagine the face of the moron…:twisted: ].
He then embarked on a tirade at me about the ‘five million Indians’ slaughtered in genocide in America. [Of course, Muslims have never killed a poor fly in their whole history…]. Meanwhile, the men in the café were in various states of laughter at me, and exhibiting great admiration for him.
Believe it or not, the server had in the meantime brought me a fresh juice which I calmly drank with my very un-Hebrew ham and cheese sandwich, and then I left. I wandered over to the flower shop and found myself commiserating with what seemed to be two Englishwomen who lived in a permanent state of fear in a neighbourhood they had called their own for generations. They told me I must have been mad going into that shop, as ‘all the establishments in Edgware Road are off-limits to us now.’

😯 Not surprised then that the British are going abroad in something very similar to an stampede.

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Once again all of these stories makes this come true:

ejem… I feel this is insulting for the poor pig…

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NYT has run a story critisizing Mother Theresa, and feeling disgusted because normal US nationals know Calcutta not because of its beautiful buildings and educated middle class, but because of her. So what is the problem with her and the liberal media around the world?

As a doctor, I can only shake my head at those sophisticated critics that lament her hospices don’t meet the year 2000 standards of university hospitals. They ignore the question: If Mother Teresa’s hospice was not there, where would the people go? To other Indian hospices? To University hospitals, with private beds and gourmet meals?

… The rest off the criticisms similarly show a strange envy of the good. But why Mother Teresa? Why not slime American born Ram Dass and the Indian doctors and who helped wipe out small pox in India? Or slime Mother Wichiencharoen, a Buddhist nun, for her shelters in Bangkok?But we all know why, don’t we? The NYTimes doesn’t like Catholics.

It’s the sex stupid.

Mother Teresa opposed abortion and promoted chastity. How dare she impose her rigid Catholic morality on poor Hindus, (whose religion, by the way, also opposes abortion and promotes chastity).
But the editors of the NYTimes can’t have a rich American slime Mother Teresa, so they find an Indian born woman to do it.
So let’s destroy the reputation of Mother Teresa, and we won’t feel so guilty at our next cocktail party.

SC&A writes:

We are not all Mother Teresa. That said, because we are not all Mother Teresa, we ought not diminish her status so that we might be her equal. The ability to reach within and bring the very best of who we are isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be heroes.

We live in a world that trivializes goodness and and character. The virtues of money, sex and inflexibility are celebrated and extolled. ‘Take no prisoners’ has come to define not only political agendas, but moral ones as well. Success often means trading in values that might actualize the very best of who we are, for values that will clearly enslave us.

We do have the ability to reach that part of ourselves that is the best of ourselves and if we choose, we can make that self actualization as natural as breathing. Who we are won’t change- in fact, we can choose to reach out to our own unique potential and evolve into our best selves. Each of us has within our grasp, the opportunity to be our own expression of Mother Teresa.

Read it all: it’s really worth your time.

I have said around the world because in Spain it was El País (yes, you all know how much I love that newspaper) the liberal MSM which was worried about how on earth someone with doubts could be made saint… because she had lost her faith. 😯 Of course, what the article’s writer did not know is that Nowak -secretary of the Congregation for the Saints’ Cause- said: “It is a phenomenon which happens to every great mistic and spiritual teacher, as Saint Teresa of Jesus or Saint Juan de la Cruz, called spiritual night or senses’ night.  They are special periods of the spiritual life of the people who feel themselves abandoned by a God who they feel is very far from them“.

😈 Oh, yeah, but they are independent and objective. Yeah, without doubt…

And, while these liberal media are critisizing and diminishing her so much, the Feast the Missionaries of Charity have given in her honor and her tomb were full of people to mark the 10th anniversary of her death. In the ocassion, Sister Nirmala Joshi, her succesor as Head of the MofC, said:

Only those of an advanced level of spirituality” experience this, Sister Nirmala said, calling it a sign of being close to God. It is like being close “to the sun and so blinded by the brilliance,” she explained.

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Iranian 40.000 human bombs. See the video inside (in English). Is this what gender equality means for the Iranian aytollahs?

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Lastly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was “shocked and humbled” by a visit to a refugee camp in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region. Hmm, for someone who has been for so many years in the UN, saying that is errr, well, not very trustful… How on earth he did not know this? For a complete roundup of news regarding this, you can read Passion of the Present.

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More on Talibans and SK Missionaries, NK nuclear plant, war against Iran?, Solutions, Global Warming and FGM

Welcome Reuters readers.

With Taliban’s release of Korean Christian hostages, caution for missionaries | csmonitor.com

Views on missionaries whose chief aim is sharing the gospel in hot spots vary widely among the nongovernmental (NGO) and religious communities. But even those who accept missionaries argue that good intentions, enthusiasm, and bravery must conjoin with a professional approach.

“To work in dangerous areas you need … deep networks, and deep knowledge,” says Jerome Larchu, a director of the Paris-based Médicins du Monde (Doctors of the World), which has volunteers in 55 countries. “You bring in skilled people, lots of locals – and only then do you send people in.”

In February Médecins du Monde pulled its team out of Darfur for security reasons. But the doctors felt their mission wasn’t over. This summer they put scouts into Sudan for eight weeks to travel, talk with locals, and assess risk – before going back in.

If missionaries or aid workers do not have the proper help and concept, “it is a problem for us,” says Mr. Larchu. “I think anyone has a right to proselytize if they want to. But to locals, an NGO is an NGO; they don’t know who we are. They don’t make a lot of distinctions. They don’t know who is legitimate. So NGOs are interdependent, whether we realize it or not. We have to gain local trust together.”

[…] In the past decade, the number of NGOs has risen sharply, as have incidents of violence against them, say Larchu of Médecins du Monde and Martin of Mercy Corps. “More than 80 humanitarian workers were killed in 2006 – that’s more than UN soldiers,” says Larchu.

The number of religious groups is also rising and work closely with secular groups. “Worldvision, the Aga Khan Foundation, Catholic Relief Services – which makes no attempt to hide its name – they channel their faith into humanitarian efforts,” says Martin. “When they come into a dangerous place, they either sit at the table with us, or work at cooperation. If, like the South Koreans, we don’t know them, and they don’t know us, that makes it more difficult for everyone.”

[…] [Marian McClure, former director of worldwide ministries for the Presbyterian Church (USA), says that] a public misconception abroad is that Christians want to “foist” their beliefs on others. “On the contrary, most Christians today suffer not from a tendency to foist our faith on anyone, but from a tendency to be excessively private about our faith,” she argues. “I have never met a follower of a non-Christian religion who would respect someone who could not and would not express his or her beliefs.”

And she is right… 😦

But doesn’t it look like that the NGOs are blaming the missionaries for their own deaths?

You can read also One Free Korea (there’s an interesting photo inside also):

Various news agenies are reporting that the South Korean government paid a ransom of either $2 million or $20 million. Taliban sources are claiming that it was the higher of those amounts. Either sum is enough to build plenty of IED’s to kill American soldiers. [Another update: Seoul has finally gotten around to denying that it paid ransom — yeah, and Larry Craig’s still denying a few things, too – while the Chosun Ilbo publishes a photograph of the Korean spy who probably negotiated it, and who posed arm-in-arm with the terrorists.]

😯 With these friends who needs enemies??? 😡

We forget that the Taliban helped kill 3,000 Americans in our own country. If our government is serious about halting material support for terrorism, the Treasury Department will track down the South Korean and Saudi entities that funneled this money to the Taliban, invoke Executive Order 13,224, and freeze all of their assets colder than Hillary Clinton’s smile. Ideally, that will happen before the money paid by our “allies” is used by our enemies to kill our soldiers. Government entities, too? Yes, especially government entities.

Now, that would be a good start, if USA want to be considered really tough on terrorism. I personally believe that the war on terrorism is not focusing really hard on the finances of the terrorist groups and there are a lot of people who are making a lot of money with weapons in here. And with markets’ unstability…

Are they going to do it? I doubt it. Both South Korea and Saudi Arabia are allies…

[…]our alliance with South Korea today is one of the world’s most lopsided in terms of the mutual flow of benefits. South Korea has been useless or worse as an ally against the terrorists, extraordinarily unhelpful with North Korea, an irritant in our regional security framework (since Japan is a part of that), and a self-declared neutral in checking China’s regional ambitions. South Korea is actually cutting its own military, leaving American taxpayers to take up the slack. There doesn’t seem to be much South Korean gratitude for this expensive commitment, either, judging by displays like these, or polls that consistently show South Korea to be one of the most anti-American countries in Asia.

Hmm, curious, isn’t it?? 😡

Were SK women sexually assaulted by the Talibans?

Something that has been left un-said in the media but on most people minds was if the Taliban sexually assaulted the women or not. The hostages are not talking yet but reports are filtering out of Afghanistan that at least four of the hostages were sexually assaulted by Pakistani Taliban which set off a fight between two Taliban groups. The sexual assault of the Korean women would be highly damaging to the Taliban’s effort to cultivate an image of being mujahadeen fighting for a Muslim cause in Afghanistan when they are going around kidnapping and raping women. I’m sure we will find out sooner or later if the report is true or not, but I would not be surprised at all if some of the women were sexually assaulted by these Taliban criminals.

Afghan Lord has more:

Taliban strongly rejected allegations regarding sexual assault on four female Korean captives. Militant spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi told to media they were waging jihad against obscenity, immorality and un-Islamic acts in Afghanistan.

Hmm, so they wage jihad against obscenity, immorality and un-Islamic acts by sexually assaulting girls??? 😯

In a sense, and if you just think about it for a minute, cold way, it’s logical considering their ways…

ABC NEWS: I just get sick when I read this kind of comments:

When adherents of any religion are so ill mannered as to venture into another’s area, be it your home or country, with the expressed intention of convincing their targets that they are pursuing the wrong philosophy or way of life, and should adopt the true ways of the proselyte’s, then they should expect, at the very least, rejection. When confronting such as the Taliban,and fundamentalists of any religion, then they should be prepared to reap the harvest of their own ignorance.

Look here. There is NO REASON to kidnap any person, whatever their conditions. And this people are peaceful for God’s sake! They weren’t going to do any harm: if you are Afghan, and don’t want to convert just say so. It’s very simple. It’s called freedom: you use it each time you must decide which option you must follow.

In Spain, there are the famous pairs of Mormons -nearly in all cities-. Well, no one has kidnapped them or anything. Are they proselytising? Yeah. But if they come to me and ask for conversion (I think that three or four times more or less, I have had to hear them 😛 ), just answer them: “I’m a convinced …. I do not want to convert”.

To support the Taliban in what they have done, equating peaceful missionaries with bloody killers and terrorists, is one of the worst equations I have been seeing later.

Last news: From Yonhap:

ANYANG, South Korea, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) — A pastor at the South Korean church whose volunteers were held hostage for six weeks by Afghanistan’s Taliban said some of the captives were “severely beaten” by the insurgents when they refused to convert to Islam.

As JW says, “Feel the love”. 😡

According to the link in Spanish posted below, the Talibans’ spokesman has said that the ransom payed is going to be used to buy weapons and pay for suicide attacks. It also reminds that there are 1 German and 5 Afghans in their power. The German is an aid worker, whose companion had already been killed by peaceful and loving and caring Talibans (hey, Brian, when are you going to film this kidnappings??? 😈 ). The Talibans are also asking Germany to withdraw from Afghanistan and one of their speakers have already said they will not attack citizens from countries which do not have troops on Afghanistan.

Eeh, Zapatero, are you hearing? 😈 What would happen if they kidnap an Spanish? Will you cave in again? What about the Civilizations’ Alliance? Is it also for the Talibans or only for Erdogan’s “Moderate Islam is an offensive and ugly term“? What shocking news, eh? Because it means that “There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it“. And if you don’t like what there is, hmm, well, just bear it… 😈

Para los que no entienden inglés, podeis leer esta noticia de Reuters:

Lo consideramos (el secuestro) como un brazo que nos puede permitir dar un golpe al enemigo”, declaró a Reuters por teléfono desde un lugar desconocido el portavoz talibán Qari Mohamad Yusuf.

“El secuestro (…) y asesinato de (ciudadanos) cuyos países han venido para la aniquilación de la nación de Afganistán son obras que suprimen al enemigo”, añadió.

Yusuf, uno de los dos portavoces de los talibanes, dijo que no atacarán a los ciudadanos de países que no tienen tropas en este país.

Según el acuerdo alcanzado la semana pasada, Corea del Sur dijo que a finales de agosto retiraría a todos sus ciudadanos de Afganistán, así como al pequeño contingente de 200 soldados e ingenieros a finales de año. La retirada de la misión estaba prevista. [¿A que existe parecido con la retirada de las tropas de Iraq? Si al final han sido los musulmanes integristas…].

[…] Un alto mando talibán dijo hablando a petición de no ser identificado que el acuerdo también incluyó el pago de un rescate de más de 20 millones de dólares (unos 15 millones de euros), que se usarían para comprar armas y financiar atentados suicidas.

[…] En sus manos sigue un cooperante germano secuestrado el mes pasado, al igual que otro alemán secuestrado junto a un compatriota y cinco afganos. Uno de estos dos alemanes fue asesinado por los talibanes, que exigen la retirada de los soldados alemanes.

😯

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Good news from NK:

North Korea has agreed to fully account for and disable its nuclear program by the end of this year, the top U.S. nuclear negotiator said on Sunday.

“We had very good, very substantive talks,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said after two days of meetings in Geneva to tackle the next phase of an international deal to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear technology and facilities.”One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” Hill told reporters, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang’s chief nuclear envoy, told reporters he was pleased with the talks.

Now we have to wait to see if this is true or is a new strategy of Kim Jong-Il…

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Father Samir Khalil Samir: Islam: a plan of world domination? His conclusions:

The Muslim World is going through is greatest crisis. The confrontation with modernity, represented and promoted by the West, which has always been viewed as Christian, a competitor and very often an enemy, chips away at Islam’s stable and uncontested order.

Centuries of intellectual stagnation have made this confrontation visible to all. After Islam’s much vaunted greatness in the period running from the 9th to the 11th century, a feeling of decadence has set in!

Some have escaped into the past when Muslims threw themselves into conquering the world (7th century), giving rise to Islam’s ‘Golden Age.’ Others have sought strength through violence and slid into terrorism in God’s name, thinking that this way they would be defending both Islam and God. Others still have sought a way out of Islam, seen as dead weight, a stranglehold or a prison, opting instead for practical form of atheism and sometimes even Christianity.

In turn the Western World, which is rooted in Christianity no matter what negationists might say, is going through its own great crisis. With God treated as a human invention and religion as an addiction (as the opium of the masses), the West has fallen into an ideological and spiritual vacuum. Some who are idealist find refuge in believing in a brighter future, dreaming a better world; others pursue a form of rationalism devoid of an ethical values and spirituality. Then there are those who seek total freedom, even at the cost of self-destruction. Finally, many simply live by relying on a practical form of materialism.

A clash of civilisation is inevitable under the circumstances. Treating conversion (from Islam) as a betrayal worthy of killing someone is one sign of this. Dividing the world into two camps, separating Good from evil, has turned into an obsession. This is the analytical framework that Professor Ratzinger (who now happens to be Pope Benedict XVI) elaborated and presented in his lecture in Regensburg on September 12, 2006. In it he pointed out that in the West we have a form of rationality that lacks a spiritual content (reason without faith), whilst in Islam we find a type of rationality that has turned into violence (faith without reason). These temptations oppose one another but also run parallel to each other.

The solution lies in the hands of believers who are not fanatical—be they Muslim, Christian or from others traditions. Their openness to all that is human can be the basis on which to build, along with others who may or may not believe, a better world.

Related posts about Samir Khalil Samir: About the Egyptian Convert who wants his conversion to appear on his own Identity card.

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There are a lot of people very worried about a possible Bush’s plan to attack Iran. You can read Debbie and Michael.

Last news:

“We have more than 3,000 centrifuges working and every week a new set is installed,” Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies.

“[The world powers] were thinking that with each resolution the Iranian nation would retreat. But after each resolution the Iranian nation presented another nuclear achievement.”

The installation of 3,000 centrifuges is seen by Iran as a key medium-term goal – which it had hoped to reach by March this year – for its nuclear programme.There has been no independent verification of Iran’s claim.

The UN has already imposed two sets of sanctions and the US is leading the call for a third set if Iran’s uranium enrichment does not halt.

Only last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had agreed a plan with Iran to clear up key questions about its past nuclear activities, calling it a “significant step forward”.

The IAEA has said 3,000 centrifuges would represent a point of no-return for an industrial-scale production of enriched uranium.

But it also suggested last week that Iran had 1,968 operational centrifuges – significantly short of the breakthrough President Ahmadinejad has now announced.

As if Ahmadinejad has also told the truth to UN inspectors….

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The new solution for all your problems. Whether if it is a headache, a heartache or that you’re losing your hair, you can blame it immediately on this. 😆

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Some days ago, I blogged that some Western professors were defending female genital mutilation. Today I have found this article, in which the author quotes Janice Boddy, a female Canadian Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department in Toronto, who defends the practice, calling people against it “Crusaders” and “moralising and polemical“. She also says that the campaign against the practice is  “sustained by imperialistic logic and spurious empathy“.

the women in the village she chose for her anthropological research insisted that she should learn about this practice and see it performed if she hoped to understand them. She followed this advice and eventually concluded that circumcision validates the village women’s lives, safeguards their fertility and establishes “the meaningful parameters of their selfhood.” 😯 [has she passed the experience herself?…]

[…] she boldly addresses this question with her new book, Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan (Princeton University Press). The fact that she then falls on her face, academically speaking, does not necessarily diminish her bravery.

Her readers discover, almost at the beginning, that she has a limited idea of academic detachment and fairness. A chronology of events at the front of her book twice uses the politics-laden term “propaganda” to describe Britain’s efforts in the 1940s to publicize the harm done by genital cutting. But then she quickly buckles down to her own propaganda project, a storm of disapproval directed at those who argue against the ritual cutting of female genitals.

She also wants the term “Female genital mutilation” changed to “Female genital cutting” (just as abortion should be called free-willing interruption of pregnancy 👿 ) :

She sets the terminology firmly in place, so that she can argue in her own terms. She thinks “female genital cutting” (FGC) properly describes the issue. Apparently she considers that a relatively neutral term. But “female genital mutilation” (FGM) is improperly censorious — an “invidious” label, according to one scholar Boddy approvingly quotes.

As Boddy sees it, those who take a passionately anti-FGM position have no understanding of the context [ 😯 So, what about torture, rape, genocide…??? Well, if you do not endorse them you are not understanding their context?? 😯 ]. She doesn’t much like the argument that FGM can be fatal, particularly when executed by people without medical training, though she won’t quite say it’s false. Nevertheless, that warning is “inflicted on ignorant and powerless women by sadistic men.”

And the article ends:

She obviously can’t endorse FGC, but a careful reading of her book demonstrates that she’s embraced one of the great lies of modern liberalism: Any culture is as good as any other culture and its tradition-endorsed practices (no matter how misguided, harmful and dangerous) deserve respect. Civilizing Women reads in many places like a grotesque parody of academic tolerance but its coherence and its highly detailed account of Sudanese culture reflect years of hard work. The fact that it expresses sympathy for an outlandishly cruel and appalling custom will probably do Boddy no harm in the world of contemporary anthropology.

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Now playing: Howard Shore and Ben del Maestro – Minas Tirith
via FoxyTunes

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The AIDS epidemy in China

From EL Diario Exterior:

 

Todo empezó en abril de 1996 cuando una paciente con una “fiebre innominada” ingresó en un hospital en la provincia central de Henan en China donde trabajaba Gao. La mujer imploraba, “ịNo quiero morir! Mi esposo y mi hijo no pueden vivir sin mí”.

Falleció 10 días más tarde. Durante más de una semana, el marido de la mujer durmió junto a su tumba en un acto de contrición: Había aprobado una transfusión de sangre años antes mediante la cual Gao determinó que la mujer había contraído el SIDA.

“Estaba asombrada de descubrir que la sangre contaminada había provenido de un banco de sangre,” declaró Gao. “Si un banco de sangre ha sido contaminado con HIV, ịciertamente debe existir más de una sola victima!”

Estaba en lo correcto.

En los años 90, los bancos de sangre “no oficiales” florecieron y los campesinos chinos fueron alentados a vender su sangre a fin de recolectar el plasma. Las “clínicas”, en ocasiones dirigidas por políticos locales o militares, debían superar la renuencia de muchos campesinos a dar sangre. Así, se volvió normal reinyectar a los donantes con sangre desprovista de plasma que era extraída de un fondo general. Esa sangre no era examinada para ver si contenía SIDA.

Nadie sabe cuán difundido está el problema resultante.

[…] Según la revista The Economist, “Las Naciones Unidas estiman que a finales de 2005 existían 55.000 donantes comerciales de sangre y plasma infectados con HIV en China….Un experto chino en SIDA, Zhang Ke, informó en 2004 que la cifra para la provincia de Henan…podría ser más de 170.000. El Dr Zhang estimaba que unos 130.000 adicionales en Henan obtuvieron el virus de transfusiones en los hospitales”.

China has now, in these days a grave problem with AIDS. During the 1990’s flourished the blood banks in the countryside. Peasants did not like to give away their blood, but political and medical bodies wanted them to sell it in order to have more plasma. Then they injected repeatedly again the blood-with-no-plasma in the donor’s circulatory system. As these funds did not have any health control, and as the blood was reinjected after been mixed with all the other donors’ blood in a general fund, if one part of it was contaminated everything of it was.

This terrible secret has been discovered by an old woman, Gao Yaojie. This 80-years-old lady, is defying all the Communist Party whose leaders do not want China to meet another scandal in the eve of the Olympic Games.

But the scandal could be monstrous, and the Communist Party is practising a police of “good cop, bad cop“, harrasing her some times and praising her others. For example, she has been placed under house arrest some days to prevent her to go to New York to receive a prize. But the same days one of the leaders of the local Communist Party, stepped by and a photo was made of them both, photo that later was published in the local Communist Party newspaper. The reason? Next year Oympic Games, for obvious reasons.

According to Gao, everything began back in 1996 when a young woman was received in the hospital where Gao was working with “an unknown fever”. The woman began screaming that she did not want to die, because she had a husband and a son. Nothing could be done and the woman died 10 days later. The husband blamed himself because he had approved a blood transfusion several years before. Through the normal procedure, it was determined she had been infected by the blood in the fund.

So Gao says “a lot more people could be infected”.

And she was right. According to The Economist, “UN estimates that in the end of 2005 55.000 donors of blood and plasma were infected with AIDS in China… A Chinese expert in AIDS, Zhang Ke, informed in 2004 that only in the province of Henan…there could be more than 170.000. Dr Zhang estimated that another 130.000 in Henan obtained the virus through transfusions in the hospitals”.

Today NYT has published that 2 activists have been placed under house arest and barred from leaving China:

 

The police barred Hu Jia, 33, and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, 23, from departing from Beijing on a trip to Hong Kong and several European countries, Mr. Hu said. The couple had planned to call attention to what they described as a neglect of AIDS patients and to defend other Chinese campaigners for human rights who had been prosecuted in recent months.

Mr. Hu said the police told him that he and Ms. Zeng were suspected of “endangering national security” and would be required to stay in their home under police watch for an indefinite period.

“Officials are worried that we would set off opposition to Beijing’s hosting of the Olympics,” Mr. Hu said. State security officials almost never offer any information about their activities, but the city is the venue for the 2008 Summer Games and intends to use the event to present China as a sophisticated, modern country that is open to the outside world.

In another indication of the sensitivity of the Games to China, Yang Jiechi, the country’s new foreign minister, on Friday denounced efforts in the United States to link support for Beijing’s serving as host of the Olympics to its policies in Sudan.

China has been criticized for giving strong financial and diplomatic backing to the government of Sudan, which the Bush administration and critics worldwide say has practiced genocide in its southern Darfur region while waging a war against secessionists there. “There is a handful of people who are trying to politicize the Olympic Games,” Mr. Yang told reporters. “This is against the spirit of the Games. It also runs counter to the aspirations of all the people in the world.”

But in recent times it has been the UN and not USA the one who has blamed China -and Russia- about Darfur. Croydonian has more about Chinese involvement in Darfur.

Other South-Asian news:

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Several Asian News: NKorea and SKorea; China and Mrs. Royal

After yesterday I blogged about two Cubans who wanted to get out the paradise, also yesterday was announced that 2 NKoreans have defected in a boat:

Four North Koreans have defected to South Korea by boat and are being questioned
by intelligence officials, news reports said Wednesday.
The four arrived on a small wooden boat in waters off Yeonpyeong Island near South Korea’s western sea border with the North late last month, the Chosun Ilbo daily reported, citing an unnamed government official.
Defections by boat are rare, with the vast majority of North Koreans fleeing to the South traveling by land through China and Southeast Asia.
The North Koreans have expressed their wish to defect to South Korea and were being questioned by intelligence officials, the Chosun Ilbo and the Yonhap news agency reported.
Neither the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s main spy agency, nor the Korea Coast Guard could confirm the reports.
South Korean officials are usually reluctant to talk openly about North Korean defectors, wary of the safety of their relatives still in the North. North Koreans reportedly face harsh punishment by their hardline regime when their relatives flee the country.
The number of North Korean defectors has risen steadily in recent years as they seek to escape chronic food shortages and political oppression.

What??!! What are they saying? Are they mad??

North Korea keeps abducting South Koreans and denying it. South Korea does not fight for them, but is going to seize the land of descendants of collaborators with the Japan conquerors during the period 1910-1945. Of course, Japan conquered the Peninsula and had been accused of proved abuses. But that was 50 years ago!!! And NKorea is abducting SKoreans NOW.

Anyway there are [a lot of] NKorean supporters in South Korea. Especially in unions.

Other news:

• China invites US food inspectors.
• Explosion in China: 20 miners dead, 10 trapped in central China coal mine explosion. “China’s mines are among the deadliest in the world, with an average of 13 miners dying every day in accidents. Explosions are frequent in Chinese coal mines, whose seams often hold pockets of gas. With coal prices high to feed the booming economy’s energy demand, mine operators often ignore safety regulations to boost production“. Oh, you workers’ defenders, leftists of the world, how on earth this can happen in so a beautiful paradise… Why you’re not burning Chinese flags and doing other peaceful actions to stop this real opression? AS I posted here, there are increasingly more deaths in China because of lung disease, for the same reasons.
• what China does about abortion: A massive forced abortion campaign is ongoing in China’s Guangxi Province, according to China Aid Organization. “One Christian lady, Ms. Linrong Wei, 7 months pregnant, was dragged into the hospital from her home on April 17 at 8:45 AM (Beijing time) by ten officials from the Population and Family Planning Commission in Baise City, Guangxi. Her husband Yage “James” Liang was formerly a pastor in the government-sanctioned TSPM church before he became a House church pastor a year ago,” the CAA said. CAA said it has eyewitness reports of 40 other pregnant women who were forcefully moved to the Youjiang District People’s Hospital of Baise City on the same day to perform forced abortions. Eyewitnesses told CAA that pastor Liang’s wife was pregnant accidentally and they wanted to keep this baby because of Christian principles, said CAA, adding that “Ms. Wei was injected with medicine to induce birth at 11 AM on April 17.”[I remember that I posted some months ago about a Chinese mother who was forced to have an abortion … because she was not married. CMinor then, pointed me this article about forced abortion in China. A must read.]
• Japan gives $2.1B to stem climate change.

And today we are following the French elections: Ségolene was marvelled with the quickness of the Chinese justice. Uff, yeah, they kill inmediately, even in buses to make possible the growing organ market… What happens with French and Chinese? Chinese head of the censorship was awarded Chinese first and more important medal because he is a fan of Chirac!

---

Technorati tags:
China, Human Rights, Japan, North Korea,South Korea Women’s rights

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Sanctions on NKorea passed unanimously

From CNN:

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to slap North Korea with trade, travel and other sanctions as punishment for its claimed nuclear weapons test.
President Bush described the U.N. action as a “swift and tough” message that the world is “united in our determination to see to it that the Korean Peninsula is nuclear-weapons free.”
He said North Korea has an opportunity for “a better way forward” and promised help to the impoverished country if it verifiably ends its nuclear weapons program.
North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Pak Gil Yon said Pyongyang “totally rejects the unjustifiable resolution,” calling it “coercive … while neglecting the nuclear threat” he said was posed by the United States against his country.
After the 15-0 vote for Resolution 1718, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said it sent a “clear and strong message” to North Korea, whose claimed nuclear test on Monday poses “one of the gravest threats to peace and security” the council has ever confronted.
Bolton said the resolution calls on Pyongyang to end all nuclear weapons programs. It forbids U.N. member nations from North Korean trade involving nuclear and weapons of mass destruction. North Korean government officials known to be involved in WMD efforts are banned from traveling to member states. It also includes a North Korean ban on “luxury goods.”
If confirmed, it would be the first nuclear weapons test since Pakistan’s underground blast in 1998. The claim has renewed fears of a regional arms race and that North Korea might aid terrorists with nuclear materials or technology.

And why the luxury goods?

The luxury goods mentioned in the sanctions is directed at North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who has a long, documented record of living a life of luxury while his people wasted away in famine. On Friday Bolton said, “The North Korean population’s been losing average height and weight over the years, and maybe this will be a little diet for Kim Jong Il.”

The NKorean Ambassador left quite angry BEFORE the vote. In this video we can see US Ambassador to UN, John Bolton, speaking about this and be questioned about the actions USA was going to take if NKorea test a second nuclear device:

Video found at Atlas Shrugs. Go and read her post. It’s really important.
Flopping Aces has the video in which NKorean representative says that this new resolution is gangster-like

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Ban Ki-Moon formally elected new UN Secretary General (UPDATED)

BBC:

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has been formally elected the next United Nations secretary general, in a vote in the General Assembly.

The election follows Mr Ban’s nomination to succeed Kofi Annan by the UN Security Council on Monday. 

Mr Annan is due to step down on 31 December after heading the UN for two five-year terms.

Mr Ban, 62, will be the first Asian to head the UN since Burma’s U Thant, who held the post from 1961 to 1971.

More on CNN, Pajamas Media.

Plus dans Le Monde,

Ban Ki-Moon ha sido elegido nuevo Secretario General de Naciones Unidas. Yo no tengo mucha confianza en que lo haga aceptablemente -ya lo he dicho en otras ocasiones e incluso me han tachado de ser demasiado dura con él), pero Koffi Annan no ha dejado muy alto el listón que se diga 😦  

EL MUNDO.

There was not very much information about the other candidates: in All About Latvia we can read something about the Latvian candidate, Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

Related Posts:

• UN Security Council approves Ban Ki-Moon as Next UN Secretary General.
• Will the next UN Secretary General be North Korean?

technorati tags: UN, South+Korea, Ban+Ki-Moon, Koffi+Annan, UN+Secretary+General, UN+General+Assembly

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The NKorean nuclear bomb update

USA has pressed for NKorea Sanctions. The proposed US sanctions are:

• Halting trade in material that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction
• Inspections of cargo going in and out of North Korea
• The ending of financial transactions used to support nuclear proliferation
• A ban on the import of luxury goods

Japan has confirmed the economic restrictions on NKorea and the restrictions to the entry of NKoreans in Japanese land. They are also forgiving NKorean ships to enter Japanese ports. All of these measures can have a very bad efect on NKorean economy as some of their products, as clams or mushrooms, are one of the main methods of achieving foreign currencies, mainly from the Japanese market. Also ferries are the main way of communication between the two countries. [The Guardian]

Of course, Koffi Annan has -in another crisis in his reign– said to the US: please, talk to NKorea…

He urged the US to enter direct talks with North Korea, something which Washington consistently refuses to do. “I have always argued that we should talk to parties whose behaviour we want to change,” Mr Annan said.

And NKorea has threaten to retaliate strongly:

North Korea today threatened “strong” retaliation against Japanese sanctions as UN security council members tried to work out a compromise deal on a response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test.

“We will take strong counter-measures,” Song Il Ho, North Korea’s ambassador in charge of talks with Japan, said when asked about Tokyo’s unilateral sanctions, imposed yesterday. The measures include a ban on North Korean shipping.

In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo news agency, he warned: “We never speak empty words.”

Newsweek asked some days ago if this test will bring down Kim. And also wrote about China:

But U.S. officials had become increasingly frustrated by China’s reluctance to squeeze Pyongyang harder. In the past, even when it was displeased with Kim, Beijing has done little more than temporarily interrupt fuel flows. The hope in Washington is now that Chinese President Hu Jintao will decide he’s finally had enough of his out-of-control former junior partner. With Sunday’s test Kim has now twice rebuffed Hu’s pleas for restraint. The last time was July, when Kim ignored the Chinese leader’s request not to test missiles. This time Kim insulted Hu the day after an important Sino-Japanese summit with Tokyo’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe—a nationalist who will no doubt be probing China’s strategic determination—and on the eve of a big communist party plenary session at which Hu’s reputation will be on the line.

For Washington, almost everything is riding on this hope. U.S. officials are talking tough about beefing up their Proliferation Security Initiative, which mainly involves interdicting suspect shipments on the high seas. But last week they quickly walked back any speculation that Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill’s stark rhetoric from last week—“North Korea can have a future or it can have these weapons. It can’t have both,” Hill said—meant a threat of war. The Pentagon is extremely leery of any military options, with the heavily-populated South Korean capital of Seoul lying vulnerable to missile attack just across the North Korean border. What Hill’s comment meant instead, several U.S. officials said, was that the U.N. Security Council would move to impose sanctions, and key countries such as China, Japan and South Korea would join in, ensuring that the Pyongyang regime remains utterly friendless.

Well, today, from Reuters:

The United States will push formally on Thursday for tough U.N. punishment of North Korea for its reported nuclear test, but is certain to face strong opposition from China.

China, the nearest North Korea has to a backer, openly condemned its communist neighbor after it announced on Monday it had conducted a nuclear test and agreed to limited sanctions.

“In response to North Korea’s actions we’re working with our partners … to ensure there are serious repercussions for the regime in Pyongyang,”U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday after Japan announced new sanctions of its own against North Korea.

But a new U.S. resolution goes further than Beijing wants.

There has not yet been any independent confirmation that Monday’s test was of a nuclear device. But some have speculated that if it was nuclear, it might not have been successful as claimed by Pyongyang.

North Korea has held out the threat of more tests, calling U.S. pressure to rein in its nuclear program tantamount to a “declaration of war”.

A U.N. Security Council vote on the resolution could come on Friday, when the leaders of China and South Korea — on which Pyongyang relies for economic aid and a level of diplomatic protection — are also due to meet in Beijing.

Both countries are anxious to avoid driving the reclusive North — with its 1.2 million-strong army — further into a corner, possibly triggering instability on the Korean peninsula, which has been divided for more than half a century.

USA has softened previous proposal on NKorea.

The new American resolution, to be formally introduced this morning, would declare North Korea’s actions to be a threat to international peace and stability and would require countries to freeze assets related to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs and ban the sale or transfer of materials that could be used in them. It would also ban travel by people involved in the programs and bar the sale of the luxury goods used to reward the regime’s elite, diplomats said late Wednesday.

But unlike an earlier version, it would allow but not require inspections of all cargo going into or out of North Korea, or the freezing of assets related to counterfeiting or narcotics, which American officials say are crucial sources of the hard currency needed to fund the weapons programs. Japanese demands for a ban on allowing North Korean ships or planes to enter other countries were also dropped.

In Beijing today, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry appeared to back away from a statement on Tuesday by the country’s United Nations ambassador expressing support for “punitive” sanctions.

“It’s necessary to express clearly to North Korea that the nuclear test is the wrong practice,” said the spokesman, Liu Jianchao. “As to what measures to take, I think the measures themselves are not punitive action,” he said. “One can say that punishment isn’t the goal.”

Precisely the question now arising in some places is whether or not NKorea really tested a nuclear bomb.

UPDATE: An interesting article from the Telegraph: The West woke up too late to the nuclear threat of rogue states. (Found at Disculpen las Molestias)
EEUU presentó una resolución en la que se imponían una serie de sanciones a Corea del Norte por la prueba nuclear. Estas eran no dejar entrar material que pudiera ser usado para hacer ADM, inspecciones de todos los buques cargueros que entren y salgan de Corea del Norte, el final de todas las transacciones financieras usadas para apoyar la proliferación nuclear y una prohibición para importar bienes de lujo.
Japón por su pare ha establecido restricciones a sus transacciones comerciales con Corea del Norte y sobre los ciudadanos norcoreanos que quieran entrar en el país nipón. Asimismo, también ha prohibido a los barcos norcoreanos atracar en puertos japoneses. Estas medidas pueden ser penosas para la economía norcoreana que recibe muchas divisas procedentes de la exportación de setas y almejas a Japón y cuyo único medio de comunicación con este país son los ferries. Corea del Norte ha anunciado “grandes represalias” contra Japón.
Hace unos días ya escribí que el principal problema para imponer una sanción a Corea del Norte era precisamente China. Pues bien, después de protestar mucho cuando Corea del Norte hizo la prueba nuclear, ahora no es partidaria de que se le impongan muchas sanciones. EEUU ha tenido que presentar una nueva propuesta de resolución en la ONU, en la que ya no se exige un registro de los barcos que entran y salen de Corea del Norte, medida que es vital según los expertos, porque de esa forma se impediría que llegara dinero procedente de drogas o de falsificación, para financiar el programa armamentístico.
Eso sí, Koffi Annan le ha dicho a EEUU que a ver si dialoga con Kim Jong Il, diciendo: “Creo que siempre hay que hablar con las personas cuyo comportamiento debemos cambiar”. NO comments 😦
Mientras crecen las dudas sobre si efectivamente Corea del Norte tiene la bomba realmente.

Related posts:

• NKOrea conducts nuclear test.
• NKorea will conduct nuclear test.
• NKorea: their real aim.

technorati tags: North Korea, USA, China, nuclear crisis, Nuclear non Proliferation, UN, Koffi Annan

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NKorea conducts nuclear test

Defiant North Korea conducts nuclear test | Top News | Reuters.com

:

North Korea said it conducted an underground nuclear test on Monday, defying a warning from the U.N. Security Council and opening its crippled economy to the risk of fresh sanctions. South Korea put its troops on heightened alert after the announcement, which came just minutes before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe landed in Seoul for a visit. The move could heighten regional tension and deal a fresh foreign policy blow to President Bush ahead of mid-term elections. The White House branded the act “provocative” and said it expected the U.N. Security Council to take immediate actions. Long Pyongyang’s chief ally, China denounced the “brazen” act, urging it to avoid action that could worsen the situation, and Russian President Vladimir Putin also condemned the test. North Korea’s announcement pushed the dollar to an eight-month high against the yen and helped shove oil above $60 a barrel. South Korea’s won fell 1.5 percent to two-month lows and its main stock index tumbled as much as 3.6 percent.

You can read also: Washington Post:

The White House did not immediately confirm the test, but spokesman Tony Snow said in a statement: “U.S. and South Korean intelligence detected a seismic event Sunday at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea. A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act, in defiance of the will of the international community and of our calls to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in northeast Asia. We expect the Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act.”

The U.S. Geological Survey registered a “seismic event” of magnitude 4.2 at 10:35 a.m. Monday local time (9:35 p.m. Sunday EDT) 240 miles northeast of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist at the agency. She said the event occurred 45 miles north of the North Korean town of Kimchaek.

Russia’s defense minister said the reported test was equivalent to between 5,000 tons and 15,000 tons of TNT, the Associated Press reported. That would make the blast possibly as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in World War II, which was equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT, the news agency said.

USA TODAY: North Korea says it conducted succesful underground nuclear test
NYT: NKorea reports 1st nuclear arms test.
Memeorandum: US Official N Korea tested nuclear weapon.
The Guardian: Blair condemns nuclear test.

Acordding to Spanish newspaper EL MUNDO, UN will act against NKorea.

Bloggers reporting about his: Right Wing News, RightWing Nut House, Michelle Malkin, LA Shawn Barber’s, Confederate Yankee, Big Lizards, Marmot’s Hole, Scared Monkeys, Hyscience, PoliPundit, Flopping Aces,Stop the ACLU,Blue Crab Boulevard,Barcepundit,Atlas Shrugs, The Belmont Club. In the Bullpen. Blue Star Chronicles,Jihad Du Jour,Ace of Spades. Il Mango Di Treviso,Dust My Broom,Gateway Pundit,

Winds of Change writes:

The truth is that North Korea is an irrelevant bit player in this whole drama. The real player here is China. They have helped North Korea at every step, and North Korea’s regime cannot survive at all without their ongoing food and fuel aid. Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear plans may be slightly inconvenient to the Chinese – just not not inconvenient enough to derail a strategy that still promises net plusses to those pursuing it within China’s dictatorship.
[…] In other words, make it clear to the Chinese via back-channel diplomacy that anything Taiwan chooses to do re: acquiring nuclear technology is no longer of any interest to the USA until Kim’s regime is gone – and that the Taiwanese are being briefed to that effect (the US had stopped a Taiwanese nuclear effort by threatening a cutoff of all military aid). Be clear also, and make public statements that “other states in the region” now have a viable reason to respond in kind. One could also drop hints about and then refuse to deny to the Chinese that back-channel discussions have begun with South Korea and Japan that involve America offering them a set number of working nuclear weapons from US stocks as a counterweight. They can also be told more directly via diplomatic channels that the USA will also support either or both countries if they choose to pursue their own programs, meanwhile floating diplomatic “trial balloons” re: a system that gives these countries their own deterrents as a better option, because it does not produce the capacity for further manufacture and so is “less destabilizing to the region.”

I agree. As I wrote here, the real goal is Taiwan and its independence.

I have found this [fake -or not? 😛 -] photo in Asia Pundit:

RECIPROCITY

You scratch my back, Ill test some missiles

To sum up…

En español podeis leer: Ajopringue,
EXPANSIÓN: El Consejo de Seguridad se reúne de urgencia para debatir sobre las pruebas nucleares de Corea del Norte.
ABC.es: Corea del Norte confirma su desafío nuclear tras el “éxito” de su primera prueba.

Just read this piece of news: it is disgusting AND
Test raises tension on border | The World | The Australian:

THE North Korean refugee had one request for her captors before the young Chinese soldiers led her back across the steel-girdered bridge on the Yalu River that divides two “socialist allies”.
“She asked for a comb and some water because she said that if she was going to die she could not face going to heaven looking as dirty and dishevelled as this,” recounted a relative of one soldier who was there. What happened next is testimony to the rising disgust in Chinese military ranks as Beijing posts more troops to the border amid a crisis with North Korea over its regime’s plan to stage a nuclear test.
The soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand – the soft part between thumb and forefinger – with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash. “She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village,” the soldier later told his relative. “Then they dragged her away.”

Lo que tiene que quedar muy claro es que el jugador aquí NO es Corea del Norte si no China. China, como señala Winds of Change un poco más arriba, ha jugado un papel determinante auydando a los norcoreanos en el éxito de su programa nuclear. Y eso es nuestro [1] verdadero problema, porque China está interesada en Taiwan y de esta forma le abre un nuevo frente a USA en su defensa de la independencia de la isla, así como de Japón y Australia. De modo que al final lo que se está acelerando es la carrera armamentística nuclear.

La última noticia relata cómo mataron los soldados de Corea del Norte a una chica que se había saltado a la valla para ir a pedir comida y su “aliado” China, se la devolvió. “Chilló como cuando matamos a un cerdo en mi casa del pueblo“, le dijo un soldado chino a un familiar. Y este país tiene energía atómica…. 😦

[1] NOTA: NO es el problema de Zapatero, que es partidario de que China anexione Taiwan…

Related posts: NKorea will test a nuclear device.

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UN Security Council approves Ban Ki-Moon as Next UN Secretary General

OneFreeKorea | Blog Archive » The Case for Blocking Ban Ki-Moon

:

I’m betting on the U.N. to flub it, and I can even tell you how it’s going to happen. The front-runner to replace Kofi Annan is South Korea’s leftist Foreign Minister, Ban Ki-Moon, a man whose record embodies the very worst we’ve come to expect from the U.N.: passive-aggressive policies that appease evil and confront all efforts to define or enforce standards of civilized conduct. As Foreign Minister, Ban was architect and executor of a no-questions-asked appeasement policy toward North Korea. During those years, North Korea’s human rights record was the worst on earth, and probably the worst since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Kim Jong Il’s absolutist regime, supported by $7 billion in South Korean aid since 1994, stands accused of racial infanticide, the use of gas chambers for horrific chemical weapons on entire families, and a politically selective famine that “cleansed” North Korea of millions while the regime went on an arms-buying spree. North Korea’s forced labor camps are estimated to hold as many as 250,000 people, including thousands of children.
Ban and his government had little to say and nothing to ask as these atrocities went on, and go on to this very day. When resolutions condemning these crimes came before the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and later, the General assembly, South Korea’s ambassadors were instructed to either refuse to vote or abstain. Publicly, Ban’s government failed to raise more than one mild, belated, token call to improve human rights in the North, and then, only in the most vague and general sense and in response to withering criticism from abroad.

Add to this that the prisoners have resorted to cannibalism to survive (HT: Blah Blah Blog, thanks to Right Truth )

Well, I was not very happy at the possibility of this man being crowned as the new UN secretary General and after reading this [above is only an excerpt, there is more in the link above], I am less happy at the perspective of this man being the new UNSG. Because this same day he has been confirmed by the UN Security Council and is probable that he will be also ratified by the UN General Assembly [English: AOL News, BBC, Breitbart.COM (HT PJM), CNN, FOXNews, MSNBC, Reuters, French: Le Figaro, Le Monde, Nouvel Observateur]. I fear he is going to be Boutros Ghali-Koffi Annan reloaded.

Yesterday, there was however people like intelligent Alexandra from All Things Beautiful who, blogging about an article by The Guardian, wrote:

They don’t want a man who will focus on “administrative detail”; that would curtail their gravy train. They don’t want a leader who “knows to disagree without being disagreeable”; that would forgo juicy Israel bashing headlines. They don’t want a man with strong convictions; that would jeopardize the continuation of mindless anti-Zionist propaganda.

In short, they don’t want a man who is described as “intelligent, polite, moderate and honest” and who supports “UN reform, transparency and the free market”.

We may of course find to our dismay, that Ban Ki-moon has little sympathy for a beleaguered Israel, but in absence of a confirmed anti-Semitic, Muslim candidate, I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and look forward to rid the airwaves of the spineless and hopelessly corrupt Kofi Annan.

The same conclusion was reached also by Blue Crab Boulevard.

I really do not know what Ban Ki-Moon thinks about Israel, but seen how he has behaved with his neighbour NKorea, I am thinking he is not going to behave very well… 😦

ONE Free Korea es uno de los blogs más interesantes -junto con The Korea Liberator- relativos a la actualidad Corea del Norte. Es cierto que están escritos por americanos pero tanto en uno como en otro caso se han dedicado a denunciar los abusos de Derechos Humanos existentes en Corea en su vida profesional -especialmente el autor de One Free Korea-. Pues bien, según OFK, Ban Ki-Moon es un izquierdista, partidario del apaciguamiento. Su gobierno conocía que existía infanticidio racial, uso de cámaras de gas para los disidentes -incluso se ha utilizado con familias enteras-, que se produjo una hambruna políticamente inducida -es decir que mataban de hambre a los disidentes-, todo ello mientras el régimen seguía comprando armas… y Corea del Sur le entregaba 7 billones de dólares en ayuda desde 1994 y daba a sus embajadores la orden de abstenerse en las votaciones de condena de Corea del Norte por abusos graves -que, por otro lado, estaban más que justificados-. Su gobierno sólo ha criticado por encima a Corea del Norte para salvar las apariencias internacionales.

Pues este hombre acaba de ser elegido -no de manera definitiva, falta todavía la ratificación por la Asamblea General- como el nuevo Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas.
El Mundo:El Consejo de Seguridad designa al surcoreano Ban Ki-Moon próximo secretario general de la ONU .

LA Razón: El surcoreano Ban Ki-Moon, secretario general de la ONU .
Libertad Digital: Ban Ki-Moon, Ministro surcoreano de Exteriores, nombrado nuevo secretario general de la ONU .

El Pais: El surcoreano, Ban KI-Moon, designado próximo secretario general de la ONU .

ABC.es: El Consejo de Seguridad elige al surcoreano Ban Ki-Moon nuevo secretario de la ONU

Me temo que va a ser un Boutros Ghali-Koffi Annan reloaded. 😦

 

Tags: Ban Ki-Moon, Communism, concentration camps, dissidents, Human Rights, UN Security Council

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North Korea: their real aim (UPDATED)

I wrote yesterday about US giving misile to North Korea. Noisy Room.Net has a link to Captain’s Quarters Blog about the same topic:

The Japanese have spent the post-war period trying to live down their militaristic past. That past includes some quite a history on the Korean Peninsula, where their actions still reverberate to this day. Make no mistake; Kim Jong-Il’s threat against the Japanese comes not just from ideological motivations but also from a strong sense of vengeance for Japanese atrocities in the not-so-distant past. While Japan has changed tremendously since those final days of empire, they have yet to live down their actions in that region.

Now Japan may have to face the irony of re-militarization as a consequence of the atrocities of their grandfathers. It appears they have little choice, with North Korea wanting to make a habit out of launching missiles as “tests” over their territory. They agreed to send a small but significant force to Iraq, a singular event for a nation that had resolved to keep its military for strictly home defense. Now, with Pyongyang threatening their security, they may have to consider nuclearization as at least a negotiating tactic and possibly as a MAD strategy. Without doubt, they will need to make themselves part of the American umbrella against missile attacks, a defense that had been so controversial just a few years ago.

Japanese will start to produce their Patriot missiles according to Defense Industry Daily.

 

Well, really we must not worry about Kim Song Il, but about USA, Murtha dixit:

American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said to a crowd of more than 200 in North Miami Saturday afternoon.

Read at Tangled Web.

The Big Picture comments about this:

What does the average person make of a headline like this, from the Arizona Daily Star?

Murtha says US poses top threat to world peace.

La Russofobe points to a possible visit of Kim Song Il to Russia:

South Korean newspaper Choson ilbo yesterday reported that Kim Jong-il’s special armored train crossed the border of Russia. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and frontier and railway administration said they don’t know anything about Kim Jong-il’s arrival. Experts believe the visit is quite likely, especially because North Korean leader has urgent problems to discuss with the Kremlin.

Choson ilbo informed that several witnesses saw Kim Jong-il’s special armored train cross Russian border. The date was not specified. Foreign Affairs Ministries of Russia and South Korea said they have no information concerning Kim Jong-il’s visit to Russia.

Foreign Affairs Ministry of China and US Department of State refrained from giving comments. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said that Japanese government is now clearing up the situation. Press Secretary of Far East Railroad’s Vladivostok branch Alexander Artamonov stated that his “department does not have any information on North Korean leader’s trips to Russia.”

Also DNA India has published this.

Regime Change Iran quotes a NYT article about the similar strategy Iran and North Korea are pursuing:

it has become clear that the two countries are also pursuing similar diplomatic strategies. North Korea’s threat to launch a long-range ballistic missile seems a clear echo of Iran’s recent strategy of resuming production of nuclear fuel. Iran was aiming to extract concessions from the Bush administration, and it has already won some modest diplomatic gains.

[By the way, the photo is marvellous, eh?]

If finally North Korea launches the missile, Japan could impose sanctions.

And it’s possible than the missile test could take place. Enzo Reale, from 1972, have sent me by email his article in Italian newspaper L’Opinione, in which he says that the presence of fuel in the surroundings of the missile-launcher. I translate the most important ideas -from my point of view-:

in 1998, a Taepodong I flied over Japan causing alarm and the reaction of the US Senate. It was next year when the moratory over the missile testing was signed. Pyongyang [as in that momment] does not confirm or deny anything, a tactical movement which is revelled as triomphant over Western diplomacy.

[…] Pyongyand has been succesful, because he has come again to the first place of the international scene and can then suppose that he is going to be granted more concessions in the new multilateral talks about the nuclear question. Assuming the nature of Him’s Goulag, no one can even imagine that he does not know the consequences of this king of movements.

[…] The test of the Taepodong 2 is in the end the last proof to consider that North Korea possess the know-how to develop the following version of the missile, the Taepodong 3, with power to fire into the interior of the US territory.

More as ever, in Occidentality. It contains the demand by US Senators to demand the White House to speak directly with N.Korea -I do not know how they are going to convince the other 4 negotiatiors- and Bush statement.

Also in: The Astute Blogger, Blue Star Chronicles -from which I have taken the cartoon, hehe-, Hyscience, Hyscience, Gateway Pundit, JunkyardBlog,

UDPATE: Hugo Chávez has announced he will visit Pyongyang to finish agreements on technology and scientific matters, but he did not give more details. Sean McCormack, Speaker of the US State Department, has said that he is not sure of what Chávez wants, but that “giving N. Korea’s aim, it is somewhat worrying“.

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More on North-Korean Crisis (UPDATE)

ABC News:

Japan and the United States have agreed to deploy advanced Patriot interceptor missiles on U.S. bases in Japan for the first time, officials said Monday.

The agreement earlier this month came amid concerns that North Korea may be about to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.

The U.S. plans to deploy the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles designed to intercept ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or aircraft as soon as possible, a Japanese Defense Agency spokeswoman.

The spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with agency policy, said the sites and timing for the deployment have not yet been decided.

The plan was first reported Monday in Japan’s largest newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. It said the U.S. military would deploy three or four batteries of the surface-to-air missiles on the southern island of Okinawa by the end of the year and send 500-600 additional U.S. troops there.

BBC News:

The deployment would mark the first time the US has deployed surface-to-air missiles in Japan.

As part of ongoing diplomatic efforts to avert the North’s test launch, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was due to visit China on Monday.

He said he would ask Beijing to play a constructive role to resolve the issue.

China is one of North Korea’s few remaining allies, and still has some influence in Pyongyang.

[…] These PAC-3 missiles are designed to intercept ballistic or missiles, as well as aircraft.

The missiles would be deployed on the southern island of Okinawa, according to a report in Japan’s largest newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

An additional 500-600 troops would also be deployed, the newspaper said.

Recently US Navy was succesful in intercepting a medium-range test missile (Read at Captain’s Quarters).

UPDATE: The Dumb Ox links to two important news about this issue:

• Former Defense Sec. Perry Wants N. Korean Missile Destroyed (Perry was Defense Secretary with, err, Bill Clinton).
• Former VP Mondale also favors pre-emptive strike against North Korea. Mondale was VicePresident with that imitation of politician that is Jimmy “Dhimmi” Carter.

UPDATE 2: From Occidentality, an article from NYT about North Korean defectors -with its rational critic, we all now how is the NYT-:

[…] for much of her life she at least enjoyed an open media, and had the opportunity to see more than the apparatchiks had previously allowed. In fact, she learned some of her English from MTV. The North Koreans stumbling into the light of the South had few such opportunities, and it is remarkable that any manage the transition at all.

To hear North Koreans tell it, South Korea is bewildering precisely because it is at once familiar and alien. The South and North share a common language, but in half a century of division, South Koreans have adopted so many foreign words that the newcomers spend hours learning the language spoken in the South.

“Only after 10 years did I understand how the South Korean society works,” said Lee Joon Ho, 41, who arrived in South Korea in 1993, before the current wave of defectors.

UPDATE 3: Occidentality posts an interview with Mr. Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown: N. Korea takes on the world:

Where does China figure in all this? Is it losing control over North Korea?

It’s very possible that China and North Korea are in on this together. And essentially what they’re doing is this: Kim Jong-il will create a crisis, and China will ‘step in and solve it’.

You think it’s a bit of a charade?

You can’t discount the possibility that it is a very big charade. Over the long term, China is trying to use North Korea to keep Japan and the US off balance. But for the China too, it’s a losing game. Because over the long term, China is losing control over North Korea.

Sent to Mark My Words’ Open Monday Trackback.

 

 

Tags: China, Japan, North Korea, USA

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US warns North Korea against 'provocative’ missile test

The United States sharply warnedNorth Korea against testing a ballistic missile, saying it would take steps to protect itself as speculation mounts about an imminent launch.
“Together, our diplomacy and that of our allies has made clear to NorthKorea that a missile launch would be a provocative act that is not intheir interests and will further isolate them from the world,” said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
“We have a variety of national technical means that we could use to monitor the situation. We, of course, will take necessary preparatory steps to track any potential activities and to protect ourselves,” he told reporters.
North Korea on Friday accused a US reconnaissance plane of intruding over its territorial space to spy on strategic targets, amid jitters over the Stalinist country’s apparent preparations for a missile test.
South Korean and US officials have said that North Korea appears to be preparing to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.
On Friday, South Korean officials and analysts said that North Korea had not yet begun fueling a long-range missile on its northeast coast, the final step before a possible launch.
“It will take at least two days to fill the rocket with liquid fuel and if they finish it, we can say they are ready to start the countdown,” Baek Seung-Joo from the government-backed Korean Institute for Defence Analyses told AFP.
Also on Friday, Japan warned North Korea against testing a ballistic missile, saying it would set back efforts to normalize diplomatic relations.
“If a ballistic missile is launched, it would directly affect our nation’s security and constitute a violation of the Pyongyang Declaration,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the government spokesman, told reporters.

– Yahoo! News

This is not good…

>UPDATE: N.Korea has denied it’s about to test missile.

Related posts:

• South Korea new war toys and North Korea unbearable situation.
• North Korea menaces US and accuse them of spying.

technorati tags:North+Korea, South+Korea, Japan

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South Korea new war-toys and North Korea unbearable situation

Astate-run defense development institution is to unveil upgradedunmannedmilitary vehicles today as part of the country’s militaryrobot project,officials said.

The new XAV models, developed by theAgency for DefenseDevelopment, are equipped with a more advanced speedsystem than thoseinitially released last year, Choi Chang-gon, a headof systemdevelopment bureau at ADD, told reporters.

They are remote controlled and can conduct self-controlled driving, Choi said.

Aftera series of test runs, the XAV vehicles will be furtherupgraded between2013 and 2020 ahead of being deployed for defenseoperations, he said.

The unmanned robotics weapon system features two models according to function: surveillance and combat.

Thesurveillance XAV is a 1.2-ton vehicle designed toreconnoiter and patrolin the field. It can run at a maximum 30kilometers per hour. Thebattery-propelled vehicle is equipped with a5.56-millimeter machine gun.

The0.9-ton combat XAV can operate at a maximum 45 kilometersper hour andhas a gasoline engine. The vehicle is for use on thefrontline with5.56-millimeter machine guns.

Military unveils robot vehicles

And

The Navy yesterday launched the nation’s first 1,800-ton classsubmarine, which is part of a 1.27 trillion won ($1.3 billion) projectto build six next-generation submarines by 2009.

The Type 214 submarine has been jointly developed by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Germany’s Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG.

The submarine is equipped with advanced systems including air independent propulsion (AIP) and flank array sonar (FAS).

With AIP, it can perform deep-sea operations for two weeks, much longerthan the Navy’s current Type 209 submarines’ three days. AIP can extendthe underwater operation period of the diesel-powered submarines tofive to six times longer than that of conventional submarines.

The 65.3-meter-long, 6.3-meter-wide submarine is armed withtorpedoes, antiwarship guided missiles as well as mines. Accommodating40 crew members, it can do a maximum 20 knots (37 kilometers) per hour.It will be deployed for naval operation in 2007.

Navy Launches 1.800 tons-sub

But this is not a surprise if we think the neighbour they have on the North. N-Korea is just going to proof a missile that could hit USA (HT Fausta’s Blog):

The Japanese and South Korean press reported in late May that U.S. spysatellites had picked up indications that North Korea was preparing totest launch a Taepo Dong II ballistic missile capable of carrying anuclear warhead. TNRhas confirmed that the United States has detected significant activityat a North Korean missile test site and that the administration is veryconcerned that Pyongyang is preparing a launch. What’s more, some U.S.intelligence analysts warn that the North Koreans may test athree-stage rocket capable of striking the western United States.”Suffice it to say, it’s got people’s attention,” says one StateDepartment official.

According to two U.S. government officials, the United States has begunan intensive consultation with allies in order to prepare a response,which could include further sanctions, if North Korea goes ahead with atest launch. The Japanese press has reported that the United States andJapan have dispatched reconnaissance aircraft to monitor a possibletest and the Japanese have sent a destroyer to the Sea of Japan capableof tracking the missile. North Korea has not fired a ballistic missilesince 1998, when, without warning, it lobbed a missile over Japan intothe Pacific, a move which drew widespread international condemnation.U.S. government sources said that the activity observed at the NorthKorean test site is the most significant since the 1998 test.

But not only that:

• North Korea has the world’s third largest stock of chemical weapons.
• Included in the arsenal is mustard gas, phosgene, sarin and V-agents.
• Pyongyang also has an active biological weapons program.
• Its inventory is believed to include anthrax, botulism, cholera, hemorrhagic fever, plague, smallpox, typhoid and yellow fever.

And of course the nuclear program.

Missiles shown during a military parade in the capitalcity of Pyongyang: North Korea already has missiles that can strikeJapan. (Der Spiegel)

But nevertheless:

Famine is a reality.

On another occasion during North Korea’s tour forthe American media, a woman was seen crouching in one of Pyongyang’smany public parks, pulling grass and placing it onto a handkerchief. Aforeign aid worker who has spent time in North Korea calls it a commonscene: She says people forage the city parks for edible grasses andplants to supplement their diets. The worker says it happens even inthis showcase city where the shelves appear well stocked and where onlythose especially loyal to the Communist Party are allowed to live.

Gerald Bourke, a U.N. World Food Program official visitingPyongyang, says North Korean claims that the country is approachingself-sufficiency, are not true. He says 37 percent of North Koreanchildren are chronically malnourished, while one-third of nursingmothers are undernourished or anemic. He predicts disaster if aidagencies like his are expelled.

“Certainly, with those high levels of malnutrition, if WFP were notthere to provide the sort of supplementary foods, the special foodsthat, for example, young children need, that pregnant and nursing womenneed, it could be very serious because many of those people are livingon the edge, a very precarious existence,” said Mr. Bourke. “Foodinsecurity is very widespread. There is and will be a very substantialneed next year and beyond.”

More information about North Korea and starvation here. This is just horrible. Yes, I know it is not a modern link but the reality they are living now comes from long ago and should be known.

North Korea ((HT Hyscience) is a country where the differences between people are enormous, where there are a sybaritic upper class who flourishes in sharp contrast to reports of impoverished working class and where people are divided into three castes!.

It is difficult for foreign observers to see whattheir everyday lives are like. People are forbidden to inviteforeigners to their homes. All international aid workers and diplomatsinterviewed in Pyongyang said they have never seen the inside of localresidents’ homes.

And more:

Also on the hospital tour was a stop at thenursery, where a nurse proudly shows off a set of triplets. Multiplebirths are a special source of pride in North Korea, where thegovernment encourages women of the loyal class to give birth to nine ormore children – all presumed to be future soldiers in Kim Jong Il’smillion-man army.

The scene is a stunning contrast to refugees’ tales of the NorthKorea they know, where women of the hostile class are forced to haveabortions at prison camps. This, they say, is part of Mr. Kim’s drivefor ethnic and ideological purity.

Specially important is the fact that new born children with physical disabilities are killed at birth and quickly buried, according to a physician who defected from the country. The practice is encouraged by the State as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered “different”.

The Guardian in 2004 also reported that there were gas chambers in which terrific human experiments are being made.

‘I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas anddying in the gas chamber,’ he said. ‘The parents, son and and adaughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very lastmoment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.’

Hyukhas drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He said: ‘Theglass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m long and2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the unit.Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners standseparately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire processfrom above, through the glass.’

[…] His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned forseven years. ‘An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy femaleprisoners,’ she said. ‘One of the guards handed me a basket full ofsoaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. Igave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. Theywere all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leavesstarted violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell.In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead.’

Defectors havesmuggled out documents that appear to reveal how methodical thechemical experiments were. One stamped ‘top secret’ and ‘transferletter’ is dated February 2002. The name of the victim was Lin Hun-hwa.He was 39. The text reads: ‘The above person is transferred from …camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gasfor chemical weapons.’

And here a biography of Kim Il Song II, communist dictator of North Korea.

moreinteresting to North Korea was the fact that a man in Pakistan who wasbuilding the ultimate weapon seemed willing to pass on his know-how.Abdul Qadir Khan saw himself as a sort of “Robin Hood of the nuclearage,” who was interested in helping Islamic states and Third Worldcountries acquire something that would enable them to stand up to theBig Five (United States, Soviet Union, China, Great Britain andFrance). He also happened to be a man who was very receptive tomonetary gifts.
Incidentally, the gifted Pakistani nuclear scientist acquired hisexpertise in Berlin and in the Netherlands, where in 1983 he wassentenced in absentia to four years in prison for industrial espionage,but was acquitted in 1985 on a technicality.
A black market of horror developed around Khan and his RawalpindiResearch Laboratory; its extent has yet to be fully clarified, and italso involved German “dealers of death.” In addition to the hostcountry, this nuclear bazaar revolves around three countries: Iran,Libya and North Korea.
Western intelligence experts are now certain that Pakistan and NorthKorea already began entering into secret deals by the late 1980s. Theysay that Khan’s role was to supply key components for building nuclearbombs: high-speed centrifuges (which Khan allegedly transported inPakistani government aircraft on more than a dozen trips to NorthKorea), construction plans and other components used in the uraniumenrichment process. In return, the North Koreans supplied Pakistan withprototypes of their Nodong medium-range missile (with a range of 1,500kilometers), which can be fitted with nuclear warheads.

More on the N.Korean famine on Reuters.

Of course, the thing gets a little more complicated if we consider the people who are interested in N-Korean plutonium.

Other interesting blog posts:

• News from North Korea.

technorati tags:Korea, Nuclear, crisis, famine, repression, dictatorship, UN, Hapan, USA

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