North Korea Weekend Website Special: "Kim Jong-Il Looks at Things"
This is really self-explanatory: an entire website devoted to North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il looking at things.
A few examples....
This is really self-explanatory: an entire website devoted to North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il looking at things.
A few examples....
UPDATE 1110 GMT: Yonhap News interprets South Korea's flurry of varying message on China's call for six-party talks:
The foreign ministry said Sunday that China's offer to resume six-party talks on North Korea "should be studied very carefully," stressing that creating the right atmosphere for reopening the negotiations is a priority.
The reaction was seen as a de facto rejection of Beijing's proposal that the chief delegates from the six nations meet in early December to discuss tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea's deadly artillery strike on a South Korean island.
UPDATE 1035 GMT: South Korea has shifted its position (see 0909 GMT) on the Chinese intervention, now saying it will "carefully consider" Beijing's call for a resumption of six-party talks.
We originally featured this video on 5 September to show off how music and spoofing the "enemy" has a proud history from World War II to the present. But, in a very tense week, I think it might be valuable to bring it back for a few smiles:
The immediate crisis over North Korea's shelling of Yongpyeong Island has eased. There was a flutter on Friday when the North carried out a military drill with artillery fire only miles from the island, which is just off the western coast of the North-South border, and the state news agency pronounced, "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war."
The display was more bravado than threat, however, offering a response to the tour of Yongpyeong by the top U.S. commander in South Korea and Sunday's planned US-South Korea military exercise, headed by an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in the Yellow Sea.
An important story emerged this morning. On 3 August, North Korean radio issued a clear warning, as a notice from the Western Front military command, that Pyongyang would carry out a military strike in response to any South Korean drills near the border and North Korean waters.
Mark this moment because it may be the only time I defend former Vice Presidential candidate and resigned Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
The Internet is afire because of Palin's statement in a radio interview, "We're bound to stand with our North Korean allies", with critics holding up another example of her outstanding cluelessness about seeing anything --- except Russia --- from her house.
For me, drawing from experience, it's a verbal slip. What is more significant is the other 57 seconds of the passage, in which Palin foregoes any comprehension of the issue for her "Administration is Bad, Standing with Our Allies [Whichever One It Is] Good" posture.
UPDATE 1730 GMT: The spin out of Seoul is that the President's inner circle of ministers, in their emergency meeting,decided that old rules of engagement put too much emphasis on prevention of escalation. In future, South Korea will implement different levels of response, depending on whether the North attacked military or civilian targets, but the new rules call for retaliation "with shots two to three times more powerful than the enemy artillery".
UPDATE 1420 GMT: China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has cancelled a visit to Seoul on Friday. Chinese officials claimed a scheduling conflict, but South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun indicated Seoul has concerns.
UPDATE 1115 GMT: President Lee Myung-Bak has accepted the resignation of South Korea's Minister of Defense,Kim Tae-Young.
UPDATE 1715 GMT: The US force for Sunday's joint exercise with South Korea will include the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington and four other ships, carrying 6,000 sailors and 75 aircraf
“These [exercises] are not a direct reaction [to Tuesday's North Korean artillery attack],” USFK spokesman David Oten said. “Basically, they’re unrelated.”
UPDATE 1640 GMT: North Korea's Foreign Ministry has again blamed South Korea for the artillery barrage: "The enemies, despite our repeated warnings, eventually committed extremely reckless military provocations of firing artillery shells into our maritime territory near Yeonpyeong Island beginning 1 p.m. Tuesday."
There has been no resumption of conflict since yesterday's North Korean artillery barrage against Yeonpyeong Island; however, the bodies of two civilians killed in the assault have been found this morning. Two South Korean soldiers died of wounds on Tuesday.
UPDATE 1220 GMT: The South Korean President's office says Lee Myung-bak has ordered the military to strike North Korea's missile base around its coastline artillery positions if it shows signs of additional provocation.
The spokeswoman added that, in a video conference with Gen. Han Min-koo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President ordered "multiple-fold retaliation" against North Korea for its artillery attack today.
UPDATE 1130 GMT: The South Korean military has confirmed its two-day exercise on Yongpyeong Island before the North Korea attack, but it says South Korean forces fired west and not north.
High-level talks strengthen Sino-US ties: Lawrence Summers, the head of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, and Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon visited China from 5 to 8 September, seeking to iron out touchy issues in bilateral relations.
President Hu Jintao called said during a meeting on Wednesday, "Further comprehensive development of Sino-US relations is more important than ever before, as the global economic recovery is facing a variety of unstable and uncertain factors. China and the US should view the bilateral relationship from a global and strategic perspective."