I am extremely concerned by the events in North Korea, and the recent execution of Jang Song-thaek. I have written before about the brutally appalling and yet comic opera absurdity of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), here, here, here,and here. It is worth reflecting upon how, once unleashed in any given society, the entry […]
Posts Tagged ‘North Korea’
Kim Jong-un and the purge
Dec 16th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.After decades of loyal service to the Kim dynasty, “despicable human scum … who was worse than a dog” was probably not the epitaph Chang Song-thaek hoped for. But the very public and very final defenestration of the “traitor for all ages” says a couple of things I think professional Kimologists and the BBC are missing. The […]
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North Korea and the maturity of Japan’s ‘enfant terrible’
Jun 12th, 2013 by Jack Dunleavy.Ryu Murakami is apparently ‘the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature’. I suppose I should start this review of his four books translated into English this year by making general comments about the strangeness of Japanese culture. Yet such observations have been made ad nauseum, and only reflect the Westerner’s shock that anything exists outside their sphere of influence. […]
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Korean Nuclear Crisis – time for Labour to call for dialogue to stop nuclear proliferation
Apr 13th, 2013 by Jenny Clegg.With tensions escalating on the Korean peninsula in what is possibly the most serious nuclear crisis since that over the Cuban missiles in 1962, PM David Cameron’s assertion that Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons ‘was necessary’, was not merely opportunistic and hypocritical but utterly dangerous. Whilst other world leaders Ban Ki-moon, the Russian and […]
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North Korea: Time to Break the Logic Leading to War
Apr 8th, 2013 by Andy Newman.Perceptions of the crisis in the Korean peninsula are coloured by the simplistic assumptions that the Pyongyang government is irrational, and the Seoul government is a model of peaceful reasonableness. Nevertheless, it is clear that currently the leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship, and it […]
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North Korea and the drums of war
Apr 5th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.There are two sides to every crisis, and the dangerous situation developing on the Korean Peninsula is no different. Unfortunately, the commentary coming out of the BBC sets the tone for the British press. It’s the idea that the collective senility that grips the North Korean regime (and what we all like to have a laugh about, […]
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North Korea: once and future Kim
Dec 19th, 2011 by David Osler.The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea certainly isn’t democratic. It doesn’t give a hang about the wellbeing of the bulk of its people, and it is a hereditary monarchy in all but name. Still, it is on the Korean peninsula, and by the standards of accuracy that prevail in the state media, one out of […]
