14 May 2010

So, I suppose some of you probably have questions for Laura and Lisa Ling: ask them here. My own comment is in moderation as I write this.

We are all necons: Colin Powell says that Kim Jong Il will face the judgment of history. It would have been better yet had Powell done less, as Secretary of State, to defer that judgment.

In China, that paradise of socialist equality, the price of female human beings is soaring:

Young female refugees from North Korea are increasingly becoming a commodity in China, where they are sold to farmers for up to 1,500 dollars a head, according to a Seoul campaigner.

The human trafficking is far from new but has become more prevalent as prices soar amid a shortage of Chinese women in the countryside, said Reverend Chun Ki-Won, head of the Durihana Association, which offers aid to refugees. [AFP]

_______________________

When he was campaigning, Prime Minister Hatoyama promised to close the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma. In office, the impracticality of this promise has now caught up with Hatoyama, and he may now have to resign. A number of commenters here have drawn comparisons between Hatoyama to Roh Moo Hyun. What’s striking here is that Roh, who often treated the voters to soliloquies about how being president just wasn’t fun anymore, still had to finish his term; whereas Hatoyama could be forced out and make way for adult supervision. This is certainly a strong argument for a parliamentary system.