Anju Links for 18 Jan 08

NORTH KOREA FINALLY MENTIONS LEE MYUNG BAK, sorta:  “U.S. conservative hardliners broke into cheers upon hearing about the results of the “˜elections’ in South Korea … asserting that the power change in South Korea marks a new occasion of strangling North Korea.   Well, yeah, if he actually does.  Wow.  Did I really just agree with KCNA?

TOO MANY NORTH KOREANS ARE HOARDING FOOD, so the  regime is cracking down with layer upon layer of bureaucracy and permits that are now required to move significant quantities of food.  That may help prevent diversion, but it will also destroy the markets that many North Koreans have come to depend on to supply what the government can’t. 

THE POWER STRUGGLE within the Democratic Peoples’ Republic Labor Party continues (third item), with the non-North Korean-agent faction now responding by announcing its intent to purge the party  of the Fatherly Leader’s sleeper agents.  Just lovely.  Well, it doesn’t look like I was reading too much into KCNA after all, which means that I obviously have what the Daily NK considers to be a special skill (the trick is to believe exactly the opposite of what they say!).   Similarly, assume that whichever faction’s views are presented by KCNA is not the  faction you want to see win.  Myself, I learned my skills by reading the New York Times and watching Fox News.   The DLP may be about to shatter.

A ROSA PARKS MOMENT IN CHINA as Maersk workers riot over bullying by company thugs.

LETTING GO OF THE PAST, or rather, exploiting it less:  Lee Myung Bak will stop demanding apologies from Japan, which has already done much more apologizing (or to be precise, expressing regret)  than Roh Moo Hyun would have you believe.

ONE MORE REASON WHY NORTH KOREA WILL NEVER REFORM:  Every time a North Korean  business miraculously turns a profit, Kim Jong Il’s  cronies expropriate it for the use of His Porcine Majesty.  When I speak of North Korea’s  “people’s economy” and “palace economy,” this is what I mean. 

WILDLY OFF TOPIC:   Ever wondered who that kid was in “Deliverance” who played the banjo?  Me too.