The BBC reports that North Korea is again in danger of mass starvation: The World Food Programme (WFP) has repeated its warning of a food crisis in North Korea and says the situation is getting worse by the day. The WFP regional director, Anthony Banbury, said contributions from overseas had all but dried up. He said the organisation was having to cut handouts to some of those most in need. North Korea has depended on food aid from overseas for...

The BBC reports that North Korea is again in danger of mass starvation: The World Food Programme (WFP) has repeated its warning of a food crisis in North Korea and says the situation is getting worse by the day. The WFP regional director, Anthony Banbury, said contributions from overseas had all but dried up. He said the organisation was having to cut handouts to some of those most in need. North Korea has depended on food aid from overseas for...

Europaische Gotterdammerung: Last week, it was Gerhard Schroeder. This week, it looks like Jacques Chirac’s turn to meet with a fateful disaster at the polls.

Japanese diplomats are in the Philippines investigating whether loggers found two World War II soldiers hiding out in the jungle. Japan’s Kyodo News agency said the two may be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 83. But the health ministry declined to confirm the report, saying they could not disclose any information until officials have identified them. There are rumors of 40 more of them who are still hiding. You wonder how many years ago the people who loved them...

From today’s New York Times, via the AP: SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea dismissed reports it is preparing for a nuclear test as a U.S. ”fabrication,” raising hopes that the reclusive communist nation may be ready to return to the nuclear bargaining table. With the statement late Thursday on Korean Central Television Station, the North’s only nationwide network, Pyongyang appeared to be inching back from the stalemate over its nuclear program that has taken on increasingly ominous tones....

Nicholas Eberstadt has told South Korea exactly what it needs to hear, except the date on which the removal of our ground forces will be complete. A selection of the most interesting quotations and my thoughts here, on NKZone.

Europaische Gotterdammerung: Last week, it was Gerhard Schroeder. This week, it looks like Jacques Chirac’s turn to meet with a fateful disaster at the polls.

Japanese diplomats are in the Philippines investigating whether loggers found two World War II soldiers hiding out in the jungle. Japan’s Kyodo News agency said the two may be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 83. But the health ministry declined to confirm the report, saying they could not disclose any information until officials have identified them. There are rumors of 40 more of them who are still hiding. You wonder how many years ago the people who loved them...

Japanese diplomats are in the Philippines investigating whether loggers found two World War II soldiers hiding out in the jungle. Japan’s Kyodo News agency said the two may be Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 83. But the health ministry declined to confirm the report, saying they could not disclose any information until officials have identified them. There are rumors of 40 more of them who are still hiding. You wonder how many years ago the people who loved them...

From today’s New York Times, via the AP: SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea dismissed reports it is preparing for a nuclear test as a U.S. ”fabrication,” raising hopes that the reclusive communist nation may be ready to return to the nuclear bargaining table. With the statement late Thursday on Korean Central Television Station, the North’s only nationwide network, Pyongyang appeared to be inching back from the stalemate over its nuclear program that has taken on increasingly ominous tones....

Nicholas Eberstadt has told South Korea exactly what it needs to hear, except the date on which the removal of our ground forces will be complete. A selection of the most interesting quotations and my thoughts here, on NKZone.

I’m not sure I have the words or the energy to express my revulsion at this.

Meet the next U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

I’m not sure I have the words or the energy to express my revulsion at this.

Meet the next U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher “The Bad Cop” Hill appears to be moving away from a constraint on our previous diplomacy with North Korea–the idea that the nuclear question should be discussed in strict isolation from the more fundamental problem of North Korea’s closed society. And while the North Korean Human Rights Act threw human rights into the mix by force of law, the State Department hasn’t exactly shown enthusiasm for that. This, then, is a hopeful sign: WASHINGTON –...

Not All Global Connectivity Advances Peace–Exhibit A: The police, under direct orders from Didymus Mutasa, the head of the secret police (Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization), have brutally removed any competition to Chinese traders whose shops have sprung up around the capital over the past few years. Mutasa said law and order had to be preserved and Harare’s Police Chief, Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka, said 9,653 people were arrested in the five-day blitz on street vendors, flea market stalls, and other informal...

On the Virtues of Being Feared, Rather than Loved. The latter is nice, but if the cost is prohibitive, the former will do just fine: Syria has arrested more than 1,200 people trying to cross the border into Iraq in recent weeks and sent many back to their home countries because of suspicions they were trying to join the insurgency, Syria’s U.N. ambassador said. . . . . Mekdad said Syria suspected that those arrested — mostly foreigners — intended...