25개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
While 'The World As We Know It Is Going Under', as the German bourgeois magazine Spiegel Online headlined today - related to the current US financial crisis (*) - the Nepali PM "Chairman Prachanda" presented two days ago an "alternative" way (**) how Nepal can avoid such calamities of capitalist societies:
PM for 'People's Republic' in Nepal (NepalNews, 9.17)
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said his party's long term projection is to establish People's Republic in Nepal but repudiated converting the country into traditional communist state.
Addressing a function organised by the Nepal-Bharat Janamanch in Delhi Tuesday, PM Dahal said the constituent assembly would discuss the issue of establishing People’s Republic for the next one and half years, adding his party's ideological conflict with bourgeois and feudalists would continue.
Fearing a dictatorship in Nepal, PM Dahal suspected possible intervention in Nepal by imperialists and bigger power centres.
He also sough support from Indian communist groups for establishing a different kind of governance system in Nepal.
But, as e-Kantipur reported yesterday, not everyone in Nepal (surprise, surprise!!) is happy about Prachanda's ideas:
Maoist obfuscation worries parties
Political parties have raised serious doubts over the Maoist commitment to parliamentary democracy after Maoist Chairman and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's assertion Sunday that his party cannot remain within the traditional parliamentary system.
"At this stage of political transition, we can neither immediately arrive at our goal of socialism," he told the Constituent Assembly (CA) on Sunday, "nor can we remain in the current traditional parliamentary system. This is due to our development process and various other compulsions."
The prime minister said the CPN (Maoist) is opting for parliamentary system only for now while its ultimate goal of achieving socialism remains unchanged. He echoed his 'hard-line' colleague Mohan Baidya, aka Kiran.
On Saturday, Baidya said CPN (Maoist) is in favor of establishing "non-parliamentary multi-party system" as parliamentary system is concerned more with competition among rival political parties to form and dissolve governments.
To other parties, which stand firm in their support for parliamentary democracy, the prime minister's statement Sunday was at best political obfuscation; at worst, a direct threat to parliamentary democracy.
Senior vice-president of NC, Ram Chandra Poudel, said recent remarks from top Maoist leaders have posed serious threat to parliamentary democracy in Nepal. "This is a serious attack against parliamentary democracy by ultra-leftist forces," Poudel said, referring to Dahal's statement, at a function organized by Human Rights Organization of Nepal (HURON). The last time such a vicious attack on parliamentary democracy was made was by late King Mahendra in 1960, he said.
In a press statement on Tuesday, 20 additional CA members from the NC alleged that Prime Minister Dahal's remarks have given clear indication that Maoists are trying to push the country into yet another conflict.
Other parties too are worried about the Maoists. Tarai Madhes Democratic Party (TMDP) spokesperson Sarbendra Nath Shukla was more than surprised at the prime minister's remarks. "We are surprised all right, but Sunday's statement [by the prime minister] has now made us nervous whether the new constitution will be democratic. The constitution requires a two-third majority for endorsement," he said.
Not everyone is a doubter, however. Central member of CPN-UML, Shankar Pokharel, said there is no need to cast doubts, at least for now, against Maoists regarding their commitment to parliamentary democracy. He said Maoists have in principle agreed to abide by the parliamentary system right from the 12-point understanding reached between the seven major parties and the CPN (Maoist) in November 2005. "This has been reiterated even in the Interim Constitution and the government should be run in accordance with the constitution," he said.
Political analyst Krishna Pokharel asks not to over-read Dahal's statement, for the Maoists are a communist party after all. "Their ultimate goal is socialism. I feel that the prime minister has only been honest in saying that. In fact, I would be worried if he had not."
He advised opposition parties to be "cautious," but not anxious over the remarks of the prime minister. "Such a remark could have been aimed for the party's consumption," he said.
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=160862
* But unfortunately, I'm supposing, that's not the final struggle for survival of the ruling capitalist "empire"!
** Well, I'm not sure if this is the most original way - especially when it is ordered just by a/the ruling party, even they're democratically elected.. Possibly a "People's Republic", i.e. the formation of a socialist society (as the tranisition to communism!!), can only be reached by the will (and/or struggle) of a majority of the people in a revolutionary process (not necessarily in a bloody revolution/civil war!!)
An exhibition about N.K. (aka "DPR"K) in Berlin:
PjöngjangPjöngjang
"Even in the year Juche 97, which is known elsewhere as 2008, North Korea seems to be on a different planet. The Great Leader Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, rules as an Eternal President. His son Kim Jong Il is the much-loved leader.
Military parades are flashy. Statues are up to 20 metres high. The precision of mass gymnastics takes your breath away. Little permeates to the outside. Little penetrates to the inside. North Korea orbits around itself. North Korea is an irritation. It threatens its neighbours with the atom bomb, fails to feed its population adequately, and operates secret penal camps.
The few thousand visitors each year see nothing of this.
The totalitarian regime guides its guests through a total stage-production of the state.” (Christoph Möskes)
The exhibition PjönjangPjönjang by Jenny Rosemeyer and Eva-Maria Wilde attempts to reflect the two artists’ private journey through North Korea in the year 2007. In this context, both external and internal views of North Korea are presented and long-established positions are questioned.
The artists take a critical look at the construction of the artist as an observer and at his/her relation to society as well as reviewing existing research. The exhibition’s theme is the transformation of political into subjective artistic aesthetics. Works are shown that reflect the actual subject of observation - the country of North Korea with its current and historical contradictions – yet immersed in artistic aesthetics.
The artists represent their view of the country and its society in objects, three-dimensional works, photographs and collages. To supplement this, various other artists will be invited to show their existing works about North Korea.
A small video library with original film material from North Korea and critical documentaries about the country from recent years will be made available to the exhibition visitors.
In addition, travel literature and further documentary material will be provided for reading. By presenting a view of the country characterised by a subjective artistic standpoint and yet also incorporating a documentary level, the intention is to facilitate a new perspective on the phenomenon North Korea for visitors.
PjöngjangPjöngjang exhibits artistic contributions by: Arno Brandlhuber, Martin Eberle, Juliane Eirich, Hans-Christian Schink and Nicolai von Rosen (Future 7). Curator of the exhibition is Peter Lang, Berlin.
During the exhibition opening - at 8 pm on 18th September - we will be showing the film Der Rote Stern - Alltag in Nordkorea (2006) by Bernd Girrbach and Elke Werry.
At 7 pm on 25th September, Jörg Friedrich will be reading excerpts from his book Yalu. An den Ufern des dritten Weltkrieges (Propyläen-Verlag, 2008) among the exhibits in Studio 1.
Pj ö n g j a n g P j ö n g j a n g
Jenny Rosemeyer, Eva-Maria Wilde & Guests
Exhibition: 19th September – 5th October 2008
Wednesday – Sunday, 2 – 7 pm, Studio 1
Opening: Thursday, 18th September 2008, 7 pm
Berlin-Kreuzberg, Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien (Mariannenplatz 2)
http://www.bethanien.de/kb/index/trans/en
Following just a small selection of articles in the int'l and S.K. media related to N.K./the "Dear Leader" (aka Kim Jong-il):
1. Newsweek's article "The Plan Post-Kim: No Plan", published 9.13:
Some thoughts are even more disturbing than the idea of Kim Jong Il's controlling an arsenal of poison gas, germ-war cultures and nuclear devices. Like what if the North Korean leader suddenly didn't control those weapons of mass destruction?
The question grew urgent last week after Kim failed to show up at a parade marking the Stalinist regime's 60th anniversary. The Dear Leader hadn't appeared in public for weeks, and senior North Korean officials soothed no one's doubts when they broke their usual silence to deny that Kim had suffered a stroke. With no solid information on Kim's health, Washington could only hope North Korea wasn't on the verge of a succession crisis... (read the entire article here)
2. Sunny Lee wrote in Korea Times that..
China Wants the Reunification of Koreas
Zhu Feng (Chinese security expert and a former fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC) acknowledges that some Chinese scholars have concerns about a reunified Korea. Once reunited, the view goes, the new Korea, more powerful and confident, will reclaim old territory that once belonged to it. Much of this land is currently Chinese territory.
But all the Chinese scholars K.Times approached, said China wants the reunification of the two Koreas.
"China has always supported a peaceful reunification of the two Koreas,'' said Wang Jisi, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. The influential scholar, who is widely dubbed as "personal advisor to President Hu Jintao,'' dismissed the view of some South Korean scholars that China wants the status quo on the Korean peninsula.
Song also said, "China wants the peaceful unification of Korea because it's good for China as well. This is the view of the majority of Chinese scholars. It also wants it to be done without outside forces,'' adding "It is also not likely that North Korea would embark on a war with South Korea after Kim dies.''
Zhu put it this way. "Will a unified Korea turn against China? I personally don't think that will be the case. In terms of reunification, if Koreans can resolve their issue on their own, others don't have to intervene. But South Korean newspapers said China would intervene.''
As for unification, Zhu said, "This is your business, not China's. Actually, it's the conservatives in South Korea that don't favor unification because of the expected financial burden.''... (read the entire related article here)
For more please read (and "enjoy" ^^):
☞ Careful Planning Matters More Than Kim Jong-il's Teeth (Chosun Ilbo, 9.16)
☞ We May Miss Kim Jong-il.. (NYT, 9.13)
☞ 'Dear Leader, get well soon' (A. Times, 9.12)
☞ Post-Kim Dynasty Korean Peninsula.. (DPRK Studies, 9.11)
"South Koreans can thank their spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS)...", according to an article in Korea Times (9.12).
Exactly! The S. Koreans should be proud of "their" spy agency!
The NIS, the successor of KCIA, is "famous"-notorious for torture, murder of innumerable members/activists of the (left and democratic) opposition, kidnapping, faking of "evidences" etc, etc..
And of course: until today NIS is defending the semi-facsist National "Security" Law (and its existence)..
NIS public advertisement for denunciation:
"Inform against N.K. spies, Communist agents, left radical activists.."
In another case the S.K. Ministry of "Justice" (MoJ) is presenting its newest "funny idea" to the public (via K. Times, 8.25): MoJ "will build a refugee-only detention center next year to accommodate the soaring number of asylum seekers"..
Yeah, what a warm reception for political refugees: locked up/imprisoned in a detention center!!
Well, finally it's just a f****** "great" idea to deter further possible asylum seekers!!
* Well, just enjoy the...
Chuseok Migrant Workers Festival in Ansan (Sept. 13 - 15)
Ansan Migrant Center, one of the consultation and service centers for migrant workers in S.K. is to hold its festival, focusing especially on traditional aspects of eight countries during the Chuseok Holiday from Sept. 13 to 15.
The “Eight Countries, Eight Colors Festival" will feature traditional dances and folk games from eight countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Korea. The stage will be held at the so-called “Borderless Village” in Wongo-dong, Ansan, Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province).
The first day will be made up of several small functions within each national community in separate locations, including Wongok Elementary School (China), Gimpo Migrant Center (Sri Lanka) and so forth. There will be singing contests, sports events and food sharing for each community.
The full-fledged festival will take place on the second day as a combined performance of eight cultures comes together at the outdoor stage of the Borderless Village. The performance will include China's Sheep Dance, Sri Lanka's Kandian Dance, Indonesia's Barongan dance, Mongolia's Heumi performance, Philippines' Igorot dance, Korea's B-boy group “Mik Crew,” Ethiopia's Tiebebe Band and Africa's Strong Afrika Dance.
Also at the festival there will be various traditional games and martial arts, including Mongolian shooting and archery, Russia's darts, Sri Lanka's Gabotara, Thailand's Sepak Takro, Korea's taekwondo and more.
The third day will be the closing day of the third Migrant Worker Film Festival “We're from the same world!" in the evening from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The movies introduced in the festival will look into various aspects of encountering different faces and different cultures and the dream of unity. A quiz show and parades will also be held.
Throughout the festival one can also watch the making of traditional rice cakes from Korea (songpyeon), China (moon cakes) and Vietnam (bancheung) and sample them during the show. Some 10,000 people are expected to participate, including nearby locals.
For more information contact Ansan Migrant Center & Ansan Foreign Workers' Center at (031-492-8785~6, 031-475-0111).
Last Friday the German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel reported about a new version of Neocolonialism:
Africa Becoming a Biofuel Battleground
Western companies are pushing to acquire vast stretches of African land to meet the world's biofuel needs. Local farmers and governments are being showered with promises.
Everything will turn out alright. Correction: everything is going to get better. There will be new roads, a new school, a pharmacy, even a proper water supply. Most of all, there will be jobs -- 5,000, at the very least. "If there are jobs for us, then it's a good thing," says Juma Njagu, 26, who hopes to be able to leave his meager existence as a planter and charburner behind soon.
Njagu lives in Mtamba, a village of about 1,100 souls in Tanzania's Kisarawe district, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south-west of Dar es Salaam, the capital and largest city. Mtamba, accessible by dirt road, is a place where people scrape by on a bit of farming, a bit of fishing and the production of charcoal. There isn't much else in Mtamba.
That could change if the British firm Sun Biofuels goes ahead with plans to produce biodiesel fuel from "Jatropha curcas," an energy plant with a high oil content, which it hopes to plant on Kisarawe's farmland.
The Tanzanian government has granted the British firm the use of 9,000 hectares (22,230 acres) of sparsely populated farmland, or enough land to cover about 12,000 soccer fields, for a period of 99 years -- free of charge. In return, the company will invest about $20 million (€13 million) to build roads and schools, bringing a modicum of prosperity to the region.
Sun Biofuels is not alone. In fact, half a dozen other companies from the Netherlands, the United States, Sweden, Japan, Canada and Germany have already sent their scouts to Tanzania. Prokon, a German company known primarily for its wind turbines, has already begun growing jatropha curcas on a large scale. It expects to have 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) -- an area about the size of Luxembourg -- under cultivation throughout Tanzania soon.
A gold rush mentality has taken hold -- not just in East Africa but across the entire continent. In Ghana, the Norwegian firm Biofuel Africa has secured farming rights for 38,000 hectares (93,860 acres), and Sun Biofuels is also doing business in Ethiopia and Mozambique.
Kavango BioEnergy, a British company, plans to invest millions of euros in northern Namibia. Western companies are turning up in Malawi and Zambia, where they plan to produce diesel fuel and ethanol from jatropha curcas, palm oil or sugar cane. Foreign investors have their eye on 11 million hectares (27 million acres) in Mozambique -- more than one-seventh of the country's total area -- for growing energy plants. The government in Ethiopia has even made 24 million hectares (59 million acres) available.
The consequences of this boom are dramatic. Experts agree that the worldwide push to grow energy plants is on overwhelming factor in the global explosion of food prices. According to one study by the World Bank, as much as 75 percent of the increase could be attributable to this change in the types of crops being farmed. Many farmers in industrialized countries are more than happy to accept government subsidies for corn or rapeseed, but this comes at the cost of the cultivation of wheat, potatoes and legumes.
Oil plants are not competing with intensively farmed land in Africa -- yet. Investors argue that the land they are using is uncultivated or underused. But rising food prices and population growth will also increase pressure in the southern hemisphere to convert unused land to agricultural use.
For investors, growing energy plants in Africa is highly profitable. Crude oil will become scarce in the foreseeable future, so that easy-to-produce biofuel comes at just the right time. At an estimated annual yield of 2,500 liters per hectare, Sun Biofuels is in it for the long haul in Tanzania. Production becomes profitable as soon as the price of a barrel of crude oil exceeds $100 (€69) on the world market. A barrel currently goes for just over $100.
Africa offers oil farmers virtually ideal conditions for their purposes: underused land in many places, low land prices, ownership that is often unclear and, most of all, regimes capable of being influenced.
The land is unusable, says the Ethiopian energy and mining minister in Addis Ababa, the country's capital. "It's just marginal land," say officials at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Dar es Salaam. "The whole thing is nothing but positive," says the district administrator of Kisarawe, who is responsible for the Sun Biofuels project. "We have convinced the people." In his rudimentary office, which lacks both a computer and a copy machine, he leafs through the planning documents.
In none of these places are the needs of local residents taken into account. In Ghana, BioFuel Africa wrested away land clearing and usage rights from a village chief who could neither read nor write. The man gave his consent with his thumbprint. The weekly newspaper Public Agenda felt reminded of the "darkest days of colonialism." The Ghanaian environmental protection agency eventually put a stop to the clear-cutting, but only after 2,600 hectares (6,422 acres) of forest had been cut down.
In Tanzania, while there are hopes, there is also plenty of reason to be skeptical about promises that everything will improve. In April 2006, Sun Biofuels claimed that it had received formal approval for cultivation from 10 of the 11 affected villages. At that point, however, several communities were not even aware of the plans, while others had attached conditions to their consent. A village head complained, in writing, to the district administration that Sun Biofuels had cleared and marked off land without even contacting the village elders.
In Dar es Salaam, Peter Auge, general manager of Sun Biofuels Tanzania, sits in his office. He is a casual, straightforward South African. "It is true," he says, "that we were a little reserved with our information policy." There are still many unknowns, says Auge, adding that he doesn't want to read in the paper that "the project is two years behind schedule."
Auge promises social investments, although they are not part of the agreements at this point. Even when it comes to compensation for the people living on the land, which the government insists must be paid, the investors are getting an exceedingly good deal. They offered the equivalent of about €450,000, a ridiculous price for the 9,000 hectares (22,230 acres) that they can now use for almost a century.
Seventy kilometers (43 miles) farther south, on the Rufiji River, thousands of residents are being forced to move to make way for the Swedish company Sekab's plans to grow sugarcane, a highly water-intensive crop, on at least 9,000 hectares (22,230 acres) and then distill it into ethanol. Five thousand hectares (12,350 acres) have already been approved.
The river and the wetlands along its banks are the only source of drinking water for thousands of people, especially during the dry season. Sekab also plans to tap this reservoir to irrigate its plantations. Transparency? Nonexistent. Compensation? None whatsoever. Information? A scarce commodity. When residents attending an informational event asked about compensation payments, they were told curtly: "You will get what you are entitled to."
The PR machine is all the more active, even in poor countries like Tanzania. Naturally South African national Josephine Brennan, who is in charge of public relations for Sekab in Dar es Salaam, sees only good things for Tanzania's future. Farming for biofuel will enable the country to build new schools and new roads, which translate into better opportunities for Tanzanians, says Brennan. According to Brennan, small farmers will also be able to earn more money in the future by growing biofuel-ready plants, and up to three million people in Tanzania alone will be lifted out of poverty. With its two million hectares of potential cropland, Tanzania, says Brennan, has as much growth potential "as the Celtic Tiger, Ireland." Finally, she is convinced that "the world needs Tanzania."
But Brennan's rosy predictions do not reflect opinions in East Africa. A study on energy plants in Tanzania, conducted by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation, lists a host of negative side effects. What is more, this is not the first time that white investors have promised prosperity for Tanzania.
With similarly enticing promises, small farmers were talked out of their land several decades ago to make way for coffee plantations. In the 1990s, foreign mining companies arrived in Tanzania to dig for gold. "They promised us jobs, new roads, new wells and schools," says journalist Joseph Shayo. "And what happened? No schools, no wells and few jobs, which were low-paying jobs, to boot." To make matters worse, large mining zones were fenced off and became inaccessible to the original residents.
In a recently published study on the "Biofuel Industry in Tanzania," journalist Khoti Kamanga of the University of Dar es Salaam warns against the side effects of energy plantations. The population, Kamanga writes, is usually uninformed, while the cultivation of energy plants usually goes hand-in-hand with forced resettlement. According to Kamanga, it is very likely that ethanol production will also affect food prices in Tanzania, with the country's dependency on food imports growing even further.
In Dar es Salaam, the government has now recognized that the boom also comes with problems. "Energy plants cannot be an alternative to food production," said President Jakaya Kikwete, responding to widespread resentment in his country over high food prices.
But the energy farmers remain unimpressed. Sun Biofuels and Sekab each want to expand their production to 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres) -- as soon as possible.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,576548,00.html
Somehow related:
☞ Haiti: Mud As Food (Guardian, 7.29)
Since the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il was absent (Even though a "band played 'The Leader Is Always With Us'", according to KCNA. The other, the "Great Leader", the "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung is absent since 1994!!) from yesterday's anniversary parade (on the occasion of "DPR"K's 60th birthday) in Pyeongyang, he leads the top news in the int'l media, such as CNN's World News Asia ("Concerns over Kim Jong-il")..
Well, it's very likely(?) that after 'Kim Jong-il Had Surgery for Stroke' (K. Times) he's now just a little bit "out of order" (possibly!! ^^):
But to be a bit more seriously..
Today's Asia Times (HK) summarized the latest developments... and rumors:
Seeing doubles in Dear Leader's no-show
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's apparent no-show on Tuesday at celebrations to mark the nation's 60th anniversary has prompted intense speculation among Pyongyang watchers and intelligence communities worldwide. Experts are straining to figure out the whereabouts of the nation's leader and exactly what's going on in the world's most reclusive country.
According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, there have been no North Korean media reports on the military parade as of 5pm on Tuesday. The Associated Press also reported that there had been no domestic news coverage of the event by Tuesday evening . According to the AP, North Korea's state news agency did carry an exhortation from the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper calling on the population to remain united around Kim.
North Korea's 60th anniversary comes at a time that international efforts to end Pyongyang's nuclear quest remain stalled. Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage on Tuesday said Kim was unlikely to give up nuclear weapons and was likely to launch a missile again soon, the Japanese and South Korean media reported. Armitage spoke at an international seminar in Seoul.
In East Asia, a 60th anniversary is highly significant as it signifies the entering of the traditional sexagenary cycle as a cultural custom. This is why the absence of the nation's leader adds to speculation that something is happening to Kim.
A veteran and famous Japanese expert on North Korea has said Kim, 66, died of diabetes in the autumn of 2003 and his role has been played by four body doubles, with two being almost perfect look-alikes, and the nation has already forged collective leadership among top four officials.
Other analysts have said "Dear Leader" Kim might have been shifted from the top position due to serious sickness, signaling the beginning of his downfall at a time of unprecedented economic and international political problems. This all suggests Kim might have been on the sidelines and been kept out of the loop already, a power shift in the Hermit Kingdom.
"Chances are high that Kim has already died," Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert on Korean Peninsula affairs, said in an interview with Asia Times Online. "He suffered from diabetes, heart disease, liver disorder, lung problem and bipolar disorder."
Kim collapsed last month, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Tuesday, quoting a South Korean official in Beijing.
"We have obtained intelligence that National Defense Commission chairman Kim Jong-il had collapsed on August 22," the official with the South Korean Embassy in Beijing was quoted as saying by the Korean newspaper, adding to growing speculation about the whereabouts of missing Kim, who has not been seen in public for almost one month. His last outing was on August 14 when he reportedly inspected a military unit in North Korea.
"That collapsed person should be one of the four doubles," said Shigemura, the professor at Waseda University, who cites sources from inside North Korea and from the intelligence services of Japan, South Korea and Washington in his book titled The True Character of Kim Jong-il published last month.
According to his reliable source, Kim was condemned to a wheelchair as early as 2000 as he fell into the terminal stage of diabetes.
Shigemura claims North Korea has adopted a form of collective executive leadership led by Kim Yong-nam, the current secretary of the Central Committee, and Chang Sung-taek, who is the brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il and oversees responsibility for the police, judiciary, and other areas of internal security as top official at Workers' Party of Korea, along with two other top officials.
The "collective leadership" is engaged in a fierce internal power struggle, Shigemura said.
"I do not buy the view Kim has died already," Lee Young-hwa, the representative of Rescue the North Korean People! (RENK), a Japan-based citizens' group supporting North Korean asylum seekers in China since early 1990s, told Asia Times Online. Lee is also an economics professor and third-generation Korean resident in Japan. "It has no credibility, as the South Korean intelligence community has denied it. But Kim might have got the early stage of Alzheimer's disease already, besides diabetes and heart disease.
"Power is shifting from the Dear Leader to Chang Sung-taek, the brother-in-law of Kim, and his eldest son Kim Jong-nam, 37, as China backs their reform and door-opening policies, compared with Kim Jong-il's reclusive polices," Lee said.
Shigemura disagrees with this view.
"Kim Jong-nam has no achievements in the nation and only China is backing him," Shigemura said. "He has no prospects of being the next leader." His illegal entry into Japan in May, 2001 and arrest by Japanese authorities helped drop him in the race for successor, he added.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JI10Dg01.html
PS:
Songun Blog already "reported" 8.31:
"Dear Leader Kim Jong Il Survives US Imperialist Assassination Attempt: Our sources inform us that Dear Leader Comrade Generalissimo Kim Jong Il has just been victim of an attempted US imperialist assassination attempt."
Well, there has been (of course) no information about "our sources"!! (^^)
Related stuff:
☞ The question: Is Kim Jong-il still alive? (Guardian)
☞ After Kim Jong-il (al-Jazeera)
☞ What’s behind Kim’s absence? (Hankyoreh)
☞ Kim’s Absence May Shift Geopolitical Landscape (K. Times)
☞ We Must Be Prepared for N.Korea's Collapse ("Editorial" by Chosun Ilbo)
James Joseph Dresnok has lived in N.K. (aka 'DPR'K) since defecting as a US soldier almost 50 years ago. In a rare interview with today's Guardian (UK), 'Comrade Joe' explaines why he's no traitor, why North Koreans are right to hate Americans - and who he's backing for the White House. (Watch also: US Defector on Life in North Korea by al-Jazeera TV)
Here you can read the complete article/interview:
'The Dear Leader takes care of me'
In 1962, at the height of the cold war, a young GI called James Joseph Dresnok picked up his gun and crossed the most heavily fortified border in the world to defect to the communist state of North Korea. He has been there ever since, living in the capital Pyongyang, although at one time both the North Koreans and the Americans denied he even existed.
"Comrade Joe", as he is also known, is still regarded as a traitor in the United States and by the American soldiers who had to listen to his disembodied Tannoy broadcasts across the demilitarised zone promising better rations and women to those who cared to join him across the border.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dresnok is wary of western journalists, but agreed to an interview following a request from the Labour MEP Glyn Ford, who has been engaged in diplomacy between North and South Korea and Japan for more than a decade. We meet in a wood-panelled room, underneath pictures of Great Leader Kim Il-sung and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang's futuristic Koryo Hotel. Physically, Dresnok is a big man. His teeth are framed by a gold brace, and he sports a Great Leader badge, as do all North Koreans. At 67 he still smokes three packs a day despite a serious heart condition and warnings from his doctor at Pyongyang's Friendship Hospital.
He has never seen himself as a traitor, he says, but was simply escaping to something he believed would give him purpose. His brief army career had been chequered and undistinguished. Having escaped an unhappy childhood of foster homes in Virginia, he enlisted in 1958, the day after his 17th birthday. He served first in Germany. After what he calls "one minor offence", he was treated harshly. "I was forced to clean an armoured truck with a toothbrush and bucket of water. It was 42 below zero. That's when I first thought of crossing to a communist country. But if you went to the DDR (East Germany) they interrogated you and sent you back."
He got his opportunity later, when serving with his unit along the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea in 1960. His wife had decided to leave him for another man after his two-year posting in Germany, which "made me not care about my life," he says. "I wanted to go to the most dangerous place in the world."
There was nothing to keep him in the army, or in America. "I didn't have any relatives back home, my wife had left me, I didn't have anything to live for in the US," Dresnok says. On the day he defected he faced a possible court martial for having absconded from his base. He had gone off limits having forged his officer's signature to go and meet a Korean woman he had become attached to. "He [the officer] said, 'I want to see you at 3pm'. I said, 'We'll see'. That's when I made my decision to cross. I'm going for a new life. I grabbed a shotgun and headed for the DMZ [the demilitarised zone]. Sure, I knew about the personnel mines, maybe I could lose a foot or a leg - but I just went, straight.
"A cry went up, 'Hey Dresnok, stop!' So I just fired off a round to scare them. I have no regrets."
When Dresnok crossed the border he was captured by a soldier from the Korean People's Army, who later volunteered, "I wanted to kill the American bastard!" He was taken to Pyongyang, where he was introduced to another defector, Private Larry Abshier. Over the next 18 months they were joined by two others, Army Sergeant Robert Jenkins and Specialist Jerry Parrish, presenting a remarkable propaganda victory for the hard-line regime of Kim Il-sung.
"Why should I regret crossing? I don't regret nothing," says Dresnok. Throughout the interview, his long-time North Korean minder sits beside him, noting down his answers. Dresnok appears loyal: "The Great Leader Kim Il-sung told us, 'I am going to take you along with us to communism.' I didn't know then that the Great Leader would take good care of us like he did." But those early years were tough, he says. "When I first came here, I didn't feel so good. People would say, 'There's that American bastard!'" The Korean war, one of the most brutal conflicts of the last century, left an estimated four million dead, and a country shattered and divided to this day. "People here, see, were educated to hate American imperialism. All that bombing! How many did they slaughter? They killed Koreans like savages. Of course people are going to hate Americans."
In a mesmerising 2007 documentary, Crossing the Line, it was revealed that in 1966 Dresnok and fellow defectors Abshier, Parrish and Jenkins became so desperate to leave the North, they managed to get to the Soviet embassy and demand asylum. The Russians promptly handed them back. While Dresnok talks of the months and years of living quietly, learning the language, reading the works of the Great Leader, it was perhaps no accident that all four defectors managed around this time to find female companions. It seems entirely plausible that the women were found for them by the state, although none of the defectors ever admitted to any such arrangements. Dresnok has been married twice in North Korea; his first wife, a mysterious Romanian who always refused to talk of her past to Dresnok, died. He has since married the daughter of a former Togolese diplomat and a Korean. One of his three sons from his two Korean marriages looks American, although he doesn't sound it; a child of the revolution, James hopes to become a North Korean diplomat.
"I don't consider myself a traitor," Dresnok explains, referring to the country he turned his back on nearly half a century ago. "I love my country. I love my town. In his teachings, Kim Il-sung wrote; 'Those who really love their country and their home can become communists.' I'm not a communist, but I would like to be one."
Dresnok describes himself as a citizen of Pyongyang. "I call it my country because I have been here for 46 years. My life is here. Enough? The government will take care of me until my dying breath." So would he like to return to the US? "I tell you, yes; I must be honest to you. I would like to see the place. But how can I go there and dance in front of the American government, when they are arming South Korea?" Dresnok knows that he would be arrested on arrival, as was Jenkins, when he returned to the west in 2004. There is no love lost between Dresnok and Jenkins, who recanted on his return just over three years ago, denounced Dresnok and was granted clemency after only 30 days in the clink. Were he ever to leave North Korea, Dresnok is unlikely to get off so lightly, having been painted as the ringleader by Jenkins. Abshier and Parrish both died in North Korea, where their families remain.
But it is Dresnok's extraordinary career swap, from lowly US army private to star of the North Korean silver screen that provides the most surreal twist to his story. For three years from 1978, in a 20-part series called Nameless Heroes, directed by Kim Jong-il, Dresnok played the evil American. Ironically, these roles finally established the defectors' revolutionary credentials, and they were forgiven earlier misdemeanours. "Comrade Kim Jong-il was then in the film industry. He was making movies," Dresnok recalls. "He gave a teaching for us to take part in a film." (Dresnok is the first to admit that he is not an educated man, and that his grammar is sometimes mangled.
"I want my children to be more than an illiterate old man," he says disarmingly.) "To be honest I was quaking in my shoes. I never thought I could be an actor." What critics would make of Comrade Joe Dresnok the actor is anyone's guess. But he made an impression on Kim Jong-il, now the ruler of North Korea. "The Dear Leader takes care of me. Great man. Did you know hospitalisation is free in the DPRK?"
Despite the minder, at no point during the interview does Dresnok appear under duress. He smiles frequently, only becoming emotional when speaking bitterly of that "cunning son of a bitch, Jenkins".
North Korea came into being 60 years ago today and since then predictions of its demise have been as frequent as they have been premature. Now history is once again threatening to repeat itself as the North prepares to rebuild its partially dismantled nuclear programme, in protest at the refusal of the US to remove it from the list of "state sponsors of terror". I ask Dresnok if he can explain why the US and Vietnam have long ago made up, but relations between the US and North Korea remain in deep freeze. "It's long-time history," the unrepentant defector begins. "The US planned to use North Korea as a stepping stone to China and Russia." And, he continues, "The US is afraid right now. You know why? Now we have the nuclear bomb here. They don't want 'I blow you if you blow me'. But that is what will happen if they pull the trigger."
And with that Comrade Joe prepares to return to his apartment, where his wife and children are waiting. It is illegal to listen to foreign broadcasts, but as he gets up Dresnok offers his opinion on the US election: "I'm told McCain will get it." Dresnok, the last American defector, relic of a cold war that never came to an end on the Korean peninsula, a man whose impulsive decision either cost him 46 years of freedom, or gave him a better life than he had before, walks out and lights a cigarette.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/korea.usa
Related video by CBS/"60 Minutes" (Jan. 2007):
☞ An American In North Korea #1
☞ An American In North Korea #2
I think it's wellknown that the ancient China (aka the "Chinese Empire") - at least since the Dynasties of Sui and Tang (6th - 10th century) - was a country, very open for "foreigners" (and their influences). Tens of thousands of merchants, migrant workers, political and religious refugees.. from (mostly) all across Asia - from the far West, like the Arab World, to Korea and Japan in the East - settled in China.
But so far I'd no idea that there was (and still exisists!!) a Jewish community in China, especially in Kaifeng (the capital during the Song Dynasty) until I read last week following surprising article in the Israeli newpaper Yedioth Ahronoth:
1,000 Jews cannot be wrong
Descendants of centuries-old Jewish community in China's Kaifeng rediscover Jewish heritage after near complete assimilation in local community
In Chinese terms, the city of Kaifeng, about 500 miles southwest of Beijing, is reminiscent of the Israeli city of Hadera: The number of its residents is 700,000 – as opposed to Beijing's 15 million or Shanghai's 20 million – and it doesn't even have its own airport.
However, a thousand years ago, Kaifeng was the capital of the Chinese empire, the largest, richest and most advanced in the world at the time, with 600,000 residents that made it the most populated city on earth.
Ancient Kaifeng had a Jewish community – a small but thriving one, whose story is unique in the history of the Jewish people. For the 800 years of its existence, Kaifeng's Jews never suffered from persecution or discrimination. The Chinese authorities, as well as the general population, welcomed their Jewish neighbors, viewed them as citizens in every respect and allowed them to observe their religion with complete freedom.
The community synagogue in Kaifeng existed for almost 700 years
In spite, or perhaps because of these freedoms, the community dwindled until about one hundred and fifty years ago, when the assimilation and integration proved complete. It is only in the past 20 years that the descendents of Kaifeng Jewry, who now number about 1,000 people, have rediscovered their Jewish tradition. Some of them have considered undergoing proper conversion and making aliyah, and a few of them have done so already.
Thirty-year-old Shi Lei does not try to hide his excitement when he takes his guest, an Israeli journalist, to the central room in his parents' home. His family, which is of Jewish descent, has lived in this home for more than 100 years. After the death of his grandmother and grandfather, Shi, together with his father, turned this room into a mini-museum and a small Jewish center, where he gives classes on Jewish tradition to children and adults of Jewish descent.
Shi Lei, who graduated with a degree in English from the University of Kaifeng, spent close to three years in Israel studying at Jerusalem's Machon Meir and at Bar-Ilan University...
An emperor's welcome
It is not clear when exactly the first Jews came to China or when the Jewish community in Kaifeng was formed. In the prophecy of the redemption in the book of Isaiah it states: "See, they will come from afar – some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Sinim ("Chinese")" (Isaiah, 49:12); but biblical scholars agree that the verse does not speak of China per se. Some claim that the Jews of Kaifeng are descendents of the Ten Lost Tribes. Others theorize that they came to China in the second century following the downfall of the Jews in the Bar Kokhva revolt (132-135CE).
DNA testing done over the past few years on the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews, proved them distant relatives of Armenian, Iranian and Iraqi Jews. Most of the researchers, as well as the Kaifeng descendents themselves, tend to suggest that the original Jews in China were merchants from Persia that came by way of the Silk Route (in today's southern Turkey) to the city of Xian in central China.
Historical references and archaeological findings have proven that the Persian Jews first arrive in China in the eighth century; and since the long, difficult journey made family life difficult, the solution was to establish a permanent base in China. The location of choice was Kaifeng – China's capital from 927BC to 1127AD.
A stone tablet dating back to the 1489 Kaifeng synagogue – which is now in the city museum – in inscribed with the following: "According to the commandment of their god, the Jews came from Tian-Sho (Chinese for both "India" and "every state to the west of China") with woven materials from the west in their hands, meant as a gift for the emperor."
Kaifeng synagogue, drawn by the French Jesuit priest, J. Demenge (1722)
The last emperor, according to the tablet was pleased with the beautiful and said "welcome to our country; dwell here and keep the customs of your ancestors".
The emperor's warm welcome provided them with automatic Chinese citizenship, not a trifle feat at a time the Jewish communities in Europe and the Muslim countries were suffering persecution. It is believed that one of the reasons for this show of tolerance was that the Chinese of the time did not have a "religion" in the sense of any of the three monotheistic faiths: The common practices of faith based on the teachings of Chinese philosopher Confucius, were an array of ethical and behavioral codes more than the belief of religious ordinances commanded by a higher power.
While each of the three monotheistic religions claims to state the absolute truth god, Confucianism is willing peacefully coexist with any religious belief. Kaifeng's Jews found it easy to adhere to Confucianism since it doesn't require the recognition of a new Messiah or prophet and there was no need to give up on the rules of keeping kosher or observing the holidays.
The ancient stone tablet also states that one of the emperors from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) bestowed "the gift of incense" upon the Jewish community. It was given to the Jewish doctor Yung-Ching who appears to have been his personal physician. This indicates that Kaifeng's Jews used Chinese names rather than Hebrew names, and incorporated a Chinese ceremony into their religious rituals – the lighting of incense.
Eligible bachelors
Kaifeng's Jews were away from any Jewish center, as they had no contact to other Jewish communities around the world. At its peak, the community numbered no more than 6,000 people. There was no yeshiva and the young Jewish men that were interested in academic studies naturally attended the local institutions, which cultivated knowledge of Chinese literature and tradition. Given the circumstances, the chances of the small, isolated Jewish community to maintain its unique features in the hub of China were remote.
According to researchers, another key to the demise of the Kaifeng community lies in the fact that China was the first to allow all its residents to join the top rank of government officials – the Mandarins – by taking qualification exams.
Most of the Jews in Kaifeng were proficient in Chinese and some also in Hebrew, which gave them an advantage over most of the residents in the empire; and so the number of Jewish descendents that applied for the Beijing positions was substantially higher than their actual representation in the population.
After five years of study in the emperor's courtyard, they were sent to various regions in the vast empire. If they hadn't married during their years as students, they were certainly interested in doing so when they began their government service, and as Mandarins, whose careers were mapped out they were considered eligible bachelors. Excluding Kaifeng, however, there were no eligible Jewish brides to be found in China, prompting the assimilation further.
According to the information available, the Jewish community life in Kaifeng came to a virtual halt about 150 years ago. The community synagogue existed for almost 700 years, until 1854, when Kaifeng was flooded by the Huáng Hé – the Yellow River. It was never rebuilt.
Kaifeng 1910: A Jewish Family
Although Kaifeng's Jews had already completely assimilated, their descendants continued to observe several customs, like keeping kosher and keeping Shabbat. Many continue to live the old city in the old section, and the Jewish names of two of the neighborhood's streets still appear in Hebrew and English. The community is now slated for an evacuation-renovation project, like many of its Chinese counterparts...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3590419,00.html
Related:
☞ Kaifeng Jews (wiki)
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