Polypragmonic
Read this...very fun play on the word and also on the responders after the initial essay...
Seasons in the Kingdom
Monday, October 29, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Purges in North Korea
Purges
N. Korean leader dismissed, purged 31 ranking officials after appointment as heir: lawmaker
SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has dismissed or purged 31 senior officials including the former chief of the military's general staff since being anointed heir to his father and longtime leader Kim Jong-il in 2010, a South Korean lawmaker claimed Tuesday.
The younger Kim, who took power after his father's death last December, dismissed four members of the Central Military Commission of the North's ruling Workers' Party in September 2010, and purged 27 other ranking officials between 2011 and 2012, according to Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun of the South's ruling Saenuri Party.
"Kim Jong-un is purging senior officials who are becoming an obstacle to his grip on power, performing poorly or expressing their dissatisfaction, according to his needs," Yoon said in a news release.
Among those purged were Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, the former chief of the military's general staff who was abruptly relieved of all of his posts in July; Ryu Kyong, a senior intelligence official; and Kim Chol, a senior defense official, the lawmaker said.
Ryu was executed in January 2011 on charges of espionage, while Kim, the defense official, was executed in January of this year on charges of drinking and engaging in other entertainment during the country's mourning period for the late leader, he added.
"It appears that Kim Jong-un will continue to purge and dismiss ranking officials for some time as he consolidates his grip on power," Yoon said.
hague@yna.co.kr
North Korea Threats against South Korean Activists
S. Korean military on high alert after N.K. threats to strike border area
By Kim Eun-jungSEOUL/PAJU, Oct. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military is on high alert Monday after North Korea threatened to strike a border area if anti-Pyongyang activists fly propaganda leaflets from there into the communist nation later in the day.
The Fighters for Free North Korea, a civic group composed of North Korean defectors, plan to send 200,000 leaflets by balloons from Imjingak near the Demilitarized Zone at 11 a.m despite drizzling rain, according to the event organizer, Park Sang-hak.
It is not clear whether the activists will be able to hold the event as planned, as the military and police have banned civilian entry into Imjingak since 8:40 a.m., including tourists, residents and journalists.
They will lift the restriction after the situation is deemed over, according to officials.
On Friday, North Korea said its army will launch a "merciless military strike" if any move to drop leaflets is detected. South Korea's defense minister reacted swiftly, saying his military is prepared to "completely destroy" the origin of a North Korean attack if it occurs.
"Our military units near Imjingak are maintaining readiness to immediately return artillery fire," a senior military official said, asking for anonymity, as he is not allowed to talk about military information. "We are closely watching the North Korean military's movements."
The South Korean military has stepped up combat readiness by deploying artillery and tank brigades and combat air patrols by F-15K and KF-16, according to the official.
The North Korean threat came a day after South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak made a surprise visit to the front-line island of Yeonpyeong in the tensely guarded Yellow Sea, which was shelled nearly two years ago by the long-time rival.
Civic groups in the South have sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets in the past, but the communist state's unusually strong threat of an attack is the first since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un succeeded his father Kim Jong-il last December.
Pyongyang has condemned the leaflet drop as psychological warfare and an attempt to topple its communist regime, warning it could ignite a war on the Korean Peninsula, though it did not actually launch an attack.
The two Koreas still remain technically at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
Monday, October 22, 2012
Looking for Work in Kabul
Afghan police say man killed wife for wanting job
By | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A man in a western Afghan city has confessed to stabbing his wife to death to prevent her from taking a job outside the home, police said Monday.
Mohammad Anwar, who was arrested in the provincial capital for the murder, said he killed his wife during an argument over whether she should work at private company in the city, Herat province police spokesman Noor Khan Nekzad said.
The woman's relatives disputed the account, saying her husband was a drug addict who killed his wife because she refused to give him money.
The killing comes less than two weeks after a woman was beheaded in the same city for refusing alleged demands by her in-laws to engage in prostitution.
Human rights activists say they are worried such incidents will become more common as Western forces who helped women gain rights in the conservative country draw down. Under Taliban rule, women were banned from leaving the home unless they had a male relative as an escort and wore a burqa robe that covered their faces and bodies.
Despite guaranteed rights and progressive new laws, the U.N. still ranks Afghanistan as one of the world's worst countries when it comes to women's rights.
The Taliban's treatment of women has been thrust back into the headlines this month with the shooting of a 15-year-old schoolgirl in neighboring Pakistan. The militants said they targeted the girl because she was an outspoken opponent of the group and promoted "Western thinking," such as girls' education.
Girls' schools have flourished in Afghanistan in particular in the years since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, primarily funded by the U.S. and other Western donors.
There were conflicting accounts of what led to the fight between Mohammad Anwar and his wife Gulsom.
Gulsom's brother, Ghulam Sarwar, said his sister's husband had just returned from Iran and was pressing her to hand over money that she had earned weaving carpets and which she needed to support their two children. Sarwar said the two got into an argument and she fled the house. He followed her to her parents' house and then went after her with a knife.
The couple's two children — an 11-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old boy — have been taken in by Gulsom's parents, Sarwar said.
The victim's mother was shown on Afghan television crying and accusing her son-in-law of trying to sell her daughter's children for drug money. She witnessed the murder but said she had no way of stopping it.
"My daughter was killed in front of my eyes," said the sobbing Zahra, who family members said only went by one name.
Women's rights activists have already been up in arms in Herat after the Oct. 9 killing of a young woman named Mah Gul who was allegedly being forced into prostitution.
Police arrested Mah Gul's mother-in-law Pari Gul and her 18-year old cousin Najib, after the murder. Mabuba Jamshidi, head of the provincial women's affairs department, said that Najib had confessed to beheading the victim after she refused to perform "immoral acts."
____
Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt contributed to this report in Kabul.
Rocky Road Ahead
The Coming Collapse: Authoritarians in China and Russia Face an Endgame
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China and Russia have been constants in the world. They have been autocratic, resistant to the spread of freedom, occasionally belligerent toward their neighbors, and increasingly prosperous. They have consistently joined together in order to block Western initiatives in the UN Security Council and to defend dictatorships like Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The two countries have created the illusion of durability. Vladimir Putin has just begun a six-year presidential term, with an option for another. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are planning to hand over power in October to a new tandem, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, who are expected to serve for ten years. Yet the evidence is growing that the apparent stability in Russia and China is untenable. For similar reasons, the two states have exhausted their current political and economic systems. Their rulers have grown rigid and are mired in corruption. Both their political elites and their average citizens are growing visibly restless. In the next decade, it is likely that one or both of these global powers will undergo an economic crisis and a dramatic political transformation. When and how it will happen is the most important “known unknown” that Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will face during the next US presidential term.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
The Libya Lie - VDH (Hansen)
Go here for full article.
In a recent note at this blog, I commented about my feeling that our government was lying to the country about the recent debacle in Libya. Here is a more comprehensive look at the past two years by an important American historian, Victor David Hansen.
In a recent note at this blog, I commented about my feeling that our government was lying to the country about the recent debacle in Libya. Here is a more comprehensive look at the past two years by an important American historian, Victor David Hansen.
Almost everything we have been told about Libya over the last two years is untrue.
A free Libya was supposed to be proof of President Obama’s
enlightened “reset” Middle East policy. When insurgency broke out there,
the United States joined France and Great Britain in bombing Moammar
Qaddafi out of power — and supposedly empowering a democratic Arab
Spring regime. Not a single American life was lost.Libyans, like most in the Arab world, were supposed to appreciate the new, enlightened American foreign policy. Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech had praised Islam and apologized for the West. A new “lead from behind” multilateralism was said to have superseded George W. Bush’s neo-imperialist interventions of the past. To keep that shining message viable until the November election, the Obama administration and the media had been willing to overlook or mischaracterize all sorts of disturbing events. We had asked for a United Nations resolution for humanitarian aid and a no-fly zone to intervene in Libya, but then deliberately exceeded it by bombing Qaddafi’s forces — after bypassing the U.S. Congress in favor of a go-ahead from the Arab League. Libya was not so much liberated as descending into the chaos of tribal payback. Former Qaddafi supporters and African mercenaries were executed by those we helped. Islamists began consolidating power, desecrating a British military cemetery and driving out Westerners. On the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, a radical Islamist hit team with heavy weapons stormed the American consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In response, White House press secretary Jay Carney, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice desperately insisted that the murders were a one-time, ad hoc demonstration gone awry, without much larger significance. Supposedly, a few Muslim outliers — inflamed over one American’s anti-Islamic Internet video — had overreacted and stormed the consulate. Such anger was “natural,” assured the president. But why would furor over an obscure, months-old Internet video just happen to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary attack? Do demonstrators customarily bring along rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and heavy machine guns? Why did the Libyan government attribute the killings to an al-Qaeda affiliate when the Obama administration would not? Forget those questions: For most of September, desperate administration officials still clung to the myth that the Libyan catastrophe was a result of a single obnoxious video. At the United Nations, the president castigated the uncouth film. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented the senseless spontaneous violence that grew out of one American’s excesses, as she spoke beside the returning coffins of the slain Americans. Nonetheless, more disturbing facts kept emerging: Ambassador Stevens repeatedly had warned his State Department superiors in vain of impending Islamist violence. Security personnel — to no avail — had also urged beefing up the protection of the consulate, prompting former regional security officer Eric Nordstrom to say in exasperation that “the Taliban is on the inside of the building.” Video of the attack revealed that there had been no demonstration at all, but rather a full-fledged terrorist assault. Even as the fantasy of a spur-of-the-moment demonstration dissipated, administration officials tried to salvage it — and with it their idealistic policy in the Middle East. Vice President Joe Biden told a flat-out whopper in last week’s debate, saying the administration hadn’t been informed that Americans in Libya had ever requested more security. He scapegoated the intelligence agencies for supposedly failing to warn the administration of the threat. The new administration narrative faulted not one video, but the intelligence community for misleading them about the threat of an al-Qaeda hit on an American consulate — and the Romney campaign for demanding answers about a slain ambassador and his associates. Meanwhile, the State Department, the Obama reelection team, and the intelligence community were all pointing fingers at each other. What the Obama administration could not concede was the truth: The lead-from-behind intervention in Libya had proved a blueprint for nothing. Libya had descended into chaos. Radical Islam had either subverted or hijacked the Arab Spring. Al-Qaeda was not dismantled by the death of bin Laden or by the stepped-up drone assassination missions in Pakistan. Egypt was becoming Islamist. Syria was a bloody mess. Iran was on the way to becoming nuclear. Obama had won America no more good will in the Middle East than had prior presidents. In other words, the administration’s entire experience in Libya — and in most of the Middle East in general — has been a bright and shining lie. — Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc. |
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
HumanTrafficking.org
South Korea - Human Trafficking
The Situation
The Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking of men and women subjected to forced prostitution and forced labor.
Source South Korean women and girls are trafficked for forced prostitution abroad in destinations including the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Many of these victims are coerced by traffickers to whom they owe debts.1
Destination
Some men and women from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Colombia, Mongolia, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and other Southeast Asian countries are recruited for employment or marriage in the ROK, and subsequently subjected to forced prostitution or forced labor. Some victims are recruited by false promises of employment in the entertainment industry and are later coerced into exploitative conditions. Some women from less developed countries are recruited for marriage to South Korean men through international marriage brokers, but are then subjected to forced prostitution or forced labor upon arrival in South Korea.2
Migrant workers who travel to the ROK for employment may incur thousands of dollars in debts, contributing to their vulnerability to debt bondage and commonly face conditions indicative of forced labor. There are approximately 500,000 low-skilled migrant workers in the ROK from elsewhere in Asia, many of whom are working under the Employment Permit System (EPS). While protections are implemented for EPS workers, observers claim the EPS assigns excessive power to employers over workers’ mobility and legal status, making them vulnerable to trafficking.3
Read complete article by clicking on South Korea above.
Holiday Sale 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
One Free Korea - Updates
 |
| Go here to view interesting recent articles on the Northk Korean political prison system and other articles of interest. |
HOLIDAY SALE 2012
Unlikely Dissidents in N. Korea? Lankov
Unlikely Dissidents in N. Korea?
By Andrei Lankov
Over the last decade or so, we have been sometimes told stories about the North Korean underground, its resistance groups and the samizdat that they publish inside the reclusive nation.
These stories appear to be relatively plausible ― after all, we know North Korea is a brutal dictatorship, and many such dictatorships in the past met some internal resistance (or such is what history textbooks usually say).
The present author, though, is rather skeptical about such claims. While some small resistance groups are likely to exist, the North Korean state is yet to face anything reminiscent of the anti-communist, pro-democracy movement which developed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in the 1960s and ‘70s.
This docility is easy to explain, a fashionable French intellectual once said, “where there is power, there is resistance.” For him, power’s repressive qualities were probably expressed through denying him the right to participate in a talk show on a government TV channel. But when we are talking about real repressive power, it can easily stifle all resistance ― not forever, to be sure, but perhaps for decades.
The history of Stalinism provides us with very valuable examples of what truly repressive regimes can do. During the 20 years of High Stalinism (roughly 1933-53) in the Soviet Union, a few million people were slaughtered by the regime, but there were precious little signs of organized resistance of any sort.
In recent decades, Russian historians spent much time going through archives, but they have managed to discover but a handful of tiny resistance groups, all of which were politically inconsequential. There was no underground publishing either.
The resistance to Stalin’s regime existed only on the margins, in areas which (like the Baltic states, and the Lvov region in modern-day Ukraine) had recently been absorbed and where the government bureaucracy was still weak and popular fear did not have deep roots.
This docility can easily be explained: the Soviet people believed correctly that any attempt to challenge the government would be discovered almost immediately and all participants, as well as a number of their family members and friends would be killed, or dispatched to prison camps for a long period of time. However much the regime was disliked, resistance was seen as hopeless, futile and foolhardy.
A famous Russian poetess once told a story about her parents. Her mother was a committed Communist Party activist happily married to a military officer. The woman was shocked when her husband of many years, upon hearing about the death of Stalin in 1953, drank himself drunk in celebration and then proceeded to thank God (who he had hitherto denied the existence of) for Stalin’s death. She asked her husband why he had never expressed such sentiments in front of her before, to which he replied, “How could I have known that I could trust you?” Such is life under truly highly repressive regimes like Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Dissidents and dissenters appeared in the Soviet Union only after the regime underwent a dramatic liberalization in the mid-1950s. It is not widely understood in the West, but in the years 1953-64, the number of political prisoners decreased a thousand times, while the chances of being executed for non-violent anti-government activity dropped to virtually zero. In this new situation, protest remained risky but ceased to be suicidal, so first dissenters appeared and uncensored samizdat publications began to be copied in small but growing numbers.
North Korea still remains a highly repressive society. The ratio of political prisoners to the overall population is roughly the same as that of the Soviet Union at the time of Stalin’s death in 1953. One has to admit that the North Korean government has become markedly less repressive in the last couple of decades but it still remains the world’s most oppressive state. Therefore, one should not expect the existence of a significant political underground in such a country, and samizdat still remains a thing of the future.
Of course some caveats are necessary. For example, it seems that there are a number of small religious groups clandestinely operating within North Korea ― a catacomb church, if you like. A number of North Koreans use mobile phones to maintain contact with foreign and South Korean mass media, briefing journalists on the situation inside the country. There are known cases when politically subversive materials have been deliberately smuggled into and then copied in North Korea ― the advent of the digital era has helped a lot in this regard.
But the existence of such activities should not be overstated. Things will change sooner or later, especially if the North Korean elite shows itself to be unable or unwilling to control the situation with sufficient force. However, it seems that the time is not yet ripe for North Korean dissidents and underground publishers.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
 |
Over the last decade or so, we have been sometimes told stories about the North Korean underground, its resistance groups and the samizdat that they publish inside the reclusive nation.
These stories appear to be relatively plausible ― after all, we know North Korea is a brutal dictatorship, and many such dictatorships in the past met some internal resistance (or such is what history textbooks usually say).
The present author, though, is rather skeptical about such claims. While some small resistance groups are likely to exist, the North Korean state is yet to face anything reminiscent of the anti-communist, pro-democracy movement which developed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in the 1960s and ‘70s.
This docility is easy to explain, a fashionable French intellectual once said, “where there is power, there is resistance.” For him, power’s repressive qualities were probably expressed through denying him the right to participate in a talk show on a government TV channel. But when we are talking about real repressive power, it can easily stifle all resistance ― not forever, to be sure, but perhaps for decades.
The history of Stalinism provides us with very valuable examples of what truly repressive regimes can do. During the 20 years of High Stalinism (roughly 1933-53) in the Soviet Union, a few million people were slaughtered by the regime, but there were precious little signs of organized resistance of any sort.
In recent decades, Russian historians spent much time going through archives, but they have managed to discover but a handful of tiny resistance groups, all of which were politically inconsequential. There was no underground publishing either.
The resistance to Stalin’s regime existed only on the margins, in areas which (like the Baltic states, and the Lvov region in modern-day Ukraine) had recently been absorbed and where the government bureaucracy was still weak and popular fear did not have deep roots.
This docility can easily be explained: the Soviet people believed correctly that any attempt to challenge the government would be discovered almost immediately and all participants, as well as a number of their family members and friends would be killed, or dispatched to prison camps for a long period of time. However much the regime was disliked, resistance was seen as hopeless, futile and foolhardy.
A famous Russian poetess once told a story about her parents. Her mother was a committed Communist Party activist happily married to a military officer. The woman was shocked when her husband of many years, upon hearing about the death of Stalin in 1953, drank himself drunk in celebration and then proceeded to thank God (who he had hitherto denied the existence of) for Stalin’s death. She asked her husband why he had never expressed such sentiments in front of her before, to which he replied, “How could I have known that I could trust you?” Such is life under truly highly repressive regimes like Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Dissidents and dissenters appeared in the Soviet Union only after the regime underwent a dramatic liberalization in the mid-1950s. It is not widely understood in the West, but in the years 1953-64, the number of political prisoners decreased a thousand times, while the chances of being executed for non-violent anti-government activity dropped to virtually zero. In this new situation, protest remained risky but ceased to be suicidal, so first dissenters appeared and uncensored samizdat publications began to be copied in small but growing numbers.
North Korea still remains a highly repressive society. The ratio of political prisoners to the overall population is roughly the same as that of the Soviet Union at the time of Stalin’s death in 1953. One has to admit that the North Korean government has become markedly less repressive in the last couple of decades but it still remains the world’s most oppressive state. Therefore, one should not expect the existence of a significant political underground in such a country, and samizdat still remains a thing of the future.
Of course some caveats are necessary. For example, it seems that there are a number of small religious groups clandestinely operating within North Korea ― a catacomb church, if you like. A number of North Koreans use mobile phones to maintain contact with foreign and South Korean mass media, briefing journalists on the situation inside the country. There are known cases when politically subversive materials have been deliberately smuggled into and then copied in North Korea ― the advent of the digital era has helped a lot in this regard.
But the existence of such activities should not be overstated. Things will change sooner or later, especially if the North Korean elite shows itself to be unable or unwilling to control the situation with sufficient force. However, it seems that the time is not yet ripe for North Korean dissidents and underground publishers.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Holiday Sale for Fall 2012
Saudi Columnist: Is Israel Really the Enemy?
Greetings, found this article in Commentary. My interest in reposting here is that the underlying premise has always been my argument when discussing the Middle East.
Saudi Columnist: Is Israel Really the Enemy?: pThe indefatigable Tom Gross flagged my attention to this column in Saudi Arabia’s English-language newspaper, the Arab News: On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli [...]/p
Saudi Columnist: Is Israel Really the Enemy?: pThe indefatigable Tom Gross flagged my attention to this column in Saudi Arabia’s English-language newspaper, the Arab News: On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli [...]/p
Great Leap Backward.
China's Leadership, Gordon Chang
As April passed into May this year, one electrifying story replaced another in the consciousness of the Chinese public. The first involved a ruthless official struggling for control of the ruling Communist Party and the second a solitary activist who, without this being his stated intention, challenged the one-party state from below. Soon, the two narratives began to merge, posing a threat of the first order to China’s increasingly fragile political system. (read full article by clicking link above.)
As April passed into May this year, one electrifying story replaced another in the consciousness of the Chinese public. The first involved a ruthless official struggling for control of the ruling Communist Party and the second a solitary activist who, without this being his stated intention, challenged the one-party state from below. Soon, the two narratives began to merge, posing a threat of the first order to China’s increasingly fragile political system. (read full article by clicking link above.)
Monday, October 1, 2012
Agent Orange Veteran Needs Information
Greetings.
I am posting a recent email from a Korean Service Veteran who needs your help. After the post you will find an email address to contact the KSV who has writen looking for information.
I am posting a recent email from a Korean Service Veteran who needs your help. After the post you will find an email address to contact the KSV who has writen looking for information.
Dear Tim,
Hope this finds you and your family well? I have been called by the VA to have my medical for my claims in the middle of October, The pictures I have show I was in the DMZ mountain range, I'm trying to get more info on the first invasion tunnel on November.15th 1974, when we were put on alert. As I was on duty those days. I was trying to explain to the military, that at that time we only had 2 shot gun shells for the shot gun , and 9 rounds in the clip for the M-16, when on guard , that had we been invaded. Our ass would be grass. Any information you could add would be helpful in my claim, as you were working with headquarters and had more inside information.
Thanks Greg
Contact at - gregoryonorato@aol.com
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