...Kim Jong-il fosse à cerimónia de abertura dos Jogos Olímpicos em Pequim?

Joining a host of world leaders at the Olympics must be a better starting point for both Kim and his regime than anything else.

This Sunday Open Doors and other members of the Global Justice Prayer Network are partnering to sponsor the Worldwide Day of Fasting and Prayer for North Korea. For the past six years North Korea has been No. 1 on Open Doors' World Watch List of countries where believers suffer the worst persecution.

July 27 is the 55th anniversary of the Korean War armistice and creation of the Demilitarized Zone, the border which divides North and South Korea and the most heavily armed border in the world.

Open Doors is asking churches, ministries and individuals to pray on behalf of those suffering in North Korea.

Please pray:
• The estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians who are imprisoned for their faith; one in four believers has been imprisoned.
• Underground believers will keep faith while under scrutiny.
• The message of the Gospel will impact the hearts of Kim Jong Il and other North Korean leaders.
• China will stop sending back North Korean refugees hiding in China before the start of the Olympics.

You can also sign up for our North Korea Prayer Campaign by clicking HERE.

The United States has proposed a mechanism for verifying North Korea's claims about its nuclear past, Washington's top envoy to the nuclear talks said Monday.

The proposal was made in Beijing last week, and the U.S. is waiting for a response from Pyongyang, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters.

After giving North Korea the proposal "we ... asked them to come back with specific comments," said Hill, who will assist U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in talks between the foreign ministers of the six nations involved in the nuclear negotiations - China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S.

On Tuesday, South Korea's main nuclear envoy confirmed the proposal was made to the North.

"The ball is actually in the North Korean court because they already received the draft of verification protocol," Kim Sook told reporters after talks with Hill. Details of the proposal were not known.

Hill said the six-party talks, to be held Wednesday on the sidelines of a regional security conference in Singapore, are likely to discuss the verification issue.

North Korea submitted a long-delayed list of its nuclear programs last month, though it omitted details about nuclear weapons, alleged uranium enrichment program and possible nuclear proliferation.

In return, Washington announced it would remove the North from its terrorism blacklist and relaxed some economic sanctions on the communist nation. That led Pyongyang to blow up the cooling tower at its main nuclear reactor, to demonstrate its commitment to abandoning nuclear weapons.

Six-nation nuclear negotiations were then held in Beijing less than two weeks ago - for the first time in nine months - and produced an agreement on principles for proceeding with verification of North Korea's claims. One of the principles says the procedure should involve interviews with North Korean nuclear experts.

Hill has said earlier that the U.S. wants to reach agreement with the North on a specific verification protocol by early September. Last week's proposal offered to the North is believed to be the first draft of the envisioned protocol.

"We've always maintained that verification is essential," Hill said Monday. "We hope to make some progress on that very soon."

Wednesday's session would mark the highest-level meeting in the six-country negotiations, which began in 2003 with the aim of convincing North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.

It would also be the first time Rice has met North Korea's top diplomat.

China, host of the nuclear talks, praised the planned meeting as a good chance to progress on denuclearization.

"This is the first time that the high-level delegations to the six-party talks have held an informal meeting," said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi after talks with his Japanese counterpart. "I think it will be very good for advancing the agenda of the talks."

Still, Hill played down the meeting's significance.

"I would not exaggerate its importance," he said. "I think it's an opportunity for people to get together and exchange some thoughts informally."

Article by Jae-Soon Chang
iNPLACENEWS

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is an eccentric leader indeed; kidnapping and collecting Japanese women to fulfill sexual fantasies (rumor?), writing operas, alcohol addiction (expensive cognacs) and bombings are some of his preferred hobbies. While there is a cult of personality around his image in N. Korea, he’s a strong target for satire outside his own world.

Probably ashamed of his humble origins (guerrilla camp somewhere in Soviet Union – 1941) the “dear leader” made sure that in official biographies stated something else (Baekdu Mountain - under a double rainbow and a magical star - in Japanese Korea - 1942).

Dictator Kim Il Sung (his father and founder of North Korea), headed the Korean Worker's Party (KWP) and the country since independence in 1948.

After World War II and the Japanese occupation in the peninsula, Korea was divided into a communist north and a south under American influence. By 1950 a war was started between the two Koreas, with China supporting the north and U.S.A. the south. 2 millions died until it ended 3 years later. The isolation from North Korea starts around this time, so they start searching for the self-sufficiency of their country. Their economy grew until the 70’s but they could simply not compete without private and/or international investments.

Kim began his political career in 1971 through the same party and around 1980 his father named him his successor.

The country he runs since 1994 (since his father died...) is considered by many the most oppressed in the whole world, certainly being the most centralized. Devastated by hunger (10 million currently starve to death) and isolation not only from the outside world, but also because there are many families who have been separated for more than 50 years and in 2000, only 100 north Koreans were allowed to see their relatives from the south side.

His father started the whole thing up, but Kim is a far worse man than his father ever was. As a cruel dictator, he has good capabilities: runs an autocratic system with slave camps, killing thousands of people (or ordering it...) and after all that, makes people believe he’s the right man for the job.

One of his biggest self-defence weapons is the fact he knows North Korea has no oil whatsoever and he plays very well accordingly. And who knows what secret arrangements he might have with other world leaders?

Nevertheless, his standing army is the fourth largest in the world and he continues with nuclear testing, which he believes is imperative, also a good manoeuvre to keep the military happy.

The New York Times reported that John Bolton called the move a sign of "the Administration's complete intellectual collapse." This is exceptionally ironic as I think that most students of diplomacy, including the vast majority of conservative international relations experts, would consider these moves as signs of intellectual life.

The stance of not being involved in negotiations until after one has won the concessions one seeks is an interesting position to come from people who pride themselves on being bold, because it seems so cowardly. It is as if they don't believe that the US can hold its own in negotiations, but rather will be run roughshod over by the negotiators of Kim Jong Il or Ahmedinejad if they even enter into negotiations. An admittedly cynical way to view this neocon stance is that it is a way to ensure that progress not made. Some of these individuals may have been mortified when the Reagan Administration began negotiating with Gorbachev, and Gorbachev began giving way the farm. I would hate to think that there are people shaping policy who are influenced by stock positions in defense firms, but I find this fear of negotiations hard to explain. Perhaps we have not been cautious enough in following Eisenhower's admonition to guard against the influence of the Military-Industrial Complex in politics.

As the title of this post states, "you can't win if you don't play." International diplomacy is a game of strategy, and, as such, refusing to move does not create game-winning conditions but rather stagnation.  By "winning" I am just talking about achieving one's objective at a cost that is acceptable (at or below ones reservation price.) This is obviously counter to the common definition in which there is no possible overlap of acceptable outcomes, such that one side's "win" is inherently the other side's "loss." The point is, the opposition has no incentive to consider ones demands if one does not have a seat at the table. They can maintain their existing trajectory. After all, with no one at the table, there is no ability to offer anything for which they might find it worth altering their course. There is no company that would do business with a firm that said: "we won't negotiate a contract until you conceded to all these things that we want first." If a business did say such a thing, one might expect they had little to offer.

News that a South Korean woman had been shot dead during a tourist trip to the North has marred the apparent softening of Mr Lee's hardline stance.

It also came on day two of six-party talks on North Korea in Beijing.

The negociations gather representatives from the US, China, Russia and Japan as well as the two Koreas, which are looking for an agreement on ways the North's recent declaration of its nuclear activities can be verified.

President Lee's previous hardline stance towards the South's communist northern neighbour had left Seoul sidelined in these talks, said correspondents.

Besides, all that, the president has been shaken by protests and crises at home. His approval ratings have declined steeply in the five months of his term.

‘Traitor’

"Full dialogue between the two Koreas must resume", the president told the National Assembly in Seoul, which after weeks of delay is finally convening, amid a domestic political crisis over US beef imports.

His government was "willing to engage in serious consultations on how to implement the inter-Korean agreements made so far", he said, including summit pacts reached in 2000 and 2007 by his predecessors.

President Lee took office in February and drew accusations from the North saying he was a “traitor”, and US "sycophant", when he turned away from the Sunshine Policy of engagement of past presidents.

And correspondents say that the North cut off dialogue when South Korea’s president suggested Seoul would review previous summit accords signed by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The president also appeared on Friday to backtrack on earlier pledges to link the provision of economic aid to North Korea to progress on the nuclear issue.

He said that Seoul "is ready to co-operate in efforts to help relieve the food shortage in the North as well as alleviate the pain of the North Korean people".

In the same time, in Beijing, multilateral talks continues over North Korea’s nuclear programme.

‘Good start’

After the North, following a month of delay, finally submitted an account of its nuclear activities, the talks began again on Thursday.

Christopher Hill, US negotiator, said Thursday's discussions of steps required to verify the information submitted by North Korea had got off to a "good start".

Officials said that delivering the energy aid promised to the North in response to its co-operation on the nuclear front will also be included in the discussions. The North complains it has received only 40% of the total aid agreed.

In Seoul, president Lee’s legislative programme has been paralysed by a weeks-long boycott by opposition deputies. But as parliament finally convened, Mr Lee’s new pledges came.

During the session, he said he would press ahead with his agenda, and submit "about 200 bills concerning deregulation".

According to correspondents, Mr Lee’s plans to deregulate the economy, introduce tax cuts and reforms pension systems could meet significant opposition.

the north korea trip is a go.  they have my money, and i spent an hour after work compiling all of the paperwork and information they need on greg and me.  500,000 won later, i'm just waiting for the confirmation e-mail saying that they got all of my paperwork and that i need to be at the bus stop at 6 am.

the bus for this trip leaves at 6.  from seoul.  seoul is, at best, a 1 hour train ride away from daejeon.  on thursday, i will be going to incheon to pick up greg, coming back home, working all day friday, and then picking up greg from the apartment and getting on another train to go back to seoul.  we won't even be able to go out that night, as we have to be up so early.

how many people do YOU know that have been to north korea?  that's what i thought.  it's going to be worth it.

the older koreans aren't too keen on me going to this trip.  my boss laughed at me and jokingly chastised me for giving my money to kim jong il.  believe me, this is an ethical point i grappled with.  while the company doing the tour is making some profit, a large proportion of this money is going to north korea.  they didn't just open their borders to tightly controlled tourism for the hell of it.  call me selfish, but i just can't turn down the chance to visit a country that my current country of residence is technically at war with.  i also know that getting an inside look at what's going on over there and subjecting myself to the treatment of a communist government, even if only for a day, is going to make me more aware of the world around me.  there's my rationalization.

the younger koreans i work with all want to go.  brandy was going to go, but her mother has forbidden her from going.  lydia overheard us today and wants to come along as well.  i'm not sure if lydia has a passport or not, but it would be utterly hilarious if she were there.  see, lydia speaks almost no english.  every time i interact with her, a hilarious performance of miming, slow talking, confused looks, laughing, and the like ensues.  we'll see what happens.

i'm excited about this trip.  i'm also excited about the rest of greg's visit.  i thought i was going to have the 28th through august 1st off, but it's looking like i might have to work on the 31st.  that's not that big of a deal, but it's kind of pain when trying to entertain and travel.  oh well.

my whole day has centered on making north korea plans.  other than that, today has been completely unremarkable.

This led me to some further thinking and reasoning on the subject, and I developed a list (not all-inclusive by any means) of 10 things that truly aggravate me, but yet I still can't fully explain why. Here they are:

1. Sports bottles. I don't like 'em. I don't want nothing complicated. I just want to drink the doggone drink. Hey, maybe that's the reason!

2. Mohawks and mullets. The people that wear these styles are not even bad people...I'm telling you, it's a mystery.

3. When magazine articles or web articles use the word "baby" as if it's the name of the baby. You know, like "Make sure to wash Baby's chest and put Baby's shirt on gently. You don't want Baby to start screaming." Let's just say "the baby". Again, these things don't have to make sense, they just have to trigger some type of aggravation in me.

4. Any pictures of the Woodstock festival from 1969. Something creepy about them.

5. John Cusack movies. Of any kind.

6. Even worse, Tim Allen movies. Of absolutely ANY kind.

7. Local TV commercials.

8. Any news footage featuring Kim Jong Il.

9. The use of the word "dentifrice".

10. Blue foods of any kind (jello, popsicles, M & M's, etc.)

Few days ago I had an idea to make Celebrity SEX weblog on wordpress because everyone was asking me and now this is finished!

You have to see it!!! I have found Kim Kardashian Nude Video in the Internet!

If this video not a Fake then I think it will be a real scandal!!

Britney Spears is the most beautiful girl on this planet and this video is a proof of that!

Britney Spears Sex Video below! Even if this is a not real F***ing it's really Hot and Sexy!

Attention! Adult content! only 18+!!!

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is downplaying speculation in the media he may be headed to North Korea for a short visit. Speaking in his native South Korea, the U.N. chief did call on North Korea to improve its human rights, and urged his home country to contribute more to U.N. operations.

Speaking at a Seoul press conference Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said North Korea is not on his itinerary on this Asia trip.

Ban said he has expressed a willingness, in principle, to travel to the North but that no concrete plans had been made.

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, arrived here Thursday for his first visit home since taking the top job at the U.N. more than a year ago.

Ban said he is concerned about human rights in the North.

"North Korea should also take necessary measures to improve the human rights situation ... there are still many areas in the world whose human rights are not properly protected and promoted, and even abused. This is a very undesirable and unacceptable situation."

Earlier in the day, Ban told South Korean lawmakers he feels "ashamed" at the relatively low amount of aid and peacekeeping personnel South Korea contributes to U.N. operations.

A U.S.-led United Nations coalition repelled North Korean and Chinese forces to the current North-South border after North Korea invaded the South in 1950. The United Nations is still active in monitoring the armistice along that border.

Still, Ban says South Korea is at the bottom among rich nations in providing funds for less developed countries, and calls upon the South to "repay its debt" to the international community.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

Here is the thing, North Korea has long been involved in a nuclear program.  The real purpose for that program was to create a problem for its neighbors and Western powers (mainly the U.S.) that might allow for incentives (food) to be given as compensation for its tearing down that very program.  Meaning, the ruse here was a little game of looming disaster.  But, the reality is that this has gone on for years and has not really been a moot point.  Japan and South Korea called for intervention, but everybody knew North Korea was desperate.  They made it clear they were willing to dismantle as long as the price was right.  It was their sort of backwards way of propping up their failing Communist Regime for another few years.  The seemingly out of nowhere announcement on North Korea's change of heart comes amidst aggressive Israeli military rhetoric, continued Iranian defiance, and swiftly spiking oil prices.  However, what the world did not seem to notice when days ago, North Korea disclosed its Plutonium Stockpile, and President Bush lifted some of its sanctions and decided to take the Northies off the dubious list of state sponsors of terrorism, that the real play here was to show Iran that it too could be so "fortunate."  The Bush administration's dream would be to have Iran begrudgingly agree to give up its current Nuclear enrichment program and come to the bargaining table on a number of key issues.

But the wild card in all this are the Israelis, I just can’t convince those guys to back off with the war talk. I called Ehud Olmert last weekend again, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere as usual.

Well, to start off with the Israelis like their stupid little power games. You know when I called somebody, the White House operator always calls and then say: “Hold for the President” and I come on line, it’s efficient, after all, I have a lot of things to do. But the Israelis would rather make me hold on line, so they’d say something dumb like “Please hold for the Prime Minister.” But the White House operators are pros, instead of calling the regular line, they would have the Prime Minister’s cell phone, so they call directly and say something like, hey it’s your nephew Ben, I need some money, just kidding, “Hold for the President.”

Anyway, after the usual power play, I get on line and Olmert is there, and I say, hey listen Ehud. Could you like back down on the provocation and not flex all this muscle on the Iran issue. You know, the Europeans are enacting new sanctions, and both Sarkozy and Merkel are on board trying to contain the Iranians, you guys just aren’t helping with the situation. Chill out, I’ve looked into Ahmadinejad’s soul, well, on TV through his eyes, and let me tell you, he is one smart cookie. Even if he gets nukes, it will never be used against Israel, not even through Hamas or Hezbollah or those other nutjobs. Trust me, this soul thing works and I know the guy. So back off on beating the war drums.

Olmert of course immediately denies this. He has no plans to attack Iran, the exercise is just a normal thing. I cut him off right there, I got company guys in with Mossad, Shin Bet, and the Israeli general staff, cut the BS, I know they have commandos in Iran already, and even guys in the facilities, and the IAF is just waiting on the go word. I tell him again, don’t think about attacking.

Olmert is like, but Mr. President, you don’t live with the threat like we do, Hamas shoot rockets at us every day, even now. And frankly, your track record on looking into somebody’s soul isn’t very good, look at Putin, that isn’t turning out so well. Now he is getting on my nerves. I go, please, Ehud, back off the war talk, and don’t frigging attack Iran, the war shit is gonna drive up the price of oil for no good reason and hurt a lot of good folks. Trust me on this one ok? I got it. Besides, the Iranians know if Israel ever get hit with WMDs, you’re gonna send those nuke tipped Jerichos on their way.

Olmert of course denies this, but Mr. President, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We can only defend ourselves conventionally, we cannot afford to let the Iranians get nuclear weapons, just like we couldn’t let the Iraqis do it. Besides, we need to do this before Obama gets into office. I tell him, hey, do you know that Barack in Hebrew means lightning, Obama will look out for you guys, don’t worry about it.

Olmert tells me, you know, it’s just a name, during the Yom Kippur War, there was a Barak brigade on the Golan Heights, and they mostly got overrun by the Syrians. So, a name means nothing to me. Now, I’m really pissed, this bozo is trying to play me as a fool, he disses one of our leaders, and even worse, he pretends like we didn’t do anything for these guys during the 1973 war. They don’t respect Condi every time she goes over and try to work things out with the Palestinians, we give them billions in aid, and all they do is ask for more.

So, I lay down the law, I tell him to quit screwing around with the situation since it’ll fuck up everything we’re doing on the diplomatic front. Look at how Lebanon turned out, attacking Iran will be like ten times worse. So, I say, if you launch your air strikes, I know you have to either go through Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, may be even the Red Sea. But if you do this, you’re gonna either run into our Air Force or Navy. And you know, the IAF still has just those antiquated F-15s and F-16s. So, you put up your air strike, I know you’re gonna need tanker support, and what happens when oops, all the tankers mysteriously gets shot down by unknown aircraft from beyond visual range. Then your precious IAF is gonna run out of fuel on the way back, they’re all gonna crash in the sea or some frigging desert, and you’ll look like an even bigger idiot than when you attacked Hezbollah to get your soldiers back.

Now Olmert gets rattled, Mr. President, you cannot talk to us this way. We are a sovereign nation, we’ve been your best ally in the region, you cannot dictate to us on what to do, especially when it comes to our national survival, we have a history of blah blah blah, and then he rants on for another ten minutes. I didn’t pay attention since I heard it all before. When Olmert finally quiets down, I tell him, look, you’re riding on Sharon’s coat tails, this is too big for you, don’t screw things up even more than you already have. So, last time, don’t threaten Iran any more and don’t even think about attacking them… ok? BYE… Then I hang up before I had to listen to him rant any more. They never say anything meaningful anyway, but I think I got the message across.

Sometimes, the Israelis are the worst kind of allies we can have…. Why the hell don’t they just trust us, we have been bailing them out since 1946. Now they are just giving fodder for the Iranian nutjobs for no good reason, and driving up oil even more than I wanted to go up. Jeez, think I need to go biking in Crawford this weekend.

What would happen if all the continents in the world sank, leaving only Japan above water? With its tongue stuck firmly in its cheek that's exactly what this film explores. Now the only superpower in the world, Japan is able to dictate the law. English as the global language? Not any more. Whale meat back on the menu? You bet. This is a world where 12.5 million non-Japanese refugees are homeless and Schwarzenegger is reduced to performing tricks in bars for money. This hilarious satire pokes fun at global superpowers, western traditions and foreign immigrants. And remember, it could happen!

Trailer

Yasutaka Tsutsui

Yasutaka Tsutsui is a Japanese novelist, science fiction author, and actor born in Osaka. Along with Shinichi Hoshi and Sakyo Komatsu, he is one of the most famous science fiction writers in Japan. One of his first novel, "Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo", as been adapted many times in Japan, as films, TV-series, song, manga books... and lately as a popular animated film, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" which got a worldwide release in 2006.

The screenplay of "The World Sinks Except Japan" was based on the short novel of the same name written by Yasutaka Tsutsui, which itself was a parody of the hugely popular science-fiction novel Nippon Chinbotsu (Japan Sinks) by Sakyo Komatsu.

G.A.T. - Gov Efforts To Promote a peaceful Japan

The Return of Crazy Kim Jong Il

Looks like the endorsements for Obama keep rolling in! Guess who is endorsing him now? Let's see... oh, lookee there! It's Castro! http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/05/26/castro-obama-cuba-markets-face-cx_ra_0526autofacescan05.html Turns out, if everyone's favorite tyrant, Fidel Castro, had a vote in this election he would be voting for Obama. Well, there's a shocker!

And just last week, grade-A madman, Kim Jong Il, endorsed our main man, Obama, too.  http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_nkorea0256_06_19.asp

Those endorsements pretty much speak for themselves. I mean, if he is good enough for the world's communists and crazies, then shouldn't he be good enough to run the democracy of the most powerful country in the world? As far as I am concerned, the election is just a formality. Can't we just make Obama the king or something? Or vote him the Messiah? If you believe the main stream media, Obama is pretty much Jesus, himself.

It's not as if any of us should care about anything that Cuba's former President has to say (unless it happens to be "Goodbye cruel world") but, am I the only one who is just a little bit concerned by this? I guess you could argue that this is good news for Obama because it shows that other countries are eager to work with Obama. The part that scares me, however, it that Obama is eager to work with them. We have all heard it said that Obama wants to "sit down" with Iran. Is that supposed to be a good thing? Is it supposed to make me feel good that Obama doesn't feel that it is necessary to visit our soldiers in Iraq, but he wants to go hug it out with Iran? He wants to bring validity to Iran's government? Great! Let's elect a dude who won't visit our soldiers but has no problem having tea with terrorists! Let's elect a guy who just figured out where the Senate men's room was 6 months ago. Why bother? Why don't we just elect Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn or one of those other Hollywood political geniuses? Maybe Obama can bring them along to Iran and they can all teach the world to sing.

We are talking about terrorists. They don't care if you are black, white, Democrat or Republican. If you are American or Israeli they want you dead. Who does not understand that? They kill Americans. They KILL AMERICANS and the man who wants to be the President of the United States wants to go over and have talks with them! This is not Russia in the 80's, Mr. Obama. This is not a civilized government with a sane leader that we merely disagree with! This is terrorism and they believe it is a Holy War. There is no negotiating with Charles Manson and there is no negotiating with Iran.

I am not saying that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer. I am not even saying that he is an idiot. I am just saying that he better hope that this election doesn't come down to experience or foreign policy knowledge or anything of any relevance to the country. He better hope it comes down to who has the biggest rock star receptions and who is the dreamiest candidate. Because, that is a competition he could actually win.

I anxiously await Obama's endorsement from Hugo Chavez... and CBS news.

• is it incredibly odd for Pres. Bush to declare that North Korea is no longer part of the axis of evil? Imploding a cooling tower and sending out some paper work hardly makes me want to run out and give Kim Jong-Il a big hug.
• has James Dobson come too late to the party to be useful in this election?
• is John McCain's campaign starting to look like Fred Thompson's (ie, not really trying)?
• did people only care about the human rights violations in Tibet when the Olympic Torch was going around the world?
• (speaking of China), did the world's attention span for the earthquake victims in China and the cyclone victims in Myanmar last only about 10 minutes?
• does it feel like if either Obama or McCain wins in November, that our freedoms are in great danger?
• are there people that really believe that Hillary and Obama have "kissed and made up"? I don't think either Senator does anything without cold, self-promoting, political calculations.
• does the media promoting McCain's photo-op with Billy and Franklin Graham as a "nod to evangelicals" make you laugh right out loud? (not because of the Grahams, who I respect greatly, but because I'm not so stupid to think that McCain's heart has changed from the days he referred to evangelical leaders as "agents of intolerance" just because he had his picture taken with the Grahams)

Oh my ...

OneMom

The North's actions set the stage for another round in six-party talks, scheduled to take place next week in Beijing.

It seems, now, that it was that blast that propelled forward, under Chinese pressure, six-party talks that included dialogue with the US, South Korea, Japan and Russia. Now that North Korea seems more co-operative on the international stage, it is right that President Bush starts to lift some of the political and economic sanctions against the country and, by removing North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The destruction of the Yongbyon tower was highly symbolic. North Korea's dealings with the world should now take a sharp-turn for the better.

However, there are probably some exacting facts and analysis to be made from the debris. For example, just how much nuclear plutonium did Mr. Kim produce? Such an analysis will likely be important for other rogue states, like Iran, who remain determined in seeing their objectives through. An exacting tally of North Korea's nuclear weapons, and their eventual dismantling, is still some way off.

North Korea has pledged that it is not spreading its nuclear expertise and specialisation to others, but there are serious doubts about that. Anecdotal aerial photography, released by the US, shows a nuclear reactor like the one at Yongbyon being built covertly in Syria, with North Korean assistance. That reactor, though, was destroyed by Israeli military air strikes last September.

It is believed that the US has 45-days to look long and hard at the documents and declarations handed over by Mr. Kim. This is the length of time it actually takes in removing a country from its terror lists. Whilst the destruction of the cooling tower is welcome, the problem in North Korea is far from being solved.

© Mark Dowe 2008: all rights protected

References:

1. Guardian Editorial, "Evil no more"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/27/korea.georgebush?commentpage=1&commentposted=1

2.  "Atoms for peace"

... “North Korea's commitment to dismantle its nuclear programme proves that George Bush's hardline approach was a failure".

Authur: Aaron

In a sign of goodwill and a heartbeat of democracy, North Korea blew up its most symbolic image of its nuclear weapons program on Friday.  The 60-foot cooling tower at the main atomic reactor was destroyed after North Korean officials declared on Thursday that their nuclear program would be dismantled.

Although the demolition does not mean that a complete halt has taken place, it is a sign of goodwill from the North Koreans that they are going to commit to this act of disablement and rid their country of nuclear weapons.

This is just another demonstration of how, if a country is willing to work with the U.S., peaceful diplomatic relations will work.  However if a country like Iran is bent on destroying our country, “talks” just won’t cut it.

It takes two to tango. We just need a partner.