Search Results: Pyongyang
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 04 September 2017
8 Comments
In Australia, the reactions have been far from mild. Malcolm Turnbull was less than reassuring, suggesting the un-testable notion that the Korean peninsula was closer to conflict than at any time since the Korean War. The converse, if counter-intuitive argument can be made: that the peninsula is being made safe from war through this aggressive pursuit of nuclear arms. This is not a view deemed acceptable to officials in Washington and Canberra but is entirely realistic given Pyongyang's aims.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 10 July 2017
6 Comments
The DPRK's options in terms of defending itself against the US and its allies were always limited, leaving the way open for an assortment of pantomimes. The arsenal of the threat became normal: that, for instance, of incinerating Seoul, the possibility that Tokyo or Alaska might be targets. The show seems to be moving beyond the next boundary of what is deemed acceptable, largely because Trump deemed it impossible Pyongyang would have a viable ICBM option that could reach the US.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 19 April 2017
6 Comments
A truculent rogue in the White House fumes at an upstart rogue in Pyongyang, both fumbling away in the kindergarten of blunder and realpolitik. How do they measure up in the stakes of rogue behaviour? Even conservative commentators such as Samuel Huntington noted in 1999 that the US is 'in the eyes of many countries ... becoming a rogue superpower'. International law, for the bomb-heavy bully, is a convenient moral reference when needed, but is avoided like a leper when it becomes an impediment.
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AUSTRALIA
- Duncan MacLaren
- 16 April 2013
9 Comments
We seem to think it is okay to publish pictures of Kim Jong-un with Mickey Mouse ears or refer to his late father Kim Jong-il as a 'pygmy'. Insulting a proud people, no matter how weird we think the regime is, does not win friends. The west would do well to remember this if it is to engage the regime in meaningful dialogue.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Benedict Coleridge
- 22 March 2013
10 Comments
Our political leaders are suffering from the disenchantment of the electorate. Canberra and its political hackery has less appeal now than it's had for a long time. It might be worth listening to Bob Hawke, who recently unwittingly echoed the seniment of French philosopher Simone Weil's essay 'On the Abolition of All Political Parties'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 21 December 2011
2 Comments
He presided over a starving nation, created an unstable nuclear state, and terrified his neighbours. But the death of Kim Jong-il should cause neither terror nor concern as much as the experts would have it.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Duncan MacLaren
- 25 November 2010
5 Comments
I have two lasting memories of North Korea. The first was the obstetrics unit of a hospital; it looked like a medieval torture chamber. The second was orphanages where malnourished 14-year-olds looked only eight. The latest escalation of tension can only mean such sights will become more frequent.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 19 June 2008
2 Comments
Continuing the work of the defunct Canberra Commission, Kevin Rudd's Nuclear Non-Proliferations and Disarmament Commission is re-inventing a wheel that never worked. Preventing freelance scientists from following their career wanderlust is the real challenge in any post-nuclear framework.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joseph Camilleri
- 30 October 2006
8 Comments
The North Korean regime is more likely to be loosened from its present grip on power by the slow but persistent attempts to change the economic and psychological landscape inside North Korea, than by the external application of brute force.
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AUSTRALIA
- Gavan McCormack
- 04 July 2006
Encouraging the North–South relationship offers the best hope for North Korea and the world
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AUSTRALIA
Will America take over the world? Not necessarily, says David Glanz.
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