Learning More – New details have emerged about the U.S. Soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians. The Telegraph reports the accused has hired attorney John Henry Browne, who is best known for his involvement in the …
North Korea
Kim Jong Un Gets Thumbs-Up from North Koreans in Japan
When Kim Jong Un was declared heir apparent of North Korea in December, Choe Kwan Ik was probably one of the few people in Tokyo who knew who the kid was. As Bill Powell writes in this week’s story “Meet Kim Jong Un,” (available …
“This is not a national security case, it’s a sad case of the South Korean authorities’ complete failure to understand sarcasm.”
What the World Learns from What Obama Didn’t Say
Strategic decision-makers in the Middle East, Europe and Asia who stayed up late to catch President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday may have initially wondered why they had bothered. In sharp contrast to the Bush era when three quarters of a typical SOTU address covered matters of national security and the projection …
Writing for Commies: 7 Tips from Kim Jong Il’s 1986 Treatise on Literature
Want to write like the Dear Leader? Here’s how.
Kim Jong Il’s Life: Myth, Mystery and Mayhem
In the West he was mocked for his bouffant, his pudgy belly and his platform shoes. Former U.S. President George W. Bush called him a pygmy. He was even parodied in the parody movie Team America: World Police as a dictator who …
Kim’s Death: Jitters in Northeast Asia
On Monday afternoon, a black-clad newscaster in Pyongyang, sitting in front of a bucolic backdrop of pine trees and snow-capped mountains, was barely able to get out the news. North Korea’s long-time leader Kim Jong Il, she …
North Korean State Press Writes About Occupy Wall Street
Usually when faced with a report from Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, one braces for outlandish propaganda-speak and inflammatory rhetoric. This is the news service, after all, that said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looked “like a pensioner going shopping.” But KCNA’s press release …
Who Will Chip in to Help Six Million Hungry North Koreans?
It’s safe to say that prioritizing — at least in a way the rest of the world can relate to — has never been one of the hallmarks of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. While the nation’s International Olympic Committee was lobbying last week to co-host the 2018 Winter Olympics with the South, North Korean citizens were scouring the …
A.Q. Khan’s Revelations: Did Pakistan’s Army Sell Nukes to North Korea?
Abdul Qadeer Khan is tired of being a scapegoat. The controversial father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb shared hi-tech secrets and equipment with a host of rogue regimes — including North Korea and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya — earning himself international notoriety and a 2005 TIME magazine cover that dubbed him “the Merchant of …
Where’s a Deposed Dictator to Go? Five Top Tyrant Retirement Homes for Gaddafi
With NATO ever more confident of, and explicit about, deposing Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan leader losing even some of his longest-standing supporters in Africa, the question increasingly becomes not whether he will go but, assuming he survives, where. Here’s five possible retirement homes for the 69-year-old.
1. Zimbabwe. Even if …
Not Coming to Theaters Near You: The China Menace
To be clear, I’d be the last person to endorse anything that whips up fear of the proverbial “Other.” But MGM’s recent about-face on a remake of Red Dawn, a 1984 film pitting the agents of a Soviet takeover against a gang of plucky American teens (led by Patrick Swayze and a 19-year-old Charlie Sheen), smacks of cowardice. As my …
Global Briefing Mar. 16, 2011: Conservatives, Closed Doors and Cash Cows
Japan’s Pain —Bill Powell has the latest on the nuclear situation; Michael Schuman weighs in on the global economic impact of the disaster; LightBox showcases pictures of the aftermath.
Bad Times in Bahrain — In a dispatch form Manama, Karen Leigh shows how the country is caught between Iran and Saudi Arabia; On Global Spin, Aryn …