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Economists have a disconcerting habit of studying their own models for so long that they lose track of reality; one such tendency is to focus on “efficiency” to the exclusion of all other values in human relations. Political scientists do the same thing with concepts like “regime preservation.” But understanding that all professions suffer from [...]
Since February we have been following North Korean-related aspects of the Libya saga.Unfortunately, the recent death of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi will not bring this sorry tale to a close. So far, North Korean media has not made any direct comments about Gaddafi’s death, perhaps because of uncertainty about how to “interpret” events in the Middle East [...]
KCNA has announced that elections for local People’s Committees will be held 24 July. According to the North Korean constitution such elections are to be held every four years, and insofar as the last elections were in June 2007, these would be more or less according to schedule. This could be interpreted as a sign [...]
We’ve been writing a lot about the aid issue; David Straub, in particular, has made the straightforward utilitarian argument that in a world of limited resources, North Korea has no special privilege, and aid may be better allocated elsewhere. Now the US Congress has cut the budget for foreign food aid assistance, tightening those constraints [...]
As reported by the Daily NK, North Korean arms (rockets, heavy machine guns etc.—see photos) have turned up in Libya, some in crates labeled “parts of bulldozer.” Such exports are prohibited under UN Security Council Resolution 1874, hence the need for bulldozers equipped with cannons. The international community has had some success in interdicting such [...]
We noted surprise in an earlier post of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s fulsome embrace of the Libya model for North Korea. Now the North Koreans have provided a predictably full-throated response: “The U.S. launched a military attack on Libya in collusion with some Western countries on March 19. It openly interfered in the [...]
One of the more notable things that transpired in Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on North Korean provocations was Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s embrace of the Libyan denuclearization outcome. While it is entirely understandable that the US government is relieved that the Libyan meltdown is not occurring in a nuclear weapons state, [...]
Joking aside (we all know we can design cooler robots), Su Park at The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea alerted us to a Korean language article in one of the main South Korean newspapers, JoongAng Ilbo, that around 200 North Korean workers are still on Libyan soil and are not exiting the country [...]
