Word: ils
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...economy limping a while longer. Kim has been more pliable of late: at six-party talks in Beijing late last month, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear facilities and disclose the scope of its nuclear program by the end of the year. Yet history counsels caution. Kim Jong Il has proven a master manipulator of Seoul's optimists, raising hopes of eventual reunification just to extract economic concessions and buy more time for his hermetic Stalinist fiefdom. "You can imagine a scenario in which South Korea offers this big carrot and North Korea simply pockets it and retreats back...
...rulers of the world's pariah states are usually recognizable personalities. Kim Jong Il with his electrified hairdo, Muammar Gaddafi with his aviator sunglasses, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with his penchant for windbreakers. But Burma? No one dictator comes to mind, only a coterie of faceless generals - 12, if one wants to be exact. Last week, in the junta's latest wave of repression, soldiers fired on thousands of peaceful protesters who had dared challenge its iron-fisted rule, killing dozens, according to initial U.N. estimates. But the question remains: Who exactly are the brutal generals behind one of the world...
...North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun prepared to conclude their three days of meetings Wednesday, a breakthrough at the ongoing six-party talks between the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. in Beijing dominated the headlines instead: North Korea agreed to disable its flagship nuclear reactor, disclose all its nuclear facilities by year's end and allow U.S. inspectors to make sure the job was done. In return, Washington agreed to consider taking North Korea off its list of countries that sponsor terrorism, one of Pyongyang's key demands...
...pledge to attend the controversial Airang Games, a massive synchronized gymnastic performance often used as a propaganda tool that glorifies the regime. Kim also appeared - to put it charitably - a little distant in Roh's company, a stark contrast to the first summit seven years ago when Kim Jong Il welcomed former president Kim Dae Jung wholeheartedly. "Roh definitely got a less emotional reception," says Paik Hak Soon, a North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute...
...surprisingly, the joint agreement also failed to make any mention of thorny issues such as the fate of both South Korean prisoners of war and abductees in North Korea. Perhaps Kim Jong Il will address those topics if he fulfills an earlier promise to visit the South's capital. But it's not likely...