Word: pyongyang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Rogue nations. Given his belief in dialogue, Obama has vowed to talk with America's enemies, or at least ideological opponents. In Asia, that means primarily North Korea. Obama should step up direct negotiations with Pyongyang. By talking one-on-one with Kim Jong Il, he would telegraph that the U.S. will no longer outsource North Korea policy - demonstrating to any future North Korean leadership that, if they play nice, Washington will woo them, and to Beijing that, if Kim falls, the U.S. will not stand by and let the North become a Chinese satellite...
...North Korea threatened it would shut the inter-Korean border within weeks. South Korea's Unification Ministry said North Korea, which has tolerated similar propaganda leaflets being floated in past years, made it clear that it would not accept messages saying the Dear Leader's days are numbered. Now, Pyongyang is blaming Seoul for failing to keep its activists in check...
...governments on radio broadcasts, loudspeakers across the demilitarized zone and on so-called 'paper bombs' - bundles of leaflets the two countries fired at each other. Then, in 2004, an agreement was reached to end the assaults. But since President Lee Myung Bak took office in February, relations with Pyongyang have again deteriorated. In July, when a South Korean housewife was shot during a trip to North Korea's Mount Geumgang, a symbol of reconciliation, South Korea suspended tours there and hasn't allowed its citizens to visit since...
...Seoul is upset over the possibility that Pyongyang might shut the border, crippling a highly symbolic four-year-old joint industrial complex between North Korean and South Korean companies. Since South Korean laws protect freedom of speech, there's little the government can do to legally stop activists like Choi. That doesn't mean they don't try. "We cannot stop this activity," said one official at the Unification Ministry's public information office. "But we are making efforts." The Ministry would not outline how it has been trying to ground the balloons, but Choi says government officials have visited...
...have been musical ambassadors before. The Boston Symphony Orchestra played the Soviet Union in 1956, but the Cold War dragged on for decades. The Philadelphia Orchestra played Beijing in 1973, yet formal relations between the two nations weren't established until 1979. Even if you watch the NYP's Pyongyang adventure in slo-mo, you won't spot Kim Jong Il making nuclear concessions in a balcony suite while seduced by the universal language of music (he didn't attend). But at least you will see, at the concert's close, rows of North Koreans quietly moved by a poignant...