Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...called North Korea a charter member of the axis of evil. This morning, the President gave Kim Jong Il one of the diplomatic plums the North Korean dictator has most sought: removal from both the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and the Trading with the Enemy Act. In short, Pyongyang is now off what one State Department official called "the ultimate bad guy list." Dropping North Korea from the terrorism roster will take effect 45 days after the Administration formally informs Congress of its decision...
...willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and other rogue nations "without preconditions." Said McCain: "Americans ought to be concerned about the judgment of a presidential candidate who says he's ready to talk, in person and without conditions, with tyrants from Havana to Pyongyang, but hasn't traveled to Iraq to meet with General Petraeus, and see for himself the progress he threatens to reverse...
...better lives. But assessing how governments will conduct themselves is not like the common law, where precedents accrete until they solidify into doctrine that shapes future conduct. The dreadful famine in North Korea in the 1990s, for instance, did nothing to change the outlook of the brutal regime in Pyongyang...
...needs to import a significant amount of fertilizer or it risks another bad harvest this year, further compounding the deepening food problem. (After the North's nuclear test in the fall of 2006, South Korea stopped supplying fertilizer, which had been a key component of its aid to Pyongyang). Among the steps Pyongyang urgently needs to take now, Noland and others believe, are to conclude negotiations for expanded aid from the World Food Program. (Pyongyang sharply curtailed the activities of the organization following a rare bumper crop in the North three years ago.) Kim also has to swallow his pride...
Seoh Jae-jean, Director for NK Studies Division at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification, also believes that Pyongyang's recent "crackdown on black markets" has exacerbated shortages. "If they leave people alone, people will find ways to survive with agility and flexibility. The government's attempt to control the private market is making matters worse," he says. But leaving people in his own country alone has never been Kim Jong Il's strong suit. Letting them suffer and, in the past, starve to death, has been his inclination. Will 2008 be different? With Stephen Kim/Seoul