The China Law Blog offers a reason to avoid Russian produce; “…on the trip from the airport to downtown Vlad, I was all eyes and what I noticed were countless abandoned factories, many of them with huge holding ponds filled with what were no doubt toxic chemicals… And what typically surrounded these ponds now? Tomato farms…” What will we find near North Korean fields at some point in the future?
In an article at the Asia Times, Riddles and enigmas from North Korea, Andrei Lankov speculates on how governments get intelligence from inside North Korea, and lists some of the other valuable sources of information from the country.
- #From Mainichi and via the Chosun Bimbo, "In his first reported appearance following news of his hospitalization, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lost his temper while watching a college soccer match, denouncing several players' long hair as "disgusting," according to a source close to the North Korean government. The outburst was followed by a nationwide ban on long hair for men." We'll all be watching the next soccer match to see if it's so.
- #Outward Bound, an international non-profit outdoor education program, is offering fully funded (including transportation to/from sites) outdoor adventure excursions to all OEF/OIF veterans. It doesn't matter what your current military status is (active, inactive, discharged, retired) - you're eligible to attend as long as you deployed in support of OEF/OIF combat operations while in the military.
- #Via AFP: “South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime. . . Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in 1997.” His travel restriction was due to 10 years of pro-North ROK leadership, now over.
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