Saturday, September 06, 2003



The above picture is apparently the North Koreans celebrating the re-election of Kim Jong-Il as party leader. Cathartidae mentions this issue if you are interested. I just put liked the picture.

"The Greatest Threat in the World to Regional and Global Peace"
Former president Jimmy Carter and has again voiced his ideas about the North Korean crisis. Travelling to Japan and China with the Carter Organisation. The article says that
Carter accused the Bush administration of aggravating tensions between the United States and North Korea, which he called a "paranoid nation."
I think its a little rich to say that US has aggravated tensions against a country which has pulled out of the non-prolifternation agreement, kicked out inspectors, re-started its nuke program and during a meeting to work out what it would take to get them to destroy their nuke program they threatened to test their nukes.

While I do agree with the premise that both sides were responsible for failing to carry out the Agreed Framework I am inclined to think that even if you congratulated the Norths for building nukes and sent them your own best scientists to help out they would accuse US of sending spys to dismantle the country and could thereby be accused of 'aggravating tensions'.

Unemployed Bum
Today is the last day of work. I showed up with a box of doughnuts and muffins as a treat for my office and went around all the offices and shake hands with all my ex-colleagues. The Director-General gave me a lovely traditional Korean box for a going away gift. This has been the longest job I have ever held down so its a little strange to be leaving but at the same time, the time is right to move on and the job was only ever supposed to serve as experience to take me onto the next stage. Hopefully the unemployed bum stage will only be temporary.

Currently reading:

"Hell" by Yasutaka Tsutsui