Clinton in Pyongyang not quite Nixon in China.

international | arts and media | other press

Tuesday August 04, 2009 16:18

by Susan Boyle

(possible "ex President Carter in N Korea")...long way to go get 2 people released.

Those of us whose holidays or vacations are generally spent eating healthy salad, considering the holistic benefits of poverty which reduce alcohol consumption & welcome soft slumber - are often left with only two things to do.

The sensible : decorate the gaff.
The frustrating : read about other people's holidays.

Oh, if I had enough for a decent roller and emulsion I'd have enough for a six pack & oriental massage on my local beach. So instead I offer to the reader a miscellany of links covering former President Clinton's surprise day trip to North Korea.

The English guardian offers us a video of Mr Clinton alighting from a private aircraft to get a holaha bouquet of flowers from a young North Korean girl who knows America is failing because its workers do not strive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/04/bill-clinto...ng-il

The New York Times offers us a photo of Mr Clinton looking like a waxwork model sitting next to the glorious leader Kim Jong-il.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/asia/05korea.ht...=1&hp

The NYTimes fills the readers in on the background to this curious daytrip, for in the search for exotic holiday snaps & food you might get a nasty after-taste from - surely Pyongyang isn't chique or cool?

Television footage from Pyongyang showed Mr. Clinton being greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, the vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers. The imprisoned journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.” The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea. The visit by Mr. Clinton, even if officially a private effort, was clearly undertaken with the blessings of the White House, and marked his first diplomatic mission abroad on behalf of the administration. Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

ah it's a working holiday then.

probably go down on expenses too.

Because the White House have told Al Jazeera that until the "mission is accomplished" they're not going to comment on it. I suppose that's why neither the South Korean or Japanese media have bothered to take off their swine flu masks and write an article.

last link to more info from the NYT mediablog on the 2 American travellers. Remember kids if your travel agent goes bankrupt while you're on holliers, or lays off your tour guide, or you wake up minus one kidney - the diplomatic and consular missions of the republic of Ireland do not have funds to help you.

Please note it is also an idea to bring a good interpreter with you, sometimes a phrasebook is not enough "A later claim in [in North Korean media] — that the two women admitted at their trial that they crossed the border into North Korea for the purpose of “faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it” — suggests that the authorities were actually concerned that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee might shoot video in the country, not work on an animated film there. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/north-korea...isit/

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Comments (4 of 4)

North Korea's glorious leader pardons two US spies.

by Susan Boyle - (iosaf)

Tue Aug 04, 2009 21:39

Two U.S. Journalists in N. Korea Are Said to Be Pardoned ::

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, pardoned two jailed
American journalists, the official KCNA news agency has
reported, according to Reuters. The report came after former
President Bill Clinton met with the reclusive and ailing Mr.
Kim in Pyonyang on Tuesday.

Mr. Kim granted "a special pardon," KCNA said in a statement ::

America is weak because its workers do not strive

Now before the expert analysts get to deputise their August substitutions in commercial media and even the blogosphere ((you too can blog for cash just carry zango banner adverts!)) let us wonder where this leaves the new Obama / Clinton White House's relationship with the Korean peninsula region, its issues & whether or not this is good news for our own Sean Garland and the fake 100$ bills are going to be forgotten about now.

But before all that let's consider what the issues really are :-

Far from being the usual clichéd nuclear arms thing, it really is about stemming the flow of squillions of refugees and would be migrants from entering the People's Republic of China. Releasing two hostage spies is paltry compared to the hordes of brainwashed Koreans who would like to cross over into China and not only get a bite to eat but fry everyone's brain in Stalinist repitition spewing forth about their eternal leader, glorious revolution and heavenly satelites.

Sure they'd set Chinese capitalism back two generations.

Bill Clinton can go home now and stick his fingers down his throat in his private jet which has probably in its time served rendition and coke or smack shipments & cuddle up to his pillow in a bedroom adjoining Hilary and know he's achieved something "Team America" just couldn't do during the Bush years.

He has pleased the Red Chinese.

George Bush senior, was of course the first US diplomat and envoy sent to Red China before even the USA would recognise it and long before Nixon had thought to ship out all the blue collar workers' jobs to the place.

But now not only do we see the debut of the Obama / Clinton & Clinton "team America" - we see a new phase in Chinese power.

"China is prosperous because her workers never question their fortune in happiness and harmony"

America is weak because its workers do not strive

forgiveness

by pardoner's tale

Tue Aug 04, 2009 23:38

To err is human: to forgive divine. Just as the North Koreans are to pardon the misdemeanours of two wandering US journalists, so too many years back did the American establishment pardon Clinton's executive misdemeanours with a comely intern in a room adjoining the oval office.

Proper Titles.

by Pete

Thu Aug 06, 2009 16:08

"The New York Times offers us a photo of Mr Clinton looking like a waxwork model sitting next to the glorious leader Kim Jong-il."

His official title is not "Glorous Leader".
Kim Jong-il's official title is "DEAR Leader".

His father Kim il-Sung's title was "GREAT leader".
This can also be translated as "Eternal Leader" or "Supreme Leader."

Kim il-sung is STILL the president,even though he has been dead since 1994.
His title is also "Eternal President of the Republic".

North Korea is now such an impoverished basket case we can presume that when Kim Jong-il's son takes over HIS title will be:

"THE..........Badly off, bankrupt, beggared, beggarly, broke, destitute, dirt poor, down-and-out, empty-handed, flat broke, fortuneless, hard up, impecunious, impoverished, in need, in want, indigent, insolvent, meager, moneyless, necessitous, needy, pauperized, penniless, penurious, pinched, poverty-stricken, reduced, stone broke, strapped, suffering, underprivileged, unprosperous.......LEADER."

And also:

"THE......Atomic-Bomb Totting........LEADER."

.

"Even piles of manure in the fields are fuming out smoke of hatred"

Thu Aug 06, 2009 16:55

Last June (2009) the successor to the dear leader was named. North Korean officials were reportedly told to support Kim Jong-un after the North's 25 May nuclear test. Kim Jong-un is one of three known children of Kim Jong Il by his third concubine Ko Yung Hui. Little Kim has a brother Kim Jong Chu and an elder half brother Kim Jong Nam. Dear leader Kim's current wife has the endearing name of Kim OK by the way. Here's a BBC article complete with simplified family tree : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8078324.stm & the wiki on Kim Yong Un - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un

as for the title of this comment it is a sample of the English translations of the stuff that comes out of North Korea. the US state department has an interesting list of languages on the basis of how difficult they are to learn, speak and translate. Korean is the most difficult language for English speakers. Michael Harrold became the first British citizen to be employed by the North Korean government in Pyongyang in 1987. His job was to assist the North Koreans with their rhetoric.

Michael Harrold wrote a book about his seven years in Pyongyang, entitled Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea.

"One very senior translator once asked me whether using the title Great Leader every time we referred to Kim Il-sung was perhaps too repetitive and limited its impact, and I agreed," [he told the BBC in a recent interview] ..." So, for a time, the term was occasionally dropped from North Korea's English language news reports, much to the excitement of foreign journalists. Speculation began to run rife, Mr Harrold recalled, that the leader was losing his grip on power. "I think they were somewhat disappointed when I told them it was simply a translation issue,"

read article : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8143047.stm

Ireland is strong because her workers follow the eternal leader's kindly and patient guidance to the most proper production & fulfilled quotas on corn & crab paste

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Clinton in Pyongyang not quite Nixon in China.

Comments (4 of 4)