**Written by Doug Powers Last week the UN General Assembly held a moment of silence for North Korea’s Kim Jong Il (it’s over, you can start talking again, Jimmy ). On Wednesday, in spite of the dictator’s abhorrent human rights record, the UN went a step further : (Reuters) – U.N. offices around the world lowered their flags to half-staff to mark the funeral of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Wednesday in a move the world body said was routine but which prompted objections from some human rights activists. In New York, where the flag outside U.N. headquarters was lowered, spokesman Eduardo del Buey said the gesture had been requested by Pyongyang’s U.N. mission but was normal for the funeral of any head of state. “It’s a matter of protocol,” he said. North Korea is a full member of the 193-nation organization. But UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy group, said the U.N. human rights message was “at serious risk of being blurred today” because of the honoring of Kim, who died on December 17. “Today should be a time for the U.N. to show solidarity with the victims – the millions of North Koreans brutalized by Kim’s merciless policies of starvation, torture and oppression – and not with the perpetrator,” the group’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, said in a statement. Maybe one of the things about Kim Jong Il’s tenure that appealed to the appease-o-crats and Goracle-worshipping carbon credit dealers at the UN was his refusal to go overboard on the use of planet-destroying electricity: As for the funeral procession, the crowd lining the streets of Pyongyang was stricken with mandated grief, not unlike many at the protocol-rich, common sense-deprived United Nations: **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
See more here:
UN Lowers Flags to Half Staff for Kim Jong Il Funeral
AP – The Obama administration’s cautious response to the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il reflects unease and uncertainty about the leadership transition in the reclusive country that has confounded U.S. presidents since Harry S. Truman.
Read the original:
Analysis: Caution mutes US response to NKorea
(AP)
North Korean golfing legend (and oppressive dictator) Kim Jong Il passed away over the weekend . He was just 69 years old, but laid claim to golfing skills that would make greats like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Walter Hagen weep with envy. Back in 1994, the man set a record that is likely to stand forever. Playing his first round of golf on a regulation, PGA-style, 18-hole course, Kim Jong Il scored 11 holes-in-one while he carded a stunning 38 UNDER par. Seventeen bodyguards were on hand to witness and attest the score. Regarding the 11 holes-in-one on a single round, that feat will only be repeated on putt-putt golf courses as most regulation-sized courses typically have only four holes short enough to reasonably be considered candidates for scoring an ace. Sadly, the golfing world outside of North Korea has yet to accept this round of golf as legitimate. Kim Jong Il had many habits that the Western world might consider curious. He was reported to only eat rice of a standard size and shape, consumed record amounts of Hennessey cognac, and allegedly kidnapped filmmakers. The Herald Sun has more on the oddities of KJI. Immortalized in the puppet-acted film “Team America” (2004) – K-J-L is seen here singing “I’m So Ronrey.” ( content warning – that pesky “F” words makes it’s way into the clip… but only once ) For more traditional views of the deceased dictator, please read the Blaze report on his death.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) released a statement Monday regarding the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il . He said he believes Kim has left this world to join some friends. “The world is a better place now that Kim Jong-il is no longer in it. For more than six decades, people in North Korea have been consigned to lives of dire poverty and cruel oppression under one of the most totalitarian regimes the world has ever known. I can only express satisfaction that the Dear Leader is joining the likes of Qaddafi , Bin Laden , Hitler , and Stalin in a warm corner of hell.” Read the full statement here . h/t Politico
Here is the original post:
Sen. McCain says Kim Jong Il will be warm this winter
AP – The Obama administration called for a peaceful and stable leadership transition in North Korea on Monday but made few demands on a nuclear-armed nation known for its unpredictability, poverty and hostility to the United States.
See the rest here:
Clinton urges stable transition in NKorea
(AP)
At Los Angeles Times , ” North Korea says leader Kim Jong Il has died .” And at Hot Air, ” Breaking: Kim Jong-Il dead .” The obvious concern is with the transition. The Times reports that Kim’s third son, Kim Jong Eun, will take power in a pre-arranged transition. I’ll update with more information. At the video is footage from a Pyongyang military parade in September. You’ll see Kim Jong Eun at the clip, on the reviewing stand to the far left of his father. Added: Some reactions are coming in: * Althouse, ” Kim Jong-il… I didn’t even know he was ill .” * Atlas Shrugs, ” The bastard is dead. If he hadn’t starved his people to death, they would have the strength to dance in the streets .” * Blazing Cat Fur, ” Not Castro But Close…Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ Dictator, Dead at 70 .” * Doug Powers (at Michelle’s), ” North Korea’s Kim Jong Il Dies .” * Doug Ross, ” May He Bake on a Spit for Eternity .” * Lisa Graas, ” “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il Dead at 69 .” * Neo-Neocon, ” Kim Jong Il Dies .” * The Other McCain, ” Kim Jong’s Illness Finally Takes Him .” * Weasel Zippers, ” Hell Has A New Occupant: North Korea’s Kim Jong Ill Dead… ” Also, the New York Times is now reporting, ” Kim Jong-il, North Korean Leader, Dies: 69-Year-Old Was Ill Since Reported “: Mr. Kim is believed to have been born in Siberia in 1941, when his father, Kim Il-sung, was in exile in the Soviet Union. But in North Korea’s official accounts, he was born in 1942, in a cabin, Abe Lincoln-like. The cabin was in a secret camp of anti-Japanese guerrillas his father commanded on Mount Paektu, a holy piece of land in Korean mythology. The event, the official Korean Central News Agency would often say, was accompanied by the appearance of a bright star in the sky and a double-rainbow that touched the earth. Little is known of his upbringing, apart from the official statement that he graduated in 1964 from Kim Il-sung University, one of the many institutions, buildings and monuments built to commemorate his father. At the time, North Korea was enmeshed in the cold war, and the younger Kim watched many crises unfold from close up, including North Korea’s seizure of the Pueblo, an American spy ship, in 1968. He appeared episodically at state events, rarely speaking. When he did, he revealed that he had a high-pitched voice and little of his father’s easygoing charisma. The world did not hear his voice until 1992 when he issued a one-liner while overlooking an enormous Armed Forces Day parade: “Glory to the heroic People’s Army!” In his youth and middle age, there were stories about his playboy lifestyle. There were tales of lavish meals at a time his country was starving — his cook wrote a book after leaving the country — and his wavy hair and lifted heels, along with a passion for top-label liquor, made him the butt of jokes. There was also speculation that he had been involved in the 1983 bombing of a South Korean political delegation in Burma, and that he had known of, and perhaps had ordered, the kidnapping of Japanese citizens. Nothing was ever proved. Washington put North Korea on its list of state sponsors of terrorism after North Korean agents planted a bomb that blew up a South Korean passenger jet in 1987 — under instructions from Mr. Kim, according to one of the agents, who was caught alive. Mr. Kim campaigned for power relentlessly. He bowed to his father at the front porch each morning and offered to put the shoes on the father’s feet long before he was elected to the Politburo, at age 32, in 1974, said Hwang Jang-yop, a former North Korean Workers’ Party secretary who had been a key aide for the Kim regime before his defection to Seoul in 1997. “At an early age, Kim Jong-il mastered the mechanics of power,” Mr. Hwang said. It was not until 1993, as the existence of the Yongbyon nuclear plant and North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions became publicly known, that Mr. Kim appeared to be his father’s undisputed successor. That year, he became head of the National Defense Commission, the North’s most powerful agency, in charge of the military.
See the original post here:
North Korea’s Kim Jong Il Has Died
