North Korea is to cut all relations with South Korea, Pyongyang’s official news agency reports. KCNA said the North was also expelling all South Korean workers from a jointly-run factory north of the border.
The move comes after an international report blamed North Korea for sinking a South Korean warship.
Pyongyang denies it torpedoed the Cheonan near the inter-Korean maritime border on 26 March, killing 46 sailors. South Korea says it plans to refer North Korea to the UN Security Council, and is seeking a unified international response to the incident.
Seoul announced on Sunday it was ending trade relations with the North in response to the sinking. It has also resumed propaganda broadcasts to the North, playing radio programmes that will soon to be broadcast via border loudspeakers.
Tuesday’s KCNA reports announcing the severing of all ties – including communications – said the North was also banning South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.
- BBC News
32 Comments
Your comic timing and placement is impeccable!
Apparently part of the propaganda will be that obesity is a problem in South Korea.
the North was also banning South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.
Aw gee that’ll hurt.
I really wish someone in NK would grow a brain and some guts and shoot Kim Jong-il. It’s the only way.
obesity is a problem in South Korea.
Yep that’s one thing the North Koreans have found a solution to. No argument there.
Mindy: good grief but also… pure comedy gold.
Sorry to go off topic but can I invite some legal types to comment on this:-
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2010/05/28/more-judges-less-lawyers/
Terje, LE addressed most of these issues here:
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/09/02/has-the-time-come-for-the-common-law-to-be-scrapped/
IIRC, Evan Whitton even turned up in the comments!
The rough rule of thumb in my case is as follows:
1. The inquisitorial system is better in some criminal matters, especially sexual assaults.
2. The adversarial system seems to be better in commercial matters (something Hayek, trained in both systems, noticed).
3. The focus in the inquisitorial system on (a) truth and (b) the confession as ‘Queen of Proofs’ can lead to a derogation from procedural rights. Torture hung around a lot longer in Roman law systems than it did in Common law systems; common lawyers have always surrounded confessions all about with fever trees.
4. The Court of Star Chamber, England’s only inquisitorial court, was initially prized because it was quick and cheap; in the end it was despised (and abolished) because it rode rough-shod over procedural rights.
5. The Romans, who came up with the importance of truth and an emphasis on the importance of the confession still had an adversarial system (like the Common law). They were the first civilisation to make rape a crime against the person and to introduce widespread prohibitions on the use of torture.
6. Scotland’s system, with its origins in Roman law but its use of an adversarial system is closest to the ancient model. A serious case can be made that the ‘Scots compromise’ represents the best of both worlds.
Thanks. I knew that you would have a considered view on this. Now I’ll go read the article by LE.
While quickly scrolling past, I wondered why Yoko Ono was in the military fatigues; Kim Jong Il really needs a new barber.
AJ – hilarious!!!!
I would not be too hasty in blaming North Korea.This could also be a MOSSAD operation.They have the technology and the motivation to pull off such a crime.How does North Korea benefit from sinking a South Korean navel ship?
AJ – First the Beatles, now the Koreas!
Nick Ferrett If you take the time to see this http://www.ae911truth.org/ you will see the scientific proof by scientists ,engineers and architects that 911 was an inside job,then the veil of your ignorance will take the smirk off your arrogance.
Alan Hart a well repected BBC journalist has just come out and laid the blame of 911 at the Zionists.Israel is now in a corner and will seek war on many fronts as a means of escape.Israel has over 200 nukes and the means to deliver them.Crawl out of your comfort zone and smell the reality.
I think Nick was talking to AJ, who made the original hairdressing joke.
Spot on SL (he says, arrogantly smirking).
Nice one, Arjay. It’s not often you encounter someone even more paranoid than the North Koreans.
Ah, that explains a lot. Apologies to regular readers for allowing a 911-truther through – it won’t happen again. Arjay this is neither a 911 nor an Israel thread. You’re barred mate. Time wasters are not welcome.
On first read, I thought that the Mossad suggestion was a joke. Sheez.
What could the North Koreans gain by sinking a South Korean ship? Um, heard of the Korean War, where North Korea invaded South Korea?!? It’s called a civil war, and it’s been simmering along under the surface despite the cessation of hostilities 50 years ago. *shakes head*
LE!
What have I done now?
Careful Patrick, you’ll get barred.
As for Arjay, do you have to ban him? Isn’t he a fairly regular contributor? You haven’t found a need to ban him before now? And no, I’m not just saying this to prevent MOSSAD coming for me in the night and making it look like Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth got me.
Have to say, I looked at the website, couldn’t understand it. I’m a reasonably smart guy but I couldn’t make head or tail of it.
Should’a gone to Specsavers…
Nick, antisemitism deserves being banned, full stop. Antisemitism is not magically cured of being vile by being liberally soaked in anti-zionism. Arjay’s a complete tool imho.
Our regular commenter is AJ, not Arjay, as far as I recall.
Here are my thoughts about anti-semitism and conspiracy theories, FWIW.
As for Kim Jong Il – I believe he also wears high heeled shoes. Actually he looks to me like he should be in Eurovision song contest – that strange mixture of militarism and androgyny which often comes out in ex-Communist bloc country entries!
Anti-semitism is a nasty little area, although I hadn’t picked that up first time round. Looking at it again I suppose you’re probably right. A lot of the conspiracy theories end up coming back to Jewish bankers etc.
And having thought about it, I guess the principles of freedom of speech don’t require that the blogmasters (is that the correct term) give any old dingbat a stage. They can go and build their own stage rather than free-ride off people who have put a lot of work into developing a decent blog like this one.
I just always react badly to someone being silenced. Plus, it only adds to their paranoia.
I still haven’t figured out why the collapse of the World Trade Centre (whoever caused it) proves that the Jews sunk a South Korean sub.
I’d never ban anti-semitism per se across the whole of society, for the simple reason that I support robust free speech protections (viz the US First Amendment), but I do think private bodies (like this blog) have a right to control things that are said and done on their property (I used to call this ‘doing the libertarian property dance’).
Over the years, we’ve learnt that threads on certain topics are just red rags, and result in the most puerile comments, even from people who in other circumstances are quite sane.
In our experience, three of the biggies are:
1. Climate change
2. Anything to do with Israel/Palestine
3. Abortion
Although I have no doubt there are others that we haven’t stumbled across for whatever reason. Since none of us are scientists (DEM and I have reasonable stats knowledge, but that’s not the same thing), we’ve made a general across-blog decision not to post climate change threads. My personal view is that as threads lengthen, the probability that they will turn into an AGW stoush approaches 1.
When it comes to Israel/Palestine, we’ve found the blog is quickly colonised by rabid anti-semites and loons who seem incapable of telling the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli foreign policy and the widespread (in the Arab world) view that all the Jews should be driven into the Med (along with lots of toxic conspiracy theory sprinkles of the 9/11 ‘Troofer’ variety on top of the anti-semitic shit sandwich). We still have the occasional Israel/Palestine thread (which is risky), but we are very, very careful to keep the anti-semites under control.
We have a similar rule with abortion: we only comment when there is something newsworthy (eg, the murder of Dr Tiller) and monitor the threads accordingly, as we’ve found that they are soon colonised by people whose anti-abortion attitudes are a cover for rabid misogyny and a desire to police female sexuality. In fact, the Tiller thread became so toxic it actually had the effect of making me (and several other regulars on this blog) more pro-abortion than we had been previously. I used to support late-term restrictions; I now no longer do.
All that aside, we immediately remove any comments that could be construed as defamatory; we’re well aware of the ruling in Gutnick and have no desire to fall foul of it on a blog.
What could the North Koreans gain by sinking a South Korean ship?
Asking the question presupposes that they do things for a reason. I reckon North Korea’s a bit like Luther from The Rogues in The Warriors:
No reason! I just like doing things like that.
1. Climate change
2. Anything to do with Israel/Palestine
3. Abortion
And fractional reserve at blogs where males and economics degrees are disproportionately present.
To clarify, I only meant banned from the blog. I personally wouldn’t read a blog where antisemitism was welcome. But I too support very robust free speech protections, just as much as I support private property
I agree that I don’t pay much attention to fractional reserve comments!!
OK, but we can all agree that whatever she did to the Beatles, Yoko didn’t sink that sub.
Yoko didn’t do anything to the Beatles. John Lennon just decided that having got him out of one stifling marriage she might help him out of another one.
.
She didn’t even know who they were. She’s the World Heavyweight Champion of Haughty Art Wankers.
If the Beatles were stifling Lennon then that is one more reason to like them.
She is. My husband and I were watching a doco where Yoko was “helping” John Lennon record an album, and by God she was annoying.