Did any of you watch CNN's "Larry King Live" on the US journalists detained in North Korea yesterday night? Bill Richardson said he hopes the women are not being used as 'bargaining chips' for the nuculear standoff, while sister, Lisa Ling, urged the two governments to separate the two issues. Will this case force the US to engage in talks with Pyongyang? While North Korea prepares to launch yet another long-range missile, we can only wait to receive the outcome of the trial in two days...
Amid these nuclear & missile tests and uncertainty over the fate of these journalists, Kim Jong-un, the youngest son, has been officially named successor: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8078324.stm. Does this signal the imminent ending of these successive tests? (as some have cited that these tests may have been conducted to justify power for the successor). In any case, after its explicit disregard of international law and rejection of further six-party talks, "North Korea is on a road to nowhere" in the words of Aidan Foster-Carter, BBC Korea analyst.
On another related, but different note, if this posting's title isn't familiar, the National Geographic has a riveting tv-series called "Locked Up Abroad." Each week, the show features a past or sometimes current prisoner, locked up in prison in a faraway land because of some mistake or accident. While a lot of the episodes focus on those involved in drug trafficking, there a few episodes that are gripping such as stories of the safari guide and his tour group in Uganda kidnapped by Hutu rebels until some of their release at the Congo border and a British couple, who ran an orphanage in Chechnya, kidnapped by Chechnyan rebels for 14 months.
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