I bet you're thinking the same thing I am after reading about Kimland in the travelogue.
Who in their right mind would try to walk in from the streets, past state intelligence monitors, up to the 2nd floor, into a foreign office, and access the material, without state permission?
"We can call this a breakthrough," said Uwe Schmelter, who is the director of Seoul's Goethe Institute and negotiated the Pyongyang center's opening with North Korean officials. "For a country that has been labeled as isolated, reclusive and unchanging, a change is a change."
During negotiations, Mr. Schmelter said that North Korea never objected to the center's contents or open access. After negotiations over the center were completed, North Korea asked Germany to build a training center for librarians and researchers. In September, Germany is expected to begin offering 10-day classes on modern research techniques, including use of the Internet.
Party officials appreciate the free access to information they would already have permission to fund themselves.
But what bothers me about the NTY's bias, is the way each comment by sane, rational people is offset by a statement to support the general theme of what is supposed be sincere reform developing in the country.
ie:
Proponents of a hard line against North Korea say it is not really interested in change, but in simply avoiding economic collapse and driving a wedge between the United States and its allies. Whatever the North's motives, those favoring engagement argue, the North Korea of today is less isolated and more economically stable than it was just two years ago.
Instead of:
Those favoring engagement argue, the North Korea of today is less isolated and more economically stable than it was just two years ago. Whatever the North's motives, proponents of a hard line against North Korea say it is not really interested in change, but in simply avoiding economic collapse and driving a wedge between the United States and its allies.
Which sounds less sympathetic to Kim Il's regime?
Even as the Bush administration has worked to isolate North Korea in a campaign to make it drop its nuclear program, Asian and European governments have been actively engaging it on diplomatic, cultural and economic levels. Now, with the pace of engagement quickening, it is the administration that risks becoming isolated, experts say, a possible factor in a recent moderation in its stance.
Extremist Bush BAD! Moderation GOOD.
Need more engagement with nuclear armed tyrant! :69:
As an indication of the different approach taken by the United States, South Korean officials have chafed at a human rights bill passed last month by the House of Representatives. Called the North Korean Human Rights Act, it seeks to support North Korean refugees in China and promote human rights in China.
"We hope the bill won't have any bad effect on the Korean peninsula," Mr. Kim said
God forbid Human Rights have a bad effect on the peninsula. Pesky humans and their rights!
To steal the famous phrase of a Liberal blogger on Iraqi contractors, (Daily Kos), "Screw them!!!"
