News1 min ago
North Korea
// “It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But suddenly there were footsteps and a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water,” she said.
“The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died. A grandmother who had delivered the baby quietly took it out.”
The report says that while two of Pyongyang's six know political labour colonies have been shut down, an "extremely high" number of prisoners remain detained on political grounds, while countless others are unaccounted for or have died in detention.
"Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime," the report said. "They are deemed 'wrong-thinkers,' 'wrong-doers,' or those who have acquired 'wrong-knowledge' or have engaged in 'wrong-associations.' "//
http:// www.tel egraph. co.uk/n ews/wor ldnews/ asia/no rthkore a/10273 355/Exe cutions -and-to rture-a re-dail y-life- in-Nort h-Korea s-priso ns.html
Every bit as evil as Assad, but we do nothing. What is the difference?
“The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died. A grandmother who had delivered the baby quietly took it out.”
The report says that while two of Pyongyang's six know political labour colonies have been shut down, an "extremely high" number of prisoners remain detained on political grounds, while countless others are unaccounted for or have died in detention.
"Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime," the report said. "They are deemed 'wrong-thinkers,' 'wrong-doers,' or those who have acquired 'wrong-knowledge' or have engaged in 'wrong-associations.' "//
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Every bit as evil as Assad, but we do nothing. What is the difference?
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No best answer has yet been selected by Gromit. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Not sure of your point Gromit. Do you want boots on the ground in N Korea? will you be volunteering ?
There is a huge difference between the two problems. For starters one is a civil war with accusations of chemicals used for mass destruction adhoc on a civilian population. The other is targeted.
I'm not backing either of the two regimes, I am just not sure what you are getting at?
Perhaps you would enlighten us to your thoughts?
And, of course, from todays news it would appear we wont be doing anything apart from hot air, which we also direct at N Korera.
There is a huge difference between the two problems. For starters one is a civil war with accusations of chemicals used for mass destruction adhoc on a civilian population. The other is targeted.
I'm not backing either of the two regimes, I am just not sure what you are getting at?
Perhaps you would enlighten us to your thoughts?
And, of course, from todays news it would appear we wont be doing anything apart from hot air, which we also direct at N Korera.
I thought Gromit's point was that we contemplate getting involved in one conflict because we feel they have crossed a moral line, and we debate whether we cannot just stand by and let it happen; but elsewhere equally bad things occur and yet getting involved there is not on the political agenda, or even discussed. There seems, on the face of it, an inconsistency.
I think the US had made statements about crossing lines that has come back to haunt them, and they now have to be seen to do something or be shown up as just a sabre rattler. We tend to side with our allies, helping them to achieve what we think is right. Whilst in Korea the US have already had an embarrassing encounter and are in no mood to take them on again, especially since they are now a nuclear power.
olitics is not just driven by what is right or wrong, but also by what is sensible, likely to prove beneficial, politicians need to be pragmatic about these things and pick their battles.
I think the US had made statements about crossing lines that has come back to haunt them, and they now have to be seen to do something or be shown up as just a sabre rattler. We tend to side with our allies, helping them to achieve what we think is right. Whilst in Korea the US have already had an embarrassing encounter and are in no mood to take them on again, especially since they are now a nuclear power.
olitics is not just driven by what is right or wrong, but also by what is sensible, likely to prove beneficial, politicians need to be pragmatic about these things and pick their battles.
Why would we want to take on North Korea? For a start, appalling though their regime is, we don't normally, as a matter of fact, start letting off missiles etc at people "just" because its leaders do something nasty. That would be a lot of missiles.
The problem with Syria is that it's close to us, the war is causing a knock-on effect of a refugee crisis more or less in our backyard, and the probability (effectively now a reality) of that conflict spreading
Anyway as youngmafbog says in all likelihood nothing will be done anyway (and as stated elswhere not sure I see the point of doing what they seem to be talking about)
I love comments like that by Mike25 - why does "the west" not like N Korea? Perhaps it's because of what we know of their regime, rather than that we make up stories about it just for the hell of it. Just a thought.
The problem with Syria is that it's close to us, the war is causing a knock-on effect of a refugee crisis more or less in our backyard, and the probability (effectively now a reality) of that conflict spreading
Anyway as youngmafbog says in all likelihood nothing will be done anyway (and as stated elswhere not sure I see the point of doing what they seem to be talking about)
I love comments like that by Mike25 - why does "the west" not like N Korea? Perhaps it's because of what we know of their regime, rather than that we make up stories about it just for the hell of it. Just a thought.
Well yes they have changed slightly! Assad could have been (and maybe was) drowning babies like there was no tomorrow but Syria was regarded as a stable if repressive country.
It all changed when popular protest broke out turning to violent rebellion after mass repression. As in Libya with Gaddafi, who was our "friend" of sorts in the end.
Mubarak in Egypt similarly. Ben Ali in Tunisia - we cheerfully holidayed in both those countries in the knowledge that they were no oases of peace and love. But once the people rose up against them and we saw that unreasonable force was being used against them ...
It all changed when popular protest broke out turning to violent rebellion after mass repression. As in Libya with Gaddafi, who was our "friend" of sorts in the end.
Mubarak in Egypt similarly. Ben Ali in Tunisia - we cheerfully holidayed in both those countries in the knowledge that they were no oases of peace and love. But once the people rose up against them and we saw that unreasonable force was being used against them ...
The middle east lies on many political fault lines. East meets west. Rich meets poor, Islam meets Christianity. Democracy meets Autocracy. It is almost inevitable that this will be a place of conflict.
But other than a possible disruption to oil supplies, its impact on us is minimal if we want it to be. But we don't. We choose to be in the thick of it. We invade countries, depose rulers, support oppressive puppets, steal peoples land and dump a foreign country on it. The middle east affects us only because we want to affect it.
But other than a possible disruption to oil supplies, its impact on us is minimal if we want it to be. But we don't. We choose to be in the thick of it. We invade countries, depose rulers, support oppressive puppets, steal peoples land and dump a foreign country on it. The middle east affects us only because we want to affect it.