'Devastating' starvation reported in North Korea

Interviews with residents suggest that a 'devastating tragedy' of starvation is unfolding in North Korea.

North Korea: Residents tell BBC of neighbours starving to death | BBC News | Jean Mackenzie:

June 14, 2023 - "People in North Korea have told the BBC food is so scarce their neighbours have starved to death. Exclusive interviews gathered inside the world's most isolated state suggest the situation is the worst it has been since the 1990s.... The government sealed its borders in 2020, cutting off vital supplies. It has also tightened control over people's lives, our interviewees say. Pyongyang told the BBC it has always prioritised its citizens' interests.

"The BBC has secretly interviewed three ordinary people in North Korea, with the help of the organisation Daily NK which operates a network of sources in the country. They told us that since the border closure, they are afraid they will either starve to death or be executed for flouting the rules. It is extremely rare to hear from people living in North Korea. The interviews reveal a 'devastating tragedy is unfolding' in the country, said Sokeel Park from Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), which supports North Korean escapees.

"One woman living in the capital Pyongyang told us she knew a family of three who had starved to death at home. 'We knocked on their door to give them water, but nobody answered,' Ji Yeon said. When the authorities went inside, they found them dead, she said. Ji Yeon's name has been changed to protect her, along with those of the others we interviewed.

"A construction worker who lives near the Chinese border ... told us food supplies were so low that five people in his village had already died from starvation. 'At first, I was afraid of dying from Covid, but then I began to worry about starving to death,' he said.

"North Korea has never been able to produce enough food for its 26 million people. When it shut its border in January 2020, authorities stopped importing grain from China, as well as the fertilisers and machinery needed to grow food. Meanwhile, they have fortified the border with fences, while reportedly ordering guards to shoot anyone trying to cross. This has made it nearly impossible for people to smuggle in food to sell at the unofficial markets, where most North Koreans shop.

"A market trader from the north of the country ... told us that almost three quarters of the products in her local market used to come from China, but that it was 'empty now'. She, like others who make their living selling goods smuggled across the border, has seen most of her income disappear. She told us her family has never had so little to eat, and that recently people had been knocking on her door asking for food because they were so hungry.

"From Pyongyang, Ji Yeon told us she had heard of people who had killed themselves at home or disappeared into the mountains to die, because they could no longer make a living. She was struggling to feed her children, she said. Once, she went two days without eating and thought she was going to die in her sleep.

"In the late 1990s, North Korea experienced a devastating famine which killed as many as three million people. Recent rumours of starvation, which these interviews corroborate, have prompted fears the country could be on the brink of another catastrophe."

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65881803

North Koreans tell BBC of neighbours starving to death | BBC News | June 14, 2023:

China, N. Korea declare victories over coronavirus

Lockdown Lifted: Is North Korea the New Covid-19 Success Story? | Bloomberg.com - Sangmi Cha:

June 1, 2022 - "Officials in the North Korean capital announced this week that they were easing the lockdown put in place less than three weeks ago, saying the outbreak was under control. They cited plunging case counts and patted themselves on the back for a job well done — all the while rejecting offers of international aid.

"Kim Jong Un rolled back lockdown measures hours after leading a Politburo meeting, with state media saying 'the pandemic situation is being controlled and improved across the country.' The official case count showed infections, known as 'fever cases' in the country where tests are scarce, falling to fewer than 100,000 a day from a peak of almost 400,000 on May 15. The country counted a total of more than 3.7 million 'fevered persons' since late April, of which 95% have recovered, according to the Korean Central News Agency. Its secret: traditional medicine such as herbs and plants....

"Choi Jung-hun, who worked as an infectious disease specialist in North Korea and defected to South Korea in 2012, said Pyongyang is only now disclosing the cases to allay fears over a noticeable wave of infections. Reports of a fast decline allows Kim to claim the credit for handling the outbreak so well. 'They reported a soaring number of cases for just over a week and are touting that the cases are already plunging,' Choi said. 'Kim won’t hesitate to go further to declare that the virus has been wiped out from the state around the time China eases lockdown.'

"Exactly how much damage the virus did within the country’s borders is unknown."

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-06-01/coronavirus-daily-north-korea-and-its-covid-success-story

Today’s coronavirus news: China trumpets COVID victory again while Hong Kong quarantine backtrack stokes fears of quarantine return | Toronto.com - Toronto Star: 

June 2, 2022 - "China declared victory over Shanghai’s coronavirus outbreak as the nation reported its fewest new cases in more than three months, vindicating COVID Zero in the eyes of Beijing despite the policy’s rising economic and social toll. 

"A report on the front page of the People’s Daily newspaper Thursday headlined 'Great Achievements Have Been Made in the Defense of Shanghai' claimed victory in the fight against the virus in the city of 25 million. In a separate commentary, the chief mouthpiece of the Communist Party said it proved yet again that COVID Zero is the strategy most suited for China because of the country’s aging population, relatively low vaccination rate among the elderly and children, and inadequate medical resources.

"New infections fell to 61 across China on Wednesday, from 68 on Tuesday and the lowest since Feb. 17. It’s a marked turnaround from the tens of thousands of cases reported daily in the first half of April, when Shanghai’s outbreak appeared to be spiralling out of authorities’ control, triggering a citywide lockdown that disrupted business and upended people’s lives." 

Read more:https://www.toronto.com/news/today-s-coronavirus-news-china-trumpets-covid-victory-again-while-hong-kong-quarantine-backtrack-stokes/article_4c57cca2-f773-58dc-a4f9-332ac74a001b.html

'Stealth Omicron' ends ZeroCovid in North Korea

North Korea's Kim Orders Lockdown as First COVID-19 Outbreak Is Confirmed | Voice of America - Eunice Kim: 

May 12, 2022 - "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered a nationwide lockdown Thursday to try to contain a highly transmissible variant of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which was confirmed in the country this week for the first time. The official Korean Central News Agency [KCNA] said genetic sequencing analysis of samples collected from a group of people on Sunday in Pyongyang had identified the BA.2 strain, also known as the 'stealth omicron' for its relative difficulty of detection. At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died, KCNA said Friday.... North Korea has maintained a strict border closure since February 2020 and instituted its own quarantine measures amid the pandemic, which have now officially been breached....

"Kim was seen wearing a mask for the first time at Thursday's early morning politburo meeting, which he took off only when addressing his masked aides. He ordered a 'thorough lockdown' in all cities and counties, KCNA said. He directed businesses and construction projects to continue to operate but in isolation to 'perfectly block' the spread of the virus.

"'They only have one option: simply lock down their country and try to prevent the spread of the omicron virus,' Park Won-gon, professor of North Korea studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told VOA. 'Because North Korea doesn’t have simple medicines, much less a medical system comparable to other countries, even if they had the vaccines, they would not be able to stop omicron.' Park doesn’t think North Korea will be looking to solicit vaccines from outside parties; what it really wants is a simple cure, which the world has yet to develop more than two years into the pandemic. 

"North Korea will institute draconian measures to those of its biggest ally, China, if not even more severe, Park predicted. Based on several studies conducted on the contingency of North Korea, Park said, there was a single scenario that would incite a people’s uprising, and possibly the regime’s collapse: a pandemic paired with extreme economic difficulty. 'That is why, for more than two years, North Korea has been very sensitive and serious about this pandemic, even at the deep economic cost of closing its border with China.'"
Read more: https://www.voanews.com/a/north-korea-s-kim-orders-lockdown-as-first-covid-19-outbreak-is-confirmed/6569002.html

North Korea reports 21 new fever deaths amid country's 1st COVID-19 outbreak | CBC News - Associated Press:

May 14, 2022 - "North Korea on Saturday reported 21 new deaths and 174,440 more people with fever symptoms as the country scrambles to slow the spread of COVID-19 across its unvaccinated population. The new deaths and cases, which were from Friday, increased total numbers to 27 deaths and 524,440 illnesses amid a rapid spread of fever since late April.... North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a meeting on anti-virus strategies on Saturday described the outbreak as a historically 'great upheaval' and called ... for officials to take lessons from the successful pandemic responses of other nations and picked an example in China, the North's major ally. China, however, has been facing pressure to change its so-called 'zero-COVID' strategy that has brought major cities to a standstill as it struggles to slow the fast-moving omicron variant....

"Lacking vaccines, antiviral pills, intensive care units and other major health tools to fight the virus, North Korea's pandemic response will be mostly about isolating people with symptoms at designated shelters, experts say. North Korea doesn't have technological and other resources to impose extreme lockdowns like China, which has shut down entire cities and confined residents to their homes, nor could it afford to do so at the risk of unleashing further shock on a fragile economy, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification....

"North Korea has a higher tolerance for civilian suffering than most other nations and some experts say the country could be willing to accept a certain level of fatalities to gain immunity through infection, rather than receiving vaccines and other outside help."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-covid-19-outbreak-fever-deaths-1.6453303

North Korea's suspected COVID-19 caseload nears 2-million mark | CBC News - Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press: 

May 18, 2022 - "North Korea on Thursday reported 262,270 more cases of people with suspected symptoms of COVID-19 as its pandemic caseload neared two million — a week after the country acknowledged the outbreak and scrambled to slow infections in its unvaccinated population. The country is also trying to prevent its fragile economy from deteriorating, but the outbreak could be worse than officially reported since the country lacks virus tests and other health-care resources and may be underreporting deaths.... 

"North Korea's antivirus headquarters reported a single additional death, raising its death toll to 63, which experts have said is abnormally small compared to the suspected number of coronavirus infections. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that more than 1.98 million people have become sick with fever since late April. Most are believed to have COVID-19, though only a few Omicron variant infections have been confirmed. At least 740,160 people are in quarantine, the news agency reported.... Workers were mobilized to find people with suspected COVID-19 symptoms who were then sent to quarantine — the main method of curbing the outbreak since North Korea is short of medical supplies and intensive care units that lowered COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in other nations." 
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-covid-outbreak-infections-1.6458803

North Korea smuggled in Biden ballots says Stone

Roger Stone claims North Korea boated in votes for Biden 'through a harbour in Maine' | The Independent | - Namita Singh:

December 4, 2020 - "In a new set of unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and a former adviser to President Donald Trump on Thursday said that North Korea interfered in the US presidential elections. Appearing on far-right radio programme  The Alex Jones Show, Mr Stones claimed that there was 'incontrovertible evidence' that the votes were brought into the US through Maine. He didn’t present any himself.  

"'I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbour in Maine, the state of Maine.... If this checks out if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election,' said Mr Stone who was granted clemency by President Trump in July this year, after being found guilty of lying to Congress and intimidating witnesses during an investigation into election interference.  

"The longtime Republican operative was convicted in November last year on seven counts for lying to lawmakers about communicating with WikiLeaks, tampered with witnesses and obstructed a House intelligence committee investigation into the president's 2016 campaign.

"The office of Maine’s Secretary of State hit out at Mr Stone for using his position as a prominent Trump associate to further such unfounded claims. 'Discussing a rumour such as this only legitimises it,' said Maine Secretary of State spokesperson Kristen Schulze Muszynski, in a statement to Newsweek. 'We have no evidence of any interference in our election, and we have completed our certification of the official results. We take voter fraud and interference allegations seriously and look into any substantiated claims. At this point, this vague rumour has absolutely no validity.'

"While Mr Stone’s allegations are among the more outlandish made about the US election, they are not made in isolation. The president and his legal team have repeatedly claimed the election was rigged and there was widespread fraud, though they have not presented any evidence of this in court and their lawsuits to stall the certification of the 3 November election have largely been rejected."

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/roger-stone-trump-election-north-korea-fraud-b1766084.html

Coronavirus returns to countries that suppressed it

2nd wave of coronavirus in countries around Asia prompts fresh lockdowns | Global News - Stephen Coates, Reuters:

July 27, 2020 - "Countries around Asia are confronting a second wave of coronavirus infections and are clamping down again to try to contain the disease....

"Hong Kong is expected to announce further restrictions on Monday including a ban on restaurant dining and mandated face masks outdoors, local media reported. The measures, which are expected to take effect from Wednesday, would be the first time the city has completely banned dining in restaurants.

"Australian authorities warned a six-week lockdown in parts of the southeastern Victoria state may last longer after the country registered its highest daily increase in infections. Most of Australia is effectively virus-free but flare-ups in the two most populous southeastern states have authorities scrambling to prevent a wider national outbreak.

"In Japan, the government said it would urge business leaders to ramp up anti-virus measures such as staggered shifts, and aimed to see rates of telecommuting achieved during an earlier state of emergency. 'At one point, commuter numbers were down by 70 to 80 per cent, but now it’s only about 30 per cent,' Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said late on Sunday.... Japan has avoided mass infections but a record surge in cases during the past week in Tokyo and other urban centers has experts worried....

"Vietnam is evacuating 80,000 people, mostly local tourists, from the central city of Danang after three residents tested positive for the coronavirus at the weekend, the government said on Monday. The Southeast Asian country is back on high alert after the government on Saturday confirmed its first community infections since April, and another three cases on Sunday, all in Danang.

"In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte is ... weighing whether to re-impose stricter lockdown measures after easing them saw a dramatic surge in infections and deaths, with 62,326 cases reported since the first lockdown was relaxed June 1....

"North Korean state media reported on the weekend that the border town of Kaesong was in lockdown after a person who defected to South Korea three years ago returned this month with symptoms of COVID-19. If confirmed, it would be the first case officially acknowledged by North Korean authorities.... [In] South Korea ... Saturday’s 113 infections were the highest on a single day since March 31.

"Papua New Guinea halted entry for travelers from Monday, except those arriving by air, as it tightens curbs against infections that have more than doubled over the past week. Traditional border crossing were suspended from July 23, police chief David Manning said in a statement distributed on Monday. PNG has fluid borders with Indonesia, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Solomon Islands with people regularly crossing on foot or in small boats."

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/7220628/asia-second-wave-coronavirus-lockdowns/

National mask mandate in COVID-free N. Korea

Hard Labor For North Koreans Who Don’t Wear Masks Under Tough New Coronavirus Measures | Radio Free Asia:

July 16, 2020 - "North Koreans who fail to wear masks face at least three months of 'disciplinary labor' with harsher penalties for people caught sneaking into China under tough new COVID-19 prevention measures, officials in the country told RFA Thursday. The punishments, to be enforced by students conscripted into facemask patrols, were rolled out this week in a renewed drive against the spread of the coronavirus that belies Pyongyang’s official claim that the country has stayed virus free.

"'Beginning on the 16th, an inspection team is being organized here in Pyongyang and also in provincial cities with police officers, and college and high school students to conduct intensive crackdowns on people who don’t wear masks,' said an official familiar with policies launched after a top-level meeting this month. 'Whoever doesn’t wear a mask will be punished with more than three months of disciplinary labor, regardless of who they are,' the source, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely, told RFA’s Korean Service.

"After reports of infections in Chinese provinces near North Korea last month, the government swung into action, sending students back on vacation on July 1, only a month after schools had reopened.  On July 2, at expanded meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party, with Kim Jong Un presiding, several senior health officials were fired for failing to contain the virus, RFA reported recently....

"Pyongyang officially asserts that there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases within its borders, but it has taken extensive measures since late winter to stop the spread of the pandemic, including the lockdown of entire counties and cities and the closure of its economic lifeline – the border with China.... Though the Sino-Korean border has been officially closed since January, the border is quite porous and smugglers and traders, as well as people hoping to escape North Korea, can sneak across the Tumen and Yalu rivers with relative ease in some places.

"RFA reported in March that a mask enforcement team had been organized in Kimjongsuk county, Ryanggang province, and was cracking down on maskless residents in marketplaces and streets there. At that time, a resident said that the punishment for being caught without a mask was a three-day stint at a military labor center.

"As of Thursday evening, the World Health Organization has not responded to emails from RFA regarding the COVID-19 situation there, including questions about their figure of zero confirmed cases."

Read more: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/coronavirus-07162020220021.html

Common sense on masks

by George J. Dance

For a month the coronavirus crisis brought us all together, united against an unknown, unseen killer. Within a month, though, the virus, and the 'social distancing' policies used to deal with it, had been thoroughly politicized in the United States. The same political virus is beginning to spread to Canada, as well, though far fewer of us have been infected. South of the border, though, it seems almost everyone has caught the political bug. What Republicans or Democrats think about their states' shutdowns or stay-at-home orders has less to do each day with questions of fact about their effects or their ethics; increasingly it depends solely on political allegiance.

Even the question of whether to wear a mask or not has been politicized, after some state governors have made their use in public compulsory. Wearing a mask is no longer a matter of taking care of one's own health, but of "obeying" or "complying" with what the government and its "experts" tell us to do. Forget that they were telling us, in February, to not wear masks; now they've always believed in wearing masks (just like the government in 1984 was always at war with Eastasia). Either you wear a mask, or you're with the granny-killers.

I don't see it that way at all. Wearing a mask should be a common sense health decision, not a political one. That is why I masked up in January, three months before the government started telling me to, back when all the health authorities were saying there was no evidence that masks were effective (something the World Health Organization is still saying).

When the health authorities told me there is 'no evidence' that masks are effective, I knew that does not mean they were ineffective, but that the authorities don't know whether they are; that there are no studies conclusive enough for them to claim knowledge. Which means only that I cannot rely on the experts, but have to use my own common sense (my background knowledge) instead.

By 'common sense', I mean the intuitive picture of the world we all pick up through our life experiences, beginning with our own senses, but also the including the information we've learned consistent with that picture - all of the facts kicking around in our head, which we use to make personal decisions every day. Wearing a mask is a personal decision, which I can and have to make for myself by using my own judgement.

I think COVID-19 is a potentially deadly disease, particularly for a senior like myself. I know it is spread mainly by people breathing on or talking to others, and that it is especially dangerous when those others breathe it in. Two people talking can cut the risk of transmission by turning their heads – still more by wearing masks – and even more by staying farther apart. My wearing a mask reduces what I breathe on others, and also what they breathe near my mouth and nose. I can still get the virus on my mask, hands, and face, but that is less likely and far safer than breathing it into my lungs without one. As well, my wearing a mask tells others I am serious about the disease and encourages them to stay back, further reducing the risk. This may make little difference – I've done no scientific studies of my own – but whatever difference it makes can only be beneficial, for both parties.

As for statistical evidence, I can look at the death-tolls in the countries where mask-wearing during flu and cold season is common, and compare them with ours. Three of those are Communist-controlled, and may not be reliable: China reported less than 1,500 dead outside of Hubei, while North Korea and Vietnam both claim to have no deaths. (North Korea claims to have no cases.) But the non-Communist countries also show low death totals: 900 dead in Japan, 270 in South Korea, 7 in Taiwan, and just 4 in Hong Kong. Those totals are clearly better than Canada's 7,000 deaths and America's 107,000.

On the other hand, I realize that a mask causes one to breathe in more CO2, which is not good for people like me with breathing problems. So I wear mine pulled down around my chin, and only cover my mouth and nose with it when I get within 10 or so feet of someone.

Wearing a mask should be an individual decision. Those who think others are making the wrong decision can also decide for themselves how to act toward those others, whether avoiding them or becoming a woke scold on social media. Owners of property – stores, government offices, or private homes – may make rules for those who wish to use the property, just as they may make rules around wearing shoes; this violates no freedom, as long as those who dislike those rules can simply avoid those stores, offices, or homes.

However, no one has the right to order anyone (under threat of fine and imprisonment) to wear a mask. The only people who should be ordered to do anything in response to coronavirus are the contagious (who should be ordered to isolate, not to mask up). If a government thinks someone is contagious, they can compel him to be tested. If a government is unable to test someone, four months after a disease outbreak, that is solely due to the government's incompetence. Government incompetence should never be an excuse to violate the rights of innocent people.

U.S. media: Don't give peace a chance in Korea

Historic Korean Summit Sets the Table for Peace — and US Pundits React With Horror | The Nation - Tim Shorrock:

May 2, 2018 - "April 27, 2018, was a historic day for Korea, and for the millions of people on both sides of that tragically divided peninsula. In a meticulously planned event, Kim Jong-un, the 34-year-old hereditary dictator of North Korea, stepped carefully over the border running through the truce village of Panmunjom and clasped hands with Moon Jae-in, the democratically elected president of South Korea....

 "Kim’s action marked the start of a remarkable day in which the two nations 'solemnly declared' an end to the Korean War, which ripped the country apart from 1950 to 1953.

"Over the next few hours, accompanied by top aides and diplomats, generals and intelligence chiefs, the Korean leaders discussed an agreement that would lead to what they both described as the “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula. The two also 'affirmed the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord,' a signal to both the United States and China that the days of great-power intervention in their divided country may be waning....

"But almost from the moment of that first handshake, the pundits who shape the US media’s coverage of North Korea were spinning the summit, and Kim’s outreach in particular, as a dangerous, even ominous, event....

"'Yada, yada, yada,' the perennial hawk Max Boot wrote disparagingly in The Washington Post about the 'Korea summit hype,' adding that 'there is very little of substance here.' Similar hot takes were offered by Nicholas Kristof and Nicholas Eberstadt in The New York Times, Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post, Robin Wright in The New Yorker, and Michael O’Hanlon in The Hill. Their doubts were repeated and amplified as gospel by the usual critics on cable TV.

"The kicker came on Sunday, April 29, when the Times’ Mark Landler painted the Korean summit as an affront to US national-security interests. Citing every establishment pundit he could find, Landler argued that a resumption of diplomatic ties between the Koreas 'will inevitably erode the crippling economic sanctions against the North,' while making it hard for Trump 'to threaten military action against a country that is extending an olive branch.' It was depressing to see such overt cheerleading for US imperial control over Korea in the media."

Read more: https://www.thenation.com/article/historic-korean-summit-sets-the-table-for-peace-and-us-pundits-react-with-horror/
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Remembering 100 years of Communism

Remembering Communism | Winnipeg Sun - Hendrik van der Breggen, Providence University College,:

November 11, 2017 - "Fall 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the beginning of a grand experiment in communism. This social experiment had bitter fruit that shouldn’t be forgotten.

"Influenced by Karl Marx, the leaders of Soviet communism — Lenin, Stalin, and Co. (Comrades) — strived to create a utopian society. After taking power, the communists abolished private property and took control of the means of production (factories, farms). Their promise was that state control (a 'dictatorship of the proletariat') would be temporary. Eventually, new men and women would come into being.... A socialist heaven would finally come to earth....

"It turns out that the temporary dictatorship by the communist elite wasn’t temporary. And the Soviet experiment was a disaster.... Soviet communism’s killing of its own people makes Nazi death camps pale in comparison. Whereas 6 or 7 million died in the Nazi holocaust, ... historians estimate the Soviet death toll was 20 million, whereas Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (who lived in the Soviet Union) estimates 60 million.

"Of this total, approximately 5 or more million died at a result of the Soviets’ 1932-33 deliberate starvation of Ukraine.... Millions of Soviets also died in slave labour camps (a.k.a. Gulags, made famous by Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago). Underfed and living in sub-zero temperatures, citizens were worked to death or were murdered in the woods.... [M]any Soviet citizens were simply arrested, tortured, and shot.... for criticizing government or for suspicion of being a saboteur, other times to fill government quotas....

"According to The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press 1999), other communist regimes had similar disastrous results.

• China: 65 million deaths
• Vietnam: 1 million deaths
• North Korea: 2 million deaths
• Cambodia: 2 million deaths

"In total, over the past 100 years communist regimes have been responsible for about 100 million deaths (of their own people)....

"[C]apitalist societies have done wrong, of course. (And crony capitalism is especially problematic.) Nevertheless, ... governments in capitalist societies tend to be limited in their power. They protect private property, voluntary exchange, and individual freedoms; they do not tend to murder their own people en masse.

"It remains, then, that the killing of one’s own people has been extraordinarily huge in — and a salient feature of — communist societies.... The 2008 film The Soviet Story (available on YouTube) provides additional historical perspective on the bitter fruit of the 1917 Russian Revolution — bitter fruit that should never be forgotten."

Read more: http://winnipegsun.com/opinion/columnists/remembering-communism
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Federal judges block Travel Ban III

Second judge halts Trump's travel ban | TheHill - Lydia Wheeler:

October 18, 2017 - "Judge Theodore Chuang, a federal district judge in Maryland, temporarily blocked the majority of the president’s ban on nationals from eight countries, but he said the president could still ban individuals from North Korea, business officials from Venezuela and individuals lacking a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.

"The order now allows entry of individuals from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Chad.

"Chuang is the second judge to halt the ban. Hawaii District Judge Derrick Watson went even further Tuesday, blocking all of Trump’s restrictions except with respect to Venezuelan officials or immigrants from North Korea....

"Chuang’s order is similar to an order the Supreme Court issued in June in two cases challenging Trump’s previous ban on nationals from six majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

"The Justices reinstated the ban but carved out an exemption for people with a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the U.S."

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/355979-second-judge-halts-trumps-travel-ban
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New Rand Paul scandal: The "clap gap"

The Rand Paul clap gap: Why the GOP is afraid to have a real debate about foreign policy - Michael Brendan Dougherty, TheWeek:

March 5, 2015 - "As Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress on Tuesday ended, cameras panned around the chamber and focused on a few important senators who were giving the Israeli prime minister a standing ovation. For a few seconds they landed on Rand Paul.

"And that's when people lost their minds. You see, Paul wasn't clapping enthusiastically enough. It was a clap gap! How did he fail to catch the clap as it spread through Congress?

"Perhaps the outrage is understandable. Bibi's supporters believe that the president of the United States is undermining Israel's long-term security in its negotiations with Iran over that nation's nuclear capability....

"But none of that justifies the creepiness of judging an American legislator on such a fine grading system. Sen. Paul, who is known for standing outside the hawkish mainstream of the Republican Party, was not making gagging gestures, or cough-snarking 'bullsh-t' at Netanyahu's speech.

"Monitoring the relative enthusiasm of applause has an ugly history, mostly in dictatorships.... In the nightmare prison-state of North Korea, Kim Jong Un's own uncle (and the rest of his uncle's family) were executed by the state for 'thrice-cursed acts of treachery.' Listed among the traitorous deeds: 'half-heartedly clapping.'

"Foreign policy hawks don't have the power to jail Rand Paul, but they should at least have the good sense to disagree with him like a normal human being....

 "But ... I understand the suspicion. If I ever exerted myself so frantically on behalf of a cause, if lobbying for it required investing so many millions of dollars, and if maintaining party discipline on it required 'brutal' ad drops on congressional obscurities, I would worry that some of the response I sought was perfunctory and insincere. The sonnets you receive don't sound as sweet. The applause seems forced. Almost like they are faking it."

Read more: http://theweek.com/articles/542480/rand-paul-clap-gap-why-gop-afraid-have-real-debate-about-foreign-policy
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North Korea: The invisible gulag

The Invisible Gulag | World Security Network - by Jonathan Kay, National Post:

December 10, 2010 - "The world remains pock-marked by countries that still insist on calling themselves 'communist.' But in reality, Joseph Stalin's totalitarian dream of exterminating the individual human spirit survives in only one tiny corner of the world: North Korea....

"North Korea is a giant prison. Worse than a prison, in fact, because prisoners in normal countries don't have to forage for wild grass, or catch rats, to stay alive. For most Westerners, who aren't permitted to see this real-life Mordor with their own eyes, the country's horrors are so vast that they lie in a surreal place beyond our political imaginations. North Korea seems less an actual country than a sort of sovereign theme park dedicated to the glorification of evil....

"Norbert Vollertsen, a blond middle-aged German doctor, first travelled to North Korea in 1999, as part of his charity work with an international NGO. Taking shifts in a Pyongyang emergency room, he was horrified by the scenes he witnessed. Even patients with treatable diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis lay dying on gurneys. Meanwhile, the medication that had been sent from Germany to save their lives was on sale for American dollars at a special Pyongyang store reserved for foreign diplomats.

"One day, Vollertsen saw a line-up in front of his hospital. He learned that a tractor-factory worker had been severely burned by molten metal, and that the people queuing up were donating pieces of their own skin so that the man could be saved.... Vollertsen made the fateful decision to join the line-up....

 "A week later, Vollertsen was asked to make another skin donation. But this time, when he showed up at the hospital, North Korean TV cameras filmed the whole thing. The event was broadcast on the country's (only) newscast, and Vollertsen was celebrated as a national hero.... The regime even awarded him the "North Korean Friendship medal" and -- more importantly -- a driver's licence that permitted him to roam the North Korean countryside unimpeded. No Western journalist has ever had such access....

"Nothing Vollertsen had seen in Pyongyang prepared him for the even more piteous scenes he witnessed in the rural provinces.

"All around were desolate landscapes -- the forests having been chopped down for firewood. Starvation was rampant: Most peasants survived on bags of donated rice from the West (which the North Korean government claimed to be a form of 'tribute' delivered from fearful Western powers)....

"The patients Vollertsen treated in children's clinics were scarcely more animated than corpses. He recalled to me one particularly haunting specimen -- an emaciated 12-year-old whose striped pajamas, reminiscent of a Nazi concentration camp prisoner, struck a grim historical chord with Vollertsen. 'He looked straight into my eyes,' the German doctor remembers, 'so full of sorrow and despair. No future. No hope. Nothing. It reminded me of the photos of the people you see at the Washington Holocaust museum.'"

Read more:  https://web.archive.org/web/20130417005739/http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/Koreas/National-Post/The-Invisible-Gulag