Bad blancmange
For some indiscernible reason, last weeks Diary failed to make one mention of its beloved North Korea.
When did that last happen?
This week, youll be relieved to know, the Diary returns true to form and goes straight to hell on earth. As suicide bombers got to work in Uzbekistan, locals mutilated charred American bodies in the Iraqi city of Fallujah with shovels, chanting long live Islam as they hung the corpses on the old bridge over the Euphrates, security forces in Britain found half-a-ton of ammonium nitrate in raids on al-Qaida cells, and armed Islamic militants in Thailand stole dynamite, detonators and ammonium nitrate from a quarry, the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea told the US to shove it, they are not going to scrap their nukes, nothing doing.
Why do we bother?
For those of you who dont, heres another reason to be morose. Even the comparatively sober New York Times (comparative, that is, when compared with the Diary its closest rival) concluded that Pyongyangs latest outburst raises doubts about whether the fitful negotiations are making even limited progress.
Talking to North Korea is like trying to cook a perfect blancmange every night for dinner. You make a little progress, then the next night it explodes.
As the Diary is fond of repeating, the first round of six-nation talks on the nuclear crisis went relatively smoothly right up to the moment the North Korean delegation entered the departure lounge at Beijing airport and claimed to have changed their minds in the taxi, announcing plans to detonate a warhead.
Diplomatic successes like that are a rare thing these days.
The present situation on the Korean peninsula remains dangerous owing to the reckless moves of the US war hawks and their followers to unleash a war of aggression against the DPRK so that a nuclear war may break there anytime, said the fair and balanced Radio Pyongyang.
The statement followed a visit to North Korea by Li Zhaoxing, Chinese foreign minister. Compared with the departure lounge moment, this is progress.
Complete nuclear dismantling is a plot to overthrow the Norths socialist system after stripping it of its nuclear deterrent, the statement said.
In what must have been the comedy hour, the announcer added that Irreversible nuclear dismantling is nothing other than a noose to stifle us after eradicating our peaceful nuclear-energy industry.
Typically for the somewhat fickle North Korea, this came in the same week that Pyongyang ordered its economic officials to start trading in the global markets and begin making its communist businesses profitable.
Whats this? The Financial Times reported how Pak Pong-ju, North Korean premier, told the Supreme Peoples Assembly (none of whom were present), how the North Korean economy must make leaping progress in 2004 by increasing exports, raising output and absorbing foreign technology.
Thats clinched it: Fukuyama was right, end of history, end of story.
Some of the modernising speak was cloaked in commie-style rallying cries (All units of the national economy should wage a mass movement to build their own strong export bases [and] expand and develop foreign trade) but generally the FT is excited that North Korea is gradually liberalising its economy.
Investment opportunity, anyone?
Hero no more
Meanwhile, several miles South
A court in Seoul dished out a seven-year sentence to Professor Song Du-yul this week another blow to North-South relations.
Song returned to Seoul last year after a thirty-year exile in Germany where he championed democracy in Korea, and promoted improved relations between the two Korean foes.
At least, thats what people thought.
Turns out Song was in the pocket of the North Korean regime. A hero amongst the Souths liberal-left, Song is now exposed as a secret member of the North Korean politburo.
Song made eighteen separate trips to the North. Hes accused of sending letters to Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and his cronies pledging his allegiance and commitment to the communist cause.
Several liberal politicians have been embarrassed by these revelations and senior members of the government are said to have opposed the trial.
It is a crime in South Korea to ally oneself with communists or communism.
No comment
The key to a peaceful future is to foster reform and democracy in the Arab-Muslim world, right? So says everyone in the know.
What then should we make of this weeks farcical cancellation of the Arab League summit?
The two-day summit was much trumpeted and due to open this Monday. The plan was to produce an Arab agenda for reform that could appease the White House and be presented to the G8 summit in June, showing just how willing the Arab world is to cooperate with demands they sort their house out.
However, disagreements at a preliminary meeting were apparently so irreconcilable that Tunisian president-autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali called the whole thing off.
Ah, brotherhood.
Anyway, it seems the host nation was a tad unimpressed by some nations refusal to even include the word democracy in the final communiqué. The summit, by the way, was designed to address reform and modernisation in the Arab world.
About fifty or so demonstrators protested outside the proposed meeting hall, demanding a free press. They were quickly rounded up by police.
Ah, reform.
The official Tunisian statement cited the existence of difference of views (i.e. pluralism) between guests at how exactly to develop, modernise and reform without losing their jobs to hunger-striking Islamists.
A BBC analysis of the Arabic press offers some corkers.
Tunisias La Presse claimed Tunisia had invested every effort material and human into making the summit a success.
The UAEsAl-Bayan admitted that the Arab decision makers have shamed themselves by showing backwardness in terms of civilisation.
Egypts Al-Jumhuriyah had a different take on things: What happened in Tunisia revealed the ferocity of the aggressive campaign against Muslims and Arabs.
By who? Muslims and Arabs?
Al-Ahram bemoaned the impact of Israeli terrorism and the fall of a great Arab nation, Iraq.
Jordans Al-Dustur blamed it on Washington and Tel Aviv.
Now a new spat has been triggered by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who offered to reconvene the summit in Egypt in the next few weeks (once the recent tragic events in Israel meaning the assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin have blown over). Tunisia is not impressed and insists it holds the right to mismanage and cancel the summit not Egypt.
Still, the Diary cant resist ending with the very-British opinion of the Financial Times: Arab league summits are a dreadful affair, for the leaders as much as the people of the Middle East.
Inappropriate opposition
Finally, to Italy.
Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi looks quite happy these days (even when millions of his countrymen are taking to the streets in protest at his economic policies). Maybe its the plastic surgery. Or, more likely, its the performance of A.C. Milan, his Europe-conquering all-star calcio club.
It must be nice to not only be your countrys richest and most powerful man, but to face no organised opposition.
Though that might be set to change. A weird thing happened this week. Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, wrote a letter to Corriere della Serra that somehow found itself on the front page of the newspaper.
In a weird dual role, Prodi is not only the chief of the European Commission, but leader of the Olive Tree coalition of centrists and leftists that plans to stand against Berlusconis government at the next Italian election.
Now, Prodis letter said that if his olives oust Silvio, hell withdraw Italian troops from Iraq. [T]he problem would be to decide whether to continue or interrupt the participation in this war I have no hesitation in saying that the choice would be ending the intervention.
In its actual form, Prodi continued, the occupation is the continuation of an unjustified and illegitimate war and not visibly capable of restoring peace and security to Iraq.
Occupation? Unjustified? Illegitimate? Consciously or not, in his capacity as figurehead of the Brussels bureaucracy, Prodi is symbolically placing the EU in opposition to the Iraq war and reconstruction.
The Italian right, of course, dont like it, and accuse Prodi of abusing his position. Prodi is using the argument employed by part of the left, but hes doing it wearing the cap of the European president, a seriously illegitimate use of the post, said Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini.
Figure of the week
$35
The average price of crude oil this year. Barring the price surge after the Iranian revolution and the start of the Iran/Iraq war, that is the highest quarterly price since 1859 when oil pioneer Edwin Drake struck lucky in the farmland of north-western Pennsylvania and set off the international search for petroleum, said the Financial Times this week.
Concept of the week
Libertarian socialism
The ideology of the new Spanish government, as defined by Spanish daily El Pais
Quotes of the week
The people voted for stability. Nobody wants to go back to the old days of unproductive politics.
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his ruling partys victory in local elections on Sunday. The Justice and Development Party (AK) won 43% of the vote. The closest rival won just 13%.
The choice is between a senator who has raised taxes and a president who has cut them.
US vice-president Dick Cheney summing up the race for the White House.
The Scriptures say: It is not enough, my brother, to say you have faith, when there are no deeds.
Senator John Kerry addressing the congregation at New Northside Baptist Church in Washington D.C.
Where is Bush? Let him come here and see this!
A young boy in Fallujah standing with his foot on the head of a charred American body
Britains anatomy may be quite different today, but the backbone is still crooked.
Anthony Sampson, writing in The Oldie
You have to have power to do things.
Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, 20-year-old daughter of the tenth Tibetan Panchen Lama, as quoted in the New Yorker
Contact the Diary: dominic.hilton@openDemocracy.net
