JonZu News

N. Korea Is Said to Execute Finance Chief

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has arrested and possibly executed its top financial official as it struggles to contain chaos set off by its botched attempt to halt inflation through a radical currency revaluation, according to news reports Thursday in South Korea.

Enlarge This Image

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/03/19/world/19korea_CA0/19korea_CA0 -articleInline.jpg

Pak Nam-gi, left, North Korea’s top financial official, during a visit to South Korea as part of an economic delegation in 2002.

The fate of the official, Pak Nam-gi, the ruling Workers’ Party’s finance and planning department chief, who is said to have spearheaded the currency reform, became a focal point of speculation when he did not appear at any official functions reported in the North Korean news media for the past two months.

But the reclusive nature of the North Korean government has made it nearly impossible to verify reports about high-ranking officials.

If the reports about the arrest and execution are true, though, they suggest that the ailing North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, considers the public discontent in the aftermath of the currency reform a serious challenge to his grip on power.

Mr. Pak “was executed at a firing range in Pyongyang on the trumped-up charges of being an antirevolutionary element as public sentiments worsened over the failure of the currency reform,” reported the South Korean news agency Yonhap, quoting unnamed sources in North Korea.

In late November, North Korea suddenly told its people that it would introduce new banknotes, ordering them to turn in their old bills for new ones at a rate of 100 to 1. It also put a cap on how much old money they could swap for the new currency.

The shock measure was meant to arrest runaway inflation and crack down on illegal markets in the socialist state. But it only aggravated the food crisis, creating shortages and soaring prices, and reportedly led to isolated but highly unusual outbursts of protest in the totalitarian state.

South Korea said it could not confirm the reports about Mr. Pak’s execution. Mr. Kim often keeps personnel reshuffles secret, and party officials who have disappeared from official functions and been reported to be dead in the South Korean news media have often resurfaced years later in new jobs.

“It’s unusual that Mr. Pak has not been seen in public for two months, and there is speculation about his fate,” said Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman at the Unification Ministry in Seoul. “But we don’t have any information about whether he was sacked, arrested or executed by firing squad.”

Until Jan. 9, Mr. Pak’s name appeared regularly in the list of officials the North Korean news media reported as accompanying Mr. Kim on inspection tours of factories, farms and military units. Names on the list offer guidance about who is in favor in the North Korean hierarchy.

The failed currency reform threatened Mr. Kim’s main policy goal, which was to create at least an impression that its moribund economy would revive by 2012. That is when he is expected to announce one of his three known sons — most likely, according to observers, his youngest son, Jung-un — as his official heir.

“The North Korean authorities have tried to reverse their currency policy failure, but they don’t seem to know how,” said Lee Seung-yong, an official at Good Friends, a relief group based in Seoul that collects information from sources within the North. “We have reports that the food situation is getting worse and some people are dying of hunger.”

As its state-run stores failed to provide enough food, North Korea recently reversed itself and began turning a blind eye to private markets to resuscitate food supplies. But the markets remain empty, Mr. Lee said. With prices expected to continue to soar, those who have goods are not returning to the markets, he said.

Reports that Mr. Pak was executed or arrested were also carried by Daily NK and Free North Korea Radio, both Web sites based in Seoul that rely on informants from North Korea.

But others cast doubt.

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of a Seoul-based advocacy group, Fighters for Free North Korea, said that his informants in North Korea had heard “rumors” that Mr. Pak was either executed or sent to a prison camp. “But so far, our sources haven’t found anyone who says he actually saw this execution,” Mr. Park said.

Ha Tae-keung, head of Open Radio for North Korea, which also gathers news from North Korea, agreed.

“If they executed him to quell public anger, he must have been executed in public and thousands must have been mobilized to watch it,” Mr. Ha said.

North Korea publicly executed Seo Gwan-hee, a party secretary in charge of agriculture, on spying charges in 1997 when a famine decimated the population, according to defectors. But Mr. Kim also banishes confidants embroiled in corruption or policy blunders to remote areas as warnings, only to reinstate them years later, Mr. Park said.

Thé Mulindwas Communication Group “With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy” Groupe de communication Mulindwas “avec Yoweri Museveni, l’Ouganda est dans l’anarchie”

Dick Morris: When he predicts doom, expect sunshine

The Fox News political guru warns that healthcare reform will “eradicate” Democrats — which may mean there’s hope By _Joe Conason_ (http://www.salon.com/author/joe_conason/index.html)

youtube.com/user/dickmorrisreports Dick Morris

Of all the many media prophets of gloom and Democratic doom, nobody can quite match the fury of Dick Morris, Fox News star, Newsmax guru and chief political strategist for a shady outfit called the League of American Voters. Just today I received an “urgent message” from him, touting the dire consequences to ensue from passage of healthcare reform — including an electoral massacre of the Democrats come November. According to him, voter revulsion “will be enough to eradicate an entire generation of House and Senate Democrats … This is the prospect the House and Senate Democrats who vote for Obamacare will face in the fall of 2010. This is the record they will have to defend. Or, they could save their political lives and vote no!” Such hysterics must be expected from every carnival barker in Fox Nation, especially a featured player like Morris – and the shrill rhetoric surely helps to separate the rubes from their money, in this case through _donations to the League of American Voters_ (https://www.newsmaxstore.com/contribute/lav/?s=al&promo_code=99B7-1) , sponsor of this morning’s e-mail and many more from him. Scamming aside, however, a prediction is a prediction, and Democratic legislators preparing to vote yea on reform should be comforted whenever Morris prognosticates their demise, because he is dead wrong with almost perfect consistency. Only two months ago, following the election of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate special election, the excitable Morris looked into his crystal ball and _told Fox listeners_ (http://www.prisonplanet.com/dick-morris-obama-will-never-get-another-major-piece-of-legislation-passed.html) that he had seen the effective end of Obama’s presidency. “Let’s just stop for a second and understand the magnitude of the earthquake that hit Massachusetts … ultimately, this is the end of the Obama ascendancy, he will never get another major piece of legislation passed,” he pronounced. (Which must mean that the healthcare bill is almost certain to pass next weekend.) During the 2008 election cycle, Morris offered many forecasts, none of which were right. Early on he picked Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani as almost certain nominees of their respective parties and trashed John McCain as a sure loser. In January 2007, he _told an audience of conservative journalists_ (http://ttp//reason.com/blog/2007/01/31/dick-morris-sees-the-future) : “I think what’s going to happen in the world is that Hillary’s going to be the next president.” Not too long after that, he and wife Eileen McGann wrote a _column_ (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_449UNpAnd3U8eyKWytEkpN;jsessionid=2D9EF39A6C3C28762A18712E88607C84) for the New York Post headlined “It’s Now a Rudy Romp.” A year later, he was predicting that Clinton would crash and burn in the New Hampshire primary, right up to _the evening before_ (http://www.newshounds.us/2008/01/08/dick_morris_psychoanalyzes_hillary_clintons_tears.php) that election. Her tears had proved to voters that she was unfit to serve as president, he explained. When she won the following night, he _overreacted again_ (http://www.newshounds.us/2008/01/09/dick_morris_eats_his_hat_over_hillary_clintons_new_hampshire_wi n.php) by predicting that she would surely go on to secure the nomination. (Back when Clinton was running for the U.S. Senate from New York in the 2000 cycle, Morris similarly made _one delusional prediction after another_ (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2000/09/29/lazio/index.html) , claiming that she would never run, withdraw, falter, lose, and so on. She ran and won, of course.) Among Dick’s wackiest blunders in recent years was his confident assertion

Not even when he told us his name.

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:39 PM, JSM wrote:

The wife whilst washing her hair asked for a hair drier from the husband.

Thé Mulindwas Communication Group “With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy” Groupe de communication Mulindwas “avec Yoweri Museveni, l’Ouganda est dans l’anarchie”

When the most powerful president is the dead one

Rating By Charles Onyango-Obbo (email the author )

Posted Wednesday, March 3 2010 at 00:00

In Summary

The Yar’Adua circus illustrates that even the toughest African presidents who seem to be calling nearly all the shots never really rule alone. There are always many shareholders in an African presidency. The big man can decide to retire and go home early, but it is not easy. He just can’t get up, pack his suitcase, and go to his farm to raise goats and grow yams.

Let’s pose for a moment and reflect on the saga of Nigeria’s President Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua. For the last three months, he was very ill in a Saudi hospital.

Most accounts suggested he was partly in coma. There was a political vacuum and a constitutional crisis back in Nigeria, and agitation started for him to give up power. In the end, his vice president, a hat-loving politician with the appropriate of Goodluck Jonathan, hit good luck and was sworn in as acting president.

Then Yar’Adua was, purportedly, flown back home in the dark of night last week. Soldiers from the Brigade of Guards took over the airport, turned off the lights, and Yar’Adua was supposed to have been put in an ambulance and carted off to the executive mansion. No one, can say with 100 per cent certainty that President Yar’Adua is back, and if he is, if he is alive!

At a minimum, most people agree that Yar’Adua is very sick. Also, that he did not take most of the decisions attributed to him in recent weeks, but by the inner circle, that cabal that surrounds every African president.

Nearly 15 years ago, the playwright Alex Mukulu in one of those spectacular moments of insight that creative minds often have, foresaw this Yar’Adua scenario. In one of his plays (I am not sure whether it was “Excuse me Mzungu” or “30 Years of Bananas”), there was a scene of an African leader in coma, but his aides decided to take him to review a guard of honour. The big man was on a stretcher, in his hospital dress, with the drip being carried along.

The Yar’Adua circus illustrates that even the toughest African presidents who seem to be calling nearly all the shots never really rule alone. There are always many shareholders in an African presidency. The big man can decide to retire and go home early, but it is not easy. He just can’t get up, pack his suitcase, and go to his farm to raise goats and grow yams. Most times, he has to negotiate with other stakeholders (to use that dreadful word).

This explains many things, including why African presidents cling on to power well past their sell-by date. The problem begins in how you get to power. If you came to power via a rebel war, then others did most of the fighting because as an individual you couldn’t be on all fronts at the same time. If you were elected, then you couldn’t campaign in every village or house, you needed agents to do that for you.

And if, like some presidents we know, you rig elections, not only do you need the millions of people who campaign for you, but you need hundreds of thousands more to steal votes for you as you cannot stuff every ballot box and tick all the extra ballot papers by yourself.

You cannot reward everyone who helps you to power. However, you still have to sort out a few or else they will not aid you to power next time, and you increase the chances of your throat being cut by angry supporters the more of them you disappoint. So the trick is to reward just enough of them to allow you have a number of happy allies to keep you safe. Then, as president, there are very few things you can do yourself. You need some one who does a list of your enemies.

Beside your enemies, you need someone who can spy on your friends and allies to find out how many of them are genuine. The list is endless. As president you can do a lot of things with these factions and groups. You can play them against each other. You can create more factions, and multiply the number of rivals vying for your attention.

To each of these people and groups, you must surrender a bit of power—the power that enables them loot, evade taxes, escape police arrest, and so forth. So no African big man has 100 per cent of the presidency. He has only about 50 per cent. His influence comes from the fact that his slice of power is the biggest, otherwise there is nothing like an all-powerful president.

It explains why, some times, the most difficult thing for them to do is walk away. First, as president, we have illustrated that you are one million people’s meal ticket. These people need to know how they will eat tomorrow, before they let you go.

Secondly, precisely because you have created factions to improve your survival, when you are in coma like Yar’Adua, these individuals cannot agree on who should replace you. Thus your chances of remaining president are more when you are dead, than when you are alive!

Secondly, in ordinary circumstances, if a president decides to leave all he can do is surrender his 50 per cent of power. Another 1,000 or so people will also need to give the 0.05 per cent of the power that each of them holds, before you can leave. That can take years. So the longer a president like Museveni stays in office, the more his chances of staying longer in office increase.

cobbo@nation.co.ke

http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/CharlesOnyangoObbo/-/878504/872166/-/xh6u4w/-/index.html

Harbet Buhanga

No no absolutely no one is crying, you see there are those of us that walked into this thing for a very long haul, we knew that Uganda was screwed up and we decided to neither be bias nor un principled. For we knew that what is in Uganda needs to be corrected but done right. Patch up work has never worked and it will never work ever. And that is the very difference between me and the rest of the pack for I at minimum have a principle and I am not afraid to put my name on it.

Start by wondering what is on the other side. When Tito Okello threw out the government the Abbey Ssemuwembas in Nairobi took the streets and declared we are now happy, when Museveni came to power the same Ssemuwembas took the streets and declared we are happy, when Dr Kiiza Besigye left the Movement and created a branch of it the Ssemuwembas declared how happy they were, today Olara Otunu has been elected to lead the party many of us had a hope in and the very Ssemuwembas again are stating today that they are happy.

Harbert Buhanga after this writing, my next posting is going to be a response to allan barigye, miss everything but read the response to barigye coming next for it will have been the end paragraph of this posting.

EM Toronto

Thé Mulindwas Communication Group “With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy” Groupe de communication Mulindwas “avec Yoweri Museveni, l’Ouganda est dans l’anarchie”

[mailto:ugandans-at-heart@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of HARBERT BUHANGA Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 10:04 AM

You shed tears simply because Obama had won Sarah Palin and Mcaine. You made false prophesies that Obama was to be removed fron power within six months and this never came to pass.

You lied about M7 abolishing Buganda kingdom and sending King Mutebi into exile just days after the Kampala riots and nothing came to pass.

Now you are crying simply because Otunnu is the UPC chairman. Come on!!!!!!!!!!!! have a life. Learn to flow by the masses. Sometimes things do not go our way.

HB

Socrates worked to undermine the collective notion of “might makes right”. Socrates believed the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth.He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates felt this was the best way for people to grow together as a populace

When I became a man, I put away my toy gun BOOKMARK PRINT EMAIL RATING

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO (email the author )

Posted Monday, March 8 2010 at 00:00

The Congo’s thieving strongman Mobutu Sese Seko had a unique hat, suit, and stick.

However, because he was so despised, he has not been emulated.

Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta had his flywhisk, and Daniel arap Moi, the *rungu* (staff).

In addition to his military uniforms and guns, Museveni will often carry a big stick, and at his farm he will have a double-headed spear.

The African Big Man needs to have his hands full of props in order to continuously reproduce the feeling that he is holding on.

Also, because they rule in developing societies with large rural populations that are still superstitious, the people usually believe that magic powers reside in their flywhisks and spears.

That usually translates into a large body of peasant fear and obedience, and therefore, precious political capital.

It is an old-fashioned approach, but nevertheless represents an important element of continuity in the continent’s politics.

*Charles Onyango-Obbo is executive editor of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media division; cobbo@nation.co.ke*

flashad

When I became a man, I put away my toy gun BOOKMARK PRINT EMAIL RATING

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO (email the author )

Posted Monday, March 8 2010 at 00:00

A picture of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni visiting mudslide victims in military uniform and an AK-47 strapped across his chest has created quite a buzz in the blogsphere.

To critics, it is the best representation of the ham-fisted military-cum-civilian regime that runs Uganda.

One blogger asked if he carried the gun in order to shoot survivors of the mudslide.

President Museveni, who came to power at the head of a victorious rebel army in 1986, declared with quite some fanfare that he was hanging up his military uniform and “putting on a civilian tunic” after he was elected in 1996.

However, his life as a civilian president has not quite brought him the prestige and credibility as did his role as the leader of the first home-based guerrilla movement to overthrow an independent African government.

Corruption, nepotism, expansionist misadventure in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the nastiness that his security services have had to resort to keep opponents in check, means his post-bush era is more tainted than his days as a liberator.

Because of that, Museveni has found it hard to put the military behind him.

Whenever the country is caught up a political crisis, he dives into his military fatigues, takes to national TV, and bangs tables and warns opponents.

What is more, despite his “retirement”, he has continued to promote himself. Now he is a lieutenant general.

Museveni is not the only military man turned civilian president in East Africa and the wider region.

There are no less than four in our immediate vicinity: Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, Southern Sudan’s Salva Kiir.

In most respects, they all fought a more bitter and trying war, or a longer campaign as guerrilla leaders, but when they came to power, they put away their guns and uniforms forever.

Because he is nearing the age of 70, Museveni cuts a rather ungainly figure in his military uniform, and with his AK-47 he looks like a grown man who will not let go of his boyhood toys.

However, it would be an oversimplification to see only that psychological explanation — because dress and talismans seem to play a role in African politics that they no longer do elsewhere.

In the past, most African presidents liked to bring their own style to dress; hence to Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, we owe what is now known in as the “Kaunda suit.” Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere gave us the “Nyerere suit.”

flashad

What the Frak: When Acronyms Attack

BLOWW? DILDO? ASSBAG? WTF? This is what happens when morons coin your acronyms. Here are 15 terse-yet-ridiculous names that really need to change.

By _Dan Tynan and JR Raphael_ (http://www.esarcasm.com/about?PHPSESSID=rcp2gg185444ljonpkae854da1) October 6, 2009

(http://www.esarcasm.com/wp-content/wtf.png) It’s not our alphabet any more. As _BoingBoing’s Mark Frauenfelder recently noted_ (http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/28/wisconsin-tourism-fe.html) , the Internet claimed another victim when the Wisconsin Tourism Federation finally gave up its name and became the _Tourism Federation of Wisconsin_ (http://www.witourismfederation.org/) . Why? Because its cheese-loving members were tired of having to explain that WTF did not mean what everyone assumed it meant. (Memo to Williamstown Theatre Festival and World Taekwondo Federation: Your days are numbered.) WTF is only the tip of a very large, very cold iceberg. There are hordes of acronyms out there in serious need of a makeover — some because they’ve been subsumed by the _texting masses_ (http://www.esarcasm.com/3780/sexting-texting-and-other-back-to-school-tips/) , others because they’ve been adopted by brain-dead bureaucracies or conscripted into the military. No matter the cause, it’s time to move on. We’ve identified 15 acronyms that need to be changed with all deliberate speed. (And yes, these are all real, thanks for asking.)