The hate-hate relationship between North Korea and the US is flourishing. After Pyongyang launched a series of ballistic missiles last summer, the hermit state has gone temporarily passive, with the threat dipping below the boil of media-frenzied, imminent war to a steady simmer. But the tensions persist. Coupled with the threat of nuclear arms, the […]
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Sport Editorial: North Korean olive branch?
A barbed, stinging, and ultimately entertaining war of words ensued between Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte over the Christmas period. Mourinho, a predictable culprit, teased Antonio Conte in responding to his “clown” jibe – the Manchester United manager later arguing with a Machiavellian sincerity that it was not aimed at the Italian. Conte, up until […]
World War 3 – Should we be worried?
Ever since Kim Jong-Il threatened to withdraw North Korea from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1993, eventually leaving ten years later, in 2003, North Korea has been on a slow and steady trajectory towards nuclear weapons. This trajectory has been continued, if not quickened, by Jong-Il’s son Kim Jong-Un. The reality of this ambition has […]
North Korea and the hypocrisy of humanitarian intervention
In the ‘new world order’ of the 21st Century, western states sell wars as the takedown of tyrants in the name of morality. George W Bush called for war in Iraq to remove the “homicidal dictator” Saddam Hussein and “liberate the Iraqi people”. Obama justified intervention in Libya to stop the “colonial crusader” Gaddafi, who […]