Sen. McConnell On 2000-Page Omnibus Bill: "No One Has Seen It"

N. Korea Prints Photo of Heir Apparent Kim Jong Un
KCNA, via Reuters Released Sept. 30: Kim Jong Un, left, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, right, poses with newly elected members of the Workers' Party of Korea. (Best quality available) Seoul, South Korea -- North Korea published a photo in state media Thursday of leader Kim Jong Il's youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong Un in the first official image of him released. A photo of a group of senior Workers' Party officials was published in Thursday's edition of the...

Inter-Korean military talks end with no progress
Aug. 28: A man, believed to be North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center facing away from camera, is greeted at Changchun rail station in Changchun, China. Seoul, South Korea -- North and South Korea ended their first working-level Military talks in two years Thursday with no progress as the meeting stumbled over the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang, Seoul's Defense Ministry said. The rare encounter came hours after Pyongyang vowed to strengthen its Nuclear deterrent in...

2 Koreas meet to work out details of proposed family reunions amid latest NKorean threat
Seoul, South Korea — Red Cross officials from the two Koreas tried to work out differences Friday on holding reunions for families separated by Civil War, a day after the North hinted it might fire artillery on Activists who disperse anti-North leaflets. The reunions, which have not been held for a year, could help restore calm between North and South Korea, which have been especially tense since the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. An international...

Koreas meet to work out details of proposed family reunions
Seoul, South Korea — Red Cross officials from the two Koreas tried to narrow differences Friday on how to restart a stalled program to hold reunions for families separated by Civil War 60 years ago, South Korea's Unification Ministry said. The reunions, which have not been held in more than a year, could help restore calm between North and South Korea, which have been especially tense since the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. An international investigation...

In North Korea, signs of public discontent about Kim succession
Seoul - Almost every night, seeking to gather opinion from a country where opinion is often punishable, Kim Eun Ho calls North Korea. He talks mostly to people in Hoeryong city in Hamgyong-bukto province, and the conversations never last long. Hoeryong city employs 14 men who monitor the region's phone conversations, Kim believes, and typically they can tap a call within two or three minutes. Kim says he knows this because, as a North Korean Police Officer before he defected in December 2008,...

North Korean state-run media publishes photos, airs video of heir apparent Kim Jong Un
Seoul, South Korea — North Korea introduced its heir apparent to the world Thursday, a chubby-faced young man with a serious expression, combed back hair cut high and tight on the sides and wearing a Communist-style black suit. State media published the first official images of Kim Jong Un, the youngest son of leader Kim Jong Il who appears destined to inherit control of the impoverished, Nuclear-armed state. North Korean television broadcast video of a meeting of North Korea's ruling...

Eric Cartman to Lead North Korea to Glorious Ruin
OMG! That delighted, high-pitched, government-mandated collective squee you heard yesterday was the sound of every North Korean girl forcibly expressing "joy." The generous government in Pyongyang released the first-ever public photograph of Kim Jong-un, the twenty-something understudy for the role of Evil Dictator currently filled by his dad, Kim Jong-il. And he bears a remarkable resemblance to one Eric Cartman! But let's look behind the Young heartbreaker's facade and...

North Korea's New Boy General
This week North Korea watchers were treated to a rare display of succession Propaganda when it was announced at a Congress of the Korean Workers Party in Pyongyang that Kim Jong Ils twenty-seven-year-old third son was promoted to Vice Chair of the National Defense Commission and to the rank of General in the Korean Peoples Army.

NKorea prints photo of heir apparent Kim Jong Un
Seoul, South Korea -   North Korea has published a photo in state media of leader Kim Jong Il's youngest son and heir apparent in what is likely the first official image of him to be released. A photo of a group of senior Workers' Party officials was published in Thursday's edition of the country's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper. An article accompanying the photo lists the names of those in the picture. The 20-something Kim Jong Un was one of the officials named. The release of the...

VIDEO: First photos of N. Korean heir apparent Kim Jong Un at party meeting
North Korea released photos and video today of Kim Jong Un , the youngest son of the country's leader Kim Jong Il, as further evidence that the regime is preparing to transfer power to the dynasty's next generation, The Korea Times reports. Watch AP"s video report above or click here. It was the first time the name and image of Kim Jong Un has been officially released, the South Korean newspaper reports. Korean Central TV broadcast images of Kim Jong Un at the ruling Workers' Party...

North Korea's Youthful Indiscretions
In America, old age is no virtue. This principle applies from pop culture to politics. In the 2008 election, much was made of the fact that Obama was “youthful” and Senator McCain was - horror of horrors - “old.” American culture’s disdain for the old is itself an old story. Traditionally Confucian societies are different. In Korea, age guarantees respect, trust, and authority. Also, it confers the right to push younger people out of the way -...

A family full of intrigue
Never mind the family drama surrounding the Miliband brothers in Manchester there is another, less fraternal one under way in Pyongyang, at the conference of the Korean Workers Party , whose outcome arguably has more important ramifications for world, not just family, peace. The North's capital has been on "special alert" for most of September , with more troop movements and orchestrated mass demonstrations than usual. The runup to the conference has been marked by factional discord over...

It's Official: Kim Jong Un Will Succeed Kim Jong Il. Will North Korea Change?
A South Korean man watches a TV screen at a railway station in Seoul on Sept. 30, broadcasting a closeup of Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.   On the NYR Blog , Christian Caryl, a senior fellow of the MIT Center for International Studies, marks the coronation of " North Korea's New Prince ," Kim Jong Un. In the piece, he poses this question: "Does Kim Jong Uns appointment offer grounds for optimism?" "Not really," he says. "In fact, the peculiar...

New photo of North Korean dictator's son
Seoul - A photograph of a plump, poker-faced Young man seated near North Korea’s ailing ruler confirmed the rise of Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as the leader-in-waiting of the secretive state. Kim Jong-un was this week appointed to senior political and Military posts in the isolated state whose aspirations to be a Nuclear Weapons power has worried the outside world for years. The photo, published by state media on Thursday, is the first picture since the appointment of the...

Turning Japanese
Nothing quite raises hackles among Chinese, Japanese, or Korean people like the phrase “uninhabited islands.” (Or, “unimportant clump of rocks,” if you prefer.) In 2005, I was living in Seoul as a Korean language Student when a functionary of the Japanese Government made an offhand remark about the status of a group of uninhabited islands that lie between between Korea and Japan. He claimed that the slippery rocks, known as Tok Do in Korean, and Takeshima in...

South Koreans ridicule 'fat' Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un has been ridiculed by South Koreans as "Pyongyang's fat pig" after North Korea released its first official photo of the heir apparent.

China accused of island 'invasion'
(CNN) -- Anti-China Protesters gathered Saturday in Tokyo and six other major cities in Japan to rally against what it calls an invasion of disputed islands that both claim are part of their territories. Protesters held up Japanese flags and chanted, "We will not allow Communist China to invade our territory." Beijing says the Diaoyu Islands and most of the South China Sea belong to China, disputing neighboring countries' claims. In Japan, the islands are known as the Senkaku. The...

North Korea's Kim Jong-il no lame duck, in U.S. view
By Phil Stewart Washington | Fri Oct 1, 2010 9:46pm EDT Washington (Reuters) - North Korea's Kim Jong-il will not become a Lame Duck leader and is expected to keep a firm grip on power until his death, despite having unveiled his successor, current and former U.S. officials say. After years of speculation, Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, was rolled out to North Koreans this week and appointed to senior political and Military posts in the isolated state. Kim Jong-un, whose very existence had...

Kim Jong-il's Son Promoted as N.Korean Ruling Party Convenes
Kim Jong-il is widely believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, and he looked frail in photographs taken during meetings with foreign officials in the past few months. The Workers' Party has not had a full party Congress since 1980, and the conference of delegates has not met since 1966. Tuesday's conference of delegates is expected to be accompanied by the biggest Military parade in North Korean history. The party marks the 65th anniversary of its founding next month. Some information in...

North Korea's leader-in-waiting goes on show
Reuters Kim Jong-un (front row, centre), youngest son of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il A photograph of a plump, poker-faced young man seated near North Korea's ailing ruler confirmed the rise of Kim Jong-il's youngest son as the leader-in-waiting of the secretive state. Kim Jong-un was this week appointed to senior political and Military posts in the isolated state, whose aspirations to be a Nuclear Weapons power has worried the outside world for years. The photo, published by state...

North Korea's leader-in-waiting goes on show
By Jeremy Laurence Seoul | Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:41am EDT Seoul (Reuters) - A photograph of a plump, poker-faced Young man seated near North Korea's ailing ruler confirmed the rise of Kim Jong-il's youngest son as the leader-in-waiting of the secretive state. Kim Jong-un was this week appointed to senior political and Military posts in the isolated state, whose aspirations to be a Nuclear Weapons power has worried the outside world for years. The photo, published by state media on Thursday, is...

First confirmed video of Kim Jong-un
North Korean state media has released the first confirmed video of Kim Jong-il's youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-un.

Heir finally apparent as Kim's son officially in the picture
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NK publishes first photo of Kim Jong-un
North Korea made public a photo of Kim Jong-un, the youngest son and heir apparent of the countrys leader Kim Jong-il, Thursday, in another sign that the regime is gearing up for a hereditary power transfer. The photo, published on the front page of the Norths state-run newspaper the Rodong Sinmun and released by the official Korean Central News Agency, showed the chubby son posing along with his father and other participants at a ruling Workers Party meeting. The state-owned Korean...

Joshua Pollack • Kim Jong Il and the Grim Reaper
When Jimmy Carter was last in Pyongyang , according to KCNA, he was reminded that “it is the behest of President Kim Il Sung to denuclearize the peninsula.” How wholeheartedly NDC Chairman Kim Jong Il shares that wish is another question. In the judgment of Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution, not so much : “The best chance for a significant change in DPRK policies (the ‘silver lining’ of the current situation) is a political succession, apparently now...