Now isn't this interesting? A front-page headline in the Feb. 11 NY Times reads: "North Koreans Say They Hold Nuclear Arms; Assert They'll Refuse to Rejoin Negotiations." The article states this stance could "bolster" those in the US administration who favor "destabilizing the government of President Kim Jong Il."
Meanwhile, a headline from the same day's Canadian Press [2] reads "North Korea demands dialogue with U.S. to defuse tension; Washington says no."
In an interview with South Korea's Hankyoreh newspaper conducted Thursday [Feb. 10] in New York, Han Sung Ryol, North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, had said that "if the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us."
Too bad for the cause of peace in the Korean peninsula that the Canadian Press doesn't reach nearly as many people as the NY Times.
The UN's special envoy on the Korea crisis, Canadian billionaire philanthropist Maurice Strong, warns that if the crisis is not resolved, South Korea and Japan could launch their own nuclear weapons programs, sparking a regional nuclear arms race. (Bloomberg [3], Feb. 11)
