ANY excuse for a party. On April 25th North Korea celebrated the 85th anniversary of the founding of its glorious army. Ten days before its young despot, Kim Jong Un, had marked the 105th birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the country’s founder, with a vast military parade. Mr Kim loves fireworks, too. He set off a ballistic missile in honour of his grandpa, though it fizzled on launch. Rumours of a nuclear test still hang in the air. Of North Korea’s five underground blasts to date, the young Mr Kim, in power since 2011, is responsible for three.
Mr Kim’s growing nuclear ambitions have agitated Donald Trump. This week America’s president called both his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to discuss them. He also summoned the entire Senate to the White House for a briefing on the subject. And an American aircraft-carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, has finally shown up for reassuring annual drills with South Korea, after an embarrassing incident in which American officials claimed it was on its way to the Korean peninsula when in fact it was going in the other direction.
Heaven knows South Korea...Continue reading
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