Suddenly in North Korea pictures of Kim Jong Il, the peoples’ Dear Leader by unchallengeable fiat, have gone missing. Comparative photos taken in a Peoples Cultural Center auditorium in May and August of this year have piqued outside interest in the future of Kim Jong Il. The earlier photo portrays what we have come to think of as the usual adulatory presentation: a portrait of Kim Jong Il side-by-side with one of his father Kim Il Sung, the modestly self-proclaimed Great Leader, dominates the head of the auditorium,. The late summer shot shows the KJI portrait missing so that the late elder Kim’s portrait stands alone. All very mysterious.
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Japan tells North Korea time is short
The Associated Press Tuesday, December 21, 2004
TOKYO Japan's foreign minister has warned North Korea that it is running out of time to halt its nuclear weapons programs and risks having the international community impose economic sanctions on it.
The foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, said during a talk show Sunday on Japan's public broadcaster NHK that North Korea should stop stalling in its participation in six-nation talks on its nuclear programs.
"North Korea needs to recognize that it doesn't have much time left," Machimura said. "Everything has its limit. If the current situation is prolonged, we will be forced to consider tougher measures, or sanctions, through the international community, or the United Nations."
Separately, Japan has considered sanctions to punish what Tokyo considers Pyongyang's insincere accounting of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and '80s.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promised South Korea's president during a summit meeting Friday that Tokyo would hold off imposing economic sanctions on North Korea for now. North Korea said last week that it would treat sanctions as a "declaration of war."
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