25.04.2014

Wieder US-Amerikaner in nordkoreanischer Haft

Ein 24-jährige Tourist namens Miller Matthew Todd aus den USA wird seit 10. April in Nordkorea festgehalten. Grund für seine Festnahme: "Unbedachtes Verhalten". Angeblich zerriss Miller bei der Einreise sein Touristenvisum und forderte Asyl in Nordkorea. Das passte dem nordkoreanischen Regime erstmal gar nicht und Miller wurde festgenommen. Bei KCNA, der staatlichen nordkoreanischen Nachrichtenagentur, ist in dem Artikel "KCNA Report on Putting American in Custody" zu lesen: 
“A relevant organ of the DPRK put in custody American Miller Matthew Todd, 24, on April 10 for his rash behavior in the course of going through formalities for entry into the DPRK to tour it. 
He had a tourist visa for the DPRK, but tore it to pieces and shouted hoarse that "he would seek asylum" and "he came to the DPRK after choosing it as a shelter." This was a gross violation of its legal order.

The relevant organ put him in custody after taking a serious note of his behavior, and is now investigating the case.”

Kenneth Bae befindet sich seit November 2012 in nordkoreanischer Geiselhaft und wurde zu 15 Jahren Arbeitslager verurteilt.




22.04.2014

Nordkoreanischer Witz

Three North Korean workers find themselves locked up, and they ask each other what they're in for. 
The first man says: "I was always then minutes late to work, so I was accused of sabotage."
The second man says: "I was always ten minutes early to work, so I was accused of espionage."
The third man says: "I always got to work on time, so I was accused of having a South Korean watch."

via 9GAG

Lesehinweis: Eine Karte geopolitischer Anomalien

16.04.2014

Skurriles aus London: Friseur bekommt Besuch von nordkoreanischen Offiziellen


Ein britischer Friseursalon wirbt zur Zeit mit einem Bild von Kim Jong Un mit einem 15% Rabatt auf Männerfrisuren. "Bad Hair Day? 15% Off All Gent Cuts Through The Month Of April" heißt es auf dem Plakat, auf welchen Kim Jong Un freundlich lächelt und grüßt. Diese Werbemasche gefiel zwei Offiziellen der nur 10 Minuten entfernten nordkoreanischen Botschaft gar nicht. Sie wollten den Manager des Friseursalons sprechen. Der warf die beiden raus. 

Vergangenen Monat hatte Radio Free Asia berichtet, dass männliche Studenten in Nordkorea denselben Harrschnitt wie Kim Jong Un tragen müssen. 

12.04.2014

Lesehinweis: "Kapitalismus ist die größte NGO der Welt"

In der Tat kann man über die empirischen Daten – nämlich Schaffen von Wohlstand in der Welt und drastische Armutsbeseitigung – schwärmen. Alle, die Armut beiseitigen wollen und Menschen bessere Chancen für ein selbstbestimmtes Leben wünschen, müssen Verteidiger des Kapitalismus sein. Natürlich ist er die größte NGO der Welt. Erstens gibt es keine größere und zweitens ist es eine Non-Governement-Veranstaltung. Da können die Regierungen machen was sie wollen, wenn die Menschen nicht mitgehen, läuft nichts, er ist eine Bewegung von unten.


Comic zu chemiefreier Nahrung



09.04.2014

Das Scheitern der UN-Mission UNAMID in Darfur

After the Darfur genocide, the United Nations sent in 20,000 peacekeepers with a single mission -- to protect the region's civilians. A Foreign Policy investigation details why they failed, and what the U.N. knew about it.





Homöopathie hilft nichts

Auch wenn es bisher nur ein Entwurf ist, ist es dennoch sehr aufschlussreich, was australische Forscher bei National Health and Medical Research Council über Homöopathie zu berichten haben:
There were no health conditions for which there was reliable evidence that homeopathy was effective. No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance with no effect on the health condition (placebo), or that homeopathy caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment.
  • For some health conditions, homeopathy was found to be not more effective than placebo.
  • For other health conditions, some studies reported that homeopathy was more effective than placebo, or as effective as another treatment, but those studies were not reliable.
  • For the remaining health conditions it was not possible to make any conclusion about whether homeopathy was effective or not, because there was not enough evidence.
To be confident that the health benefits of homeopathy that were reported in some studies were not just due to chance or the placebo effect, they would need to be confirmed by other large, well-designed studies.

via FAZ

08.04.2014

The European question, the German problem, and Anglo American solutions

In his book "Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present" (Basic Books, 2013), historian Brendan Simms argues that the struggle for the German heartland shaped the modern world. Today, with the European Union struggling to advance its interests, Germany continues to be an organizing principle in world geopolitics.


My argument is that the trend is clear, that Germany no longer sees the big picture as something that is up to decisive importance to it. Germany simply doesn't feel threatened anymore and unlike Britian, France and the United States it doesn't feel any direct sense of responsibility for the overall European or global balance [...]. So that the European project - this is the great irony - has succeeded neither in containment nor in mobalization of Germany and the result is that by refusing the further enlargement of NATO Germany has actually encouraged the aggression that we've seen more recently. It has created a vacuum on the eastern border of the Union into which now pushes Mr Putin.