[LA Times] In an unusual televised address for the new year,
North Korean leader Kim PudgeJong-un
...the hereditary potentate of North Korea...
called to defuse tensions with South Korea and boost the economy of his impoverished nation.
"This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus!""An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontations between the north and the south," Kim declared.
"Asparagus! Asparagus!"Almost anything emerging from the isolated North Korean regime is bound to be parsed by analysts seeking clues to its next steps, but it is striking that Kim gave such a speech at all.
"When the moon is in the Seventh HouseAnd Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars"
His father, Kim Jong Il, rarely spoke in public and signaled his annual plans through state newspaper editorials; the younger Kim has cultivated a more accessible style since taking power, showing up in public with his young wife and repeatedly addressing the North Korean people on television. Such gestures seem reminiscent of his grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, who routinely spoke on the new year.
"Harmony and understandingSympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Asparagus! Asparagus!"
Despite the call to make peace, some experts were skeptical that it signaled any dramatic shift by North Korea. The regime prizes its military might, Kim emphasized later in his speech, delivered just a few weeks after North Korea launched a rocket to loft a satellite into space.
"Let the sun shine, Let the sun shine inThe sun shine in"
The liftoff was condemned by South Korea and the U.S. as a cover for testing North Korea's missile technology. Japan has joined them in prodding the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Security Council to step up pressure on the regime in response.
a.) Reunification in Olde Pyongyang means something different that it does in Seoul.
b.) His meds will wear off soon and then he'll be singing something else, possibly McArthur Park.
c.) This happens every few months. Nothing to get excited about.
Dialing down tensions after the launch "could eventually be linked with the North's call for aid" from the South, Kim Tae-woo of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification told Rooters news service. "But such a move does not necessarily mean any substantive change in the North Korean regime's policy towards the South."