Kim Jong Un

Tom Secker and Robbie Martin join me for a very wide ranging discussion on everything from Reality Winner to Dennis Rodman. Tom and I start off the conversation by talking about the Wikileaks Twitter account tweeting about our issue on The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. We talk about the obvious divide right now between Assange and Wikileaks not just in terms of Twitter, but in terms of their media strategy. The three of us then dive into the bizarre case of NSA leaker Reality Winner. We theorize as to whether she is a true leaker, or a truly disgruntled employee.

South Korea has been keeping its military on high alert since the North began to increase the frequency of its ballistic missile tests and threaten the region [Xinhua]
Newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in is set to overhaul Seoul’s foreign policy with particular emphasis on easing tensions with the North.
On Wednesday, Moon appointed prominent university professors Lee Sang-Chul and Kim Ki-jung to the top security advisory positions to help him formulate new policies.

(ANTIMEDIA) In a move that Washington, D.C. will hopefully view as the extension of an olive branch, North Korea’s deputy U.N. envoy said Friday that negotiations between North Korea and the United States can begin as soon as the U.S. eases its aggressive actions toward his country.

Trump’s willingness to stray from the status quo may have caused many of his supporters to believe that his Presidency would lead to a complete re-shuffling of American politics.
Under the new US administration, the ruling order of the country has not drastically changed. Domestically, the rising power of policing agencies alongside cuts in social spending has not ceased. Internationally, the USA still stands with western Europe against the bloc of independently developing countries centered on Russia, China and Iran.

(ZHE) In April 2014, just as the Ukraine conflict (and proxy civil war) was hitting its climax, in the process undermining US-Russian relations for years, some 2,066 Americans were asked to show where the Ukraine was on a map.

(MPN) When the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 as part of its newly launched “war on terror,” it set the stage for the explosive growth of Afghanistan’s dying opium industry.

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed) “It was easy enough to spot my cheerleader: She was the only person shouting in a crowd of quiet, curious, shy supporters. Her visage dug with deep wrinkles, but she was full of energy and smiles. When I saw her, I merged to the right and gave her a high-five. When I did, a group of women started to cheer me, (‘Bali! Bali!’), and a bunch of kids ran toward me to get their own high-fives. The ice was broken.”

(COMMONDREAMS) In a potential sign of escalating tensions, North Korea has accused the United States and South Korea of having conspired to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong-un, with “biochemical agents.”

(ANTIMEDIA) North Korea — As Kim Jong-un, in a rare move, speaks out against ally China, the media is now reporting that since the end of April, the Asian superpower has been urging its citizens in North Korea to return to the homeland.
According to a Chinese national who had been living in Pyongyang, the Chinese embassy began sending messages to citizens urging them to leave North Korea on April 20.

(ANTIMEDIA) South Korea — More drills are being conducted off the Korean Peninsula in a continuing show of force by the U.S., Japan, and the currently leaderless South Korea. These drills are aimed at getting Kim Jong-un to back off from his nuclear ambitions, the mainstream narrative goes, but South Korea’s likely next president just had some surprising warnings for the United States.