On North Korea ... Kim Jong-un's initiative in his New Year's speech is very encouraging

Let's hope the USA, which is the real rogue nation on our planet, not North Korea, not Iran, not Syria, not any other nation ... will restrain its vile warmongering, death-loving, atrocity-addicted self and not decide to attack North Korea.  If it does, there's no telling what could happen.

Peter Koenig at GlobalResearch
North Korea – UN Security Council’s “Killer Resolution”,15 to 0: Choking a Country into Submission

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is being choked into submission if not starvation by the UN Security Council, by a vote of 15 : 0; i.e. unanimously. None of the 15 UNSC states, let alone the five permanent members, have had the guts to say no to a killer Resolution, drafted and proposed by the United States of America, a name that increasingly stands for international rogue and crime nation.

The New York Times reports on 22 December 2017:

    “President Trump has used just about every lever you can use, short of starving the people of North Korea to death, to change their behavior,” the White House homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, said Tuesday. “And so, we don’t have a lot of room left here to apply pressure to change their behavior.”

Two immediate questions come to mind – first, who is Trump to blackmail the UNSC into punishing nations which do not bend to the empire’s wishes?

Yes, blackmailing, because that’s exactly what is categorically part of the chief rogue’s international behavior. Case in point is the recent UN Resolution to nullify Trump’s unilateral decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, when he, the Donald, threatening he would watch closely who would vote against the US, in view of punishing those nations monetarily or with other sanctions; and second, how come Russia and China went along with this literally genocidal program of sanctions contained in this UNSC Resolution?

Both Russia and China know that Washington’s arguments against the DPRK are based on a web of lies. That everything coming out of Washington is a lie, or untruth, or omission of facts – is well known around the globe. But in this case, where two ascending super-powers, Russia and China have the veto right to say NO to these illegal sanctions, it begs the question, why’ didn’t they use their veto?....

Carla Shea at GlobalResearch
The Situation in North Korea is Terrifying: US-ROK Military Threats Are Provocations for Nuclear War

The DPRK Emergency Letter to the U.N. Secretary-General
This article was first published on November 15, prior to the latest December UN Security Council resolution against the DPRK, which was adopted unanimously, with the support of Russia and China.

The situation with North Korea is terrifying – I see the stealthy build-up of pressure on the Security Council, similar to that preceding the Iraq and Libya invasions.  The Russian-China veto prevented an attack by the UN on Syria, but Russia and China are not vetoing these vicious sanctions on North Korea, and permitting this incredibly provocative US-ROK military surrounding the DPRK.  What deals are being made?

On October 13, the DPRK sent another emergency letter to United Nations Secretary-General Guterres; this was the third letter sent to the UN since November 20, three letters in 23 days attempting to alert the United Nations to the crisis situation in Northeast Asia jeopardizing International Peace and Security, a crisis that could precipitate nuclear war at any moment. All three letters have been ignored, raising alarming questions about the UN’s commitment to “save humanity from the scourge of war.

Any attempt to accuse the DPRK of “provocation”is flagrant prevarication, as the provocations, and threats to the survival of North Korea described in this appeal to the Secretary-General reveal the US-south Korean  preparation for imminent attack and obliteration of North Korea.

Ambassador Ja Song Nam stated:

    “I write to you with respect to the worst ever situation prevailing in and around the Korean peninsula, which is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war breaks out due to the US nuclear war equipment of unprecedentedly large scale being massively deployed taking up a strike posture. The United States, based on the deployment of three nuclear powered aircraft carrier strike groups in the sub-region, is holding another joint military exercise with south Korea, involving different types of destroyers and submarines, beginning from November 11, 2017. The U.S. is reactivating….. nuclear capable strategic bomber B-52….and is maintaining a surprise strike posture with frequent flight of B-1B and B-2 formations to the air space of south Korea….The US flung the words of “total destruction”of a sovereign state at the UN General Assembly, the world largest official forum of diplomacy and is now running amok for war exercises by introducing nuclear war equipment in and around the Korean peninsula, thereby proving that the US itself is the major offender of the escalation of tension and undermining of the peace…..Despite this fact, the UN Security Council, whose mission is to ensure the world peace and security, keeps turning a blind eye to the nuclear war exercises of the United States who is hell bent on bringing a catastrophic disaster to humanity, thereby giving rise to a serious concern on the double standard of the UN Security Council.”

It defies logic and sanity that the DPRK, which, between 1950-1953, suffered the slaughter of more than 3 million of its citizens by US and ROK soldiers guilty of crimes against humanity, and which is attempting to protect itself from another comparable or worse slaughter, is being viciously subjected to collective punishment by UN Security Council sanctions, condemning the people of the DPRK to agonizing deaths from starvation and disease, while forced to endure the psychological torture of an encirclement by US-ROK nuclear weapons poised to exterminate their entire people........

Ankit Panda at TheDiplomat
3 Takeaways From Kim Jong-un's 2018 New Year's Address

On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un delivered his 2018 New Year’s Day address, as he has done every year since 2013. In the address, Kim celebrated the completion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, offered to enter conditional talks with South Korea with the offer of potentially sending a delegation to the upcoming Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, and condemned international sanctions. Kim Jong-un, while acknowledging the “unprecedented” level of sanctions the country had endured in 2017, said that North Korea would have to improve its “ability to be self-reliant.”....

....Beyond his talk of a “nuclear button,” Kim Jong-un’s most diplomatically significant remark in the address concerned inter-Korean relations. He appeared open to the prospect of sending a North Korean delegation to the upcoming Winter Olympics, which will be hosted by South Korea at Pyeongchang in February 2018. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, as part of his pursuit of engagement with the North, has called for North Korea’s participation. “I hope that North Korea will also participate, which will provide a very good opportunity for inter-Korean peace and reconciliation,” Moon said in November 2017, during North Korea’s two-month-long pause in ballistic missile testing. “We truly wish the South a successful Olympics,” Kim said in his address....