“Let’s tear Rat Myung-bak to death!”, the Korean word for “rat” rhyming as it does with the president’s surname. South Korean satirists had been making use of this euphony for years; it’s probably now time for them to pick a new joke. (via Economist)
- The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), whose legendary bellicosity has spawned such mocking tributes as this“random-insult generator”, is now naming individual targets. Predictably, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, with his habit of fussing Pyongyang with talk of regime change, makes the top of the list. But also in line for “reduction to ashes in three or four minutes, by unprecedented unusual means” are some of the South’s main media outlets.
- The KCNA also released a fresh series of anti-Lee cartoons, unprecedented in their nastiness.
- Stung by the very public failure of its recent satellite-cum-missile launch, the North mayfeel the need to remind everyone just how scary it can be. Kim Jong Un’s rule also needs solidifying within the leadership, which gives additional reason for some sort of provocative act. It has generally been assumed that this would mean a third nuclear test, to come within the next few weeks, but an attack on what they call the “Lee Myung-bak traitor faction” (including the conservative media) would certainly fit the bill.
