Mid-Week Post

Quickly now...


The United States wishes Kim Jong-Eun and his wife/consort/lieutenant in his army of darkness well:

The United States wished North Korean leader Kim Jong-un well in his just-announced marriage Wednesday, but said its main hope is that life improves for the North Korean people under the young ruler.

North Korea state television casually announced Wednesday that Kim was married to the woman seen with him at recent public events. 

The state broadcast said Kim toured an amusement park with his wife, “comrade Ri Sol-ju.” The report did not say when the newlyweds got married, when they started dating or anything about Ri.

“We would always wish any kind of newlyweds well as they embark” on married life, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Wednesday, joking the U.S. had not received an invitation to the wedding. 

“But obviously our concerns first and foremost are for the North Korean people, and our hope that conditions for them will improve.”

Good thing the US is not letting a little wedding invitation snub get in the way of yet another failed six-party talks.


Related: the South Korean flag just isn't pretty enough for the North Korean women's soccer team.



Iran accuses Israel of blowing up a bus with its own citizens:

Iran's U.N. envoy accused Israel on Wednesday of plotting and carrying out a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Bulgaria a week ago in which five Israeli tourists were killed.

A suicide bomber blew up the bus in a car park at Burgas airport, a popular gateway for tourists visiting Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, killing himself, the Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver and wounding more than 30 people.

Israel has accused Iran and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah of the bombing. Iran has denied the accusations.

"It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it," Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told a U.N. Security Council debate on the Middle East. 

"We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people."

"Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed implicating others for narrow political gains," Khazaee said. "I could provide ... many examples showing that this regime killed its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Haim Waxman said Iran's fingerprints were all over the bomb attack in Bulgaria, as well as dozens of other plots in recent months around the world.

"These comments are appalling, but not surprising from the same government that says the 9/11 attack was a conspiracy theory and denies the Holocaust," Waxman said in a statement.

Stupidity or calculated play? YOU decide.




Question: why are we giving aid to a country that may use chemical warfare against its own citizens and other countries?

Canada is prepared to provide more humanitarian aid to Syria, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Wednesday.

He did not give a dollar figure but said that medical aid will be a particular focus.

Baird made the announcement after meeting with Syrian opposition members and activists in Ottawa.

Canada had already pledged $8.5 million in humanitarian assistance since the uprising began in March 2011.

Check out Michael Coren's bold new look.



And now, the cats of the St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum.



(With thanks to all)