On the Korean Peninsula

A rising paper tiger, a pretender in the Oval Office and a nervous and pre-occupied Australia and Japan make Kim a dull boy:

North Korea‘s most vulnerable risk starvation after it slipped deeper into isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and U.N. sanctions imposed for its nuclear and missile programs should be eased, a U.N. rights investigator said in report seen by Reuters.

 

(Sidebar: the most vulnerable have always starved in North Korea. Why would anyone care now?)

 

But North Korea has the wherewithal to militarise: 

Kim Jong-un added that weapons development was for self-defence, and not to start a war.

Mr Kim made the comments at a rare defence exhibition while flanked by a variety of large missiles. 

 

(Sidebar: so believable, Jong-Un.) 

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Mr Kim spent 30 years working his way to the top ranks of North Korea's powerful spy agencies. The agencies were the "eyes, ears, and brains of the Supreme Leader", he says.

He claims he kept their secrets, sent assassins to kill their critics, and even built an illegal drugs-lab to help raise "revolutionary" funds. ...

He depicts a North Korean leadership desperate to make cash by any means possible, from drug deals to weapons sales in the Middle East and Africa. He told us about the strategy behind decisions being made in Pyongyang, the regime's attacks on South Korea, and claims that the secretive country's spy and cyber networks can reach around the world.

Oh, and the man who helped give North Korea the bomb (aside from Bill Clinton) is dead.