North Korea Child Rights Kh2

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFLY Iran charges U.S. journalist with spying TEHRAN (AP) — An American journalist jailed for more than two months in Iran has been charged with spying for the United States, a judge said Wednesday, dashing hopes of a quick release days after her parents arrived in the country seeking her freedom. The espionage charge is far more serious than earlier statements by Iranian officials that the woman had been arrested for working in the Islamic Republic without press credentials and her own assertion in a phone call to her father that she was arrested after buying a bottle of wine. Roxana Saberi, who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran, has been living in Iran for six years. She has reported from there for several news organizations, including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp. An investigative judge involved in the case told state TV that Saberi was passing classified information to U.S. intelligence services.

France to vote on internet piracy bill PARIS (AP) — French lawmakers are to vote Thursday on a measure that would suspend internet services to users who repeatedly pirate music and movies. The bill would give French authorities powers to trace illegal downloads and cut repeat offenders off from the Internet for a period of two months to one year. Those cut off would have to continue to pay for internet access for the duration of their suspension. The bill has already received initial approval from both houses of Parliament and been praised by prominent musicians and the French recording industry. It is expected to be passed on Thursday and would put France at the forefront of the fight against illegal downloading.

Malaysian policemen to hang over killing KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Two Malaysian policemen were sentenced to death Thursday for the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, in a sensational case the opposition has tried to link with new premier Najib Razak. Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of Najib who was sworn in as prime minister last week, has been acquitted of abetting the 2006 slaying of the 28-year-old interpreter who he admitted having an affair with. Her body was blown up with military-grade explosives in a jungle clearing. The two officers charged with the murder, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, are from an elite unit that guards the prime minister and deputy prime minister. “They failed to raise reasonable doubt against the prosecution’s case. I convict both of you as charged,” said Shah Alam High Court judge Zaki Mohamad Yasin.

worked does not mean that others will work in the future: All missiles have the potential to be unreliable. But from a coercion perspective, the United States cannot count on a North Korean missile failing; it must be prepared to deal with and potentially defeat such a launch. For whatever reasons, the United States did not try to intercept this launch. Thus, we do not know from this case whether the U.S. ballistic missile defense system will work in the future against Taepodong launches. How will the world react to the launch? This event will cause great global concern. While the Taepodong can reach the United States, it can also reach many other countries (including China and Russia). Moreover, if the United States accepts North Korean coercion, U.S. allies in northeast Asia may lose some or all of the nuclear umbrella that they have counted on to protect them against North Korean nuclear weapons. Japan and South Korea may come to feel that

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Motive sought in attack at California retreat TEMECULA, California (AP) — Investigators are trying to determine why a resident of a Korean religious retreat that helps the homeless allegedly went on a deadly rampage targeting his fellow volunteers. Police said John Chong, 69, shot one woman dead Tuesday night and wounded her husband before being disarmed during a struggle with another couple. Chong had lived at the Kkottongnae Retreat Camp for about a year as a volunteer after moving from the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood. The two couples attacked also were resident volunteers. Detectives, having trouble piecing together exactly what happened because many witnesses speak only Korean, were unable to immediately determine a motive. “We have no evidence that this was a domestic dispute. We do not have a motive or reason for this incident,” sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Lujan said Wednesday. The camp, about 136 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles, is marked by a simple white sign along a two-lane road that winds through the hills of the Temecula wine country. The retreat, which provides food and aid to the homeless, is run by Korean nuns. Chong is a retired professional welder who did maintenance at the retreat and was always welding, building walls, digging holes and pouring concrete, said Chuck Owens, 69, who lives nearby and saw him Tuesday.

The Kkottongnae Retreat Camp in Temecula, California

“He came up and he seemed normal,” Owens said. “He came up for a while and we sat around for a while. I noticed nothing.” Chong is unmarried and has no children, he said. Investigators determined that Chong, who lived alone in a bungalow, had gone to the first couple’s bungalow and shot the woman once in the head with a .32-caliber revolver, killing her instantly, Lujan said. Her husband was then shot in the torso.

Chong then went to a second bungalow about 300 meters away and attempted to shoot the second couple, but they fought him off in what appeared to be a violent and extensive fistfight, Lujan said. Two shots were discharged from the revolver during the brawl, but no one was hit. “From all accounts it was hand to hand,” Lujan said. “There was physical evidence that a significant altercation

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had occurred. We’re talking turned-over furniture, damage to the door, damage to furnishings and fixtures.” Chong was hospitalized in serious condition with trauma to his face and remained unconscious. No relatives had been located. The Sheriff ’s Department identified the dead woman as Chuneui Yun, 58. Her wounded husband, Jong Pil-yun, was hos-

BANGKOK (Reuters) — Thai taxi drivers joined a growing antigovernment protest on Thursday, blocking at least one main intersection in central Bangkok, and the demonstrators also threatened to disrupt an Asian summit meeting. The protesters, supporters of ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006, are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and new elections, which analysts say Thaksin allies would be well placed to win. As many as 100,000 red-shirted Thaksin supporters had assembled on Wednesday in the area around Abhisit’s office at Government House. On Thursday afternoon the numbers were put by witnesses at around 30,000 but other flashpoints were appearing. Taxi drivers, a group that has supported Thaksin in the past, blocked at least one major junction in central Bangkok, causing gridlock at Victory Monument, traffic police said. Abhisit said the protests posed no security risk to an Asian summit to be held in Pattaya, a resort town 150 kilometers from Bangkok, brushing

they therefore need their own nuclear weapons, potentially igniting a regional nuclear arms race. In addition, this launch was a major act of defiance against the United States, China, and the other regional countries. All had urged North Korea not to launch this missile. In particular, this is a first major act of defiance against the new U.S. Administration, which now might be reasonably expected to lead actions against North Korea and take a relatively strong position against the North. Even if the Obama Administration still wanted to be a peacemaker, the increased threat would make it vulnerable to conservative criticism of weakness, a lack of concern for U.S. security, and poor leadership. Because this launch violated U.N. Resolution 1718, the United States will likely seek substantial U.N. sanctions. This will be despite North Korea’s claim that this was a space launch. These sanctions will likely be economic, and most affect Chinese trade with North Korea (because China is North Korea’s largest trading partner). In the past, China has been willing to

aside an incident on Tuesday when his car was attacked after he left a cabinet meeting at the same venue. But the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship said it would take the protest to the summit. “I appeal to the ‘red shirts’ in Pattaya and nearby, as this government is not legitimate. The ways into the hotel should be full of red shirts,” UDD leader Jatuporn Prompan said from a makeshift stage set up at Government House. Foreign ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat told Reuters in Pattaya that security was in place and contingencies drawn up. “We want to solve these problems without any confrontation. The prime minister has stressed the situation is under control and we have nothing to worry about,” he said. Finance ministers from the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations were meeting in Pattaya on Thursday. A three-day summit of Asian leaders follows from Friday. The summit had to be cancelled late last year because of political unrest when a proThaksin government was in power. enforce U.N. actions against North Korea for a short period of time, but has always reduced enforcement over time out of fear of jeopardizing the North Korean regime. It could well act similarly this time. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that any military action will be taken against North Korea for now. None of North Korea’s neighbors want its government to collapse. What does this provocation suggest about future N. Korean behavior? The example of 2006 is very important. Certainly, the Taepodong launch will not resolve the underlying North Korean problems with food, the economy, and the regime’s loss of control. New international economic sanctions could further challenge the regime. The magnitude of the new threat posed makes it difficult for the international community to compromise in the short-term; meanwhile, the situation inside North Korea will likely get worse. North Korea would thus be expected to feel the need for a second provocation, just like it did in 2006. And it will feel that an escalated threat will be required because of the magnitude of the reactions to the ICBM launch.

pitalized in serious condition. “They are very faithful. They devote themselves to God. They are very nice people and I couldn’t believe this happened,” said Victor Nam, 59, of Diamond Bar, who arrived at the scene. The couple hurt in the fistfight also were hospitalized, though their injuries were not serious, sheriff’s Capt. Mitchell Alm said. Their names were not re-

leased. The area is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino. Bishop Gerald Barnes asked for prayer for the victims. “In these troubling times when we are seeing so many acts of senseless violence, we must hold God’s peace and grace in our hearts and ask for his strength to bear these tragedies,” he said in a statement. Lujan said about 100 people were staying on the retreat property, but he wasn’t sure how many were residents and how many were visitors. The retreat has eight or 10 bungalows spread across three or four acres. The retreat also has hookups for recreational vehicles, a lecture room, a prayer room and a conference room. On Wednesday, people trying to get to the retreat were turned away by yellow police tape and sheriff’s deputies guarding the entrance. The retreat is one of four U.S. branches of the Kkottongnae Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, a Roman Catholic organization dedicated to serving the poor and homeless. It was founded in the city of Cheongju, Korea, by Father Oh Woong-jin in 1976. Kkottongnae means “flower village” in Korean. The camp will be closed for the next month “as we come to terms with Tuesday’s events,” said a statement from Sister Thaddeus Suh, community supervisor for the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus, a Korean order that operates the retreat.

Newspaper owners: ‘We are mad as hell’

Thai protesters threaten to disrupt Asian summit

N.K. provocation From Page 4

FRIDAY APRIL 10, 2009

Supporters of Thailand’s ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra shout slogans during a demonstration in front of the house of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s top adviser, General Prem AFP-Yonhap News Tinsulanonda in Bangkok on Thursday.

North Korea might do another nuclear weapon test, likely trying to achieve a higher weapon yield (above 10 kilotons) to demonstrate to the world that North Korea has mastered nuclear technology and can pose a serious threat if the international community does not back down. Alternatively, North Korea might attempt an armed or terrorist provocation. It would want to generate serious shock in the international community to get major countries to back down. But such a provocation could well lead to an international military response against North Korea and even war, making this a less likely North Korean alternative. However, if the North Korean regime is suffering greater control problems than the rest of the world realizes, it may decide to induce the appearance of a foreign military attack on North Korea, justifying a diversionary war to reestablish internal control. The North Korean regime would take extremely high risks in doing so, risks that it may only be willing to take if the regime feels it is facing high jeopardy. Given North Korean information denial efforts, we do not know how desperate the North Korean regime feels (remembering the surprise the world experienced with the fall of the Soviet Union).

WASHINGTON (AFP) — U.S. newspaper owners, their advertising revenue evaporating, their circulation declining and their readership going online to get news for free, are fighting mad. The enemy? Websites that use their stories without paying for them. “We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more,” said the chairman of the Associated Press, a cooperative of over 1,400 U.S. newspapers, borrowing a line from the anchorman character in the 1976 movie “Network.” “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories,” Dean Singleton said at a meeting this week of the Newspaper Association of America in San Diego, California. Singleton’s battle cry came just a few days after News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch launched a broadside against Internet giant Google, whose Google News website is one of the most popular news aggregators on the Internet. “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copy-

to avoid. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the meeting was that it happened at all. A discussion with American representatives could not occur because the United States, along with Somalia, stands alone in not ratifying the U.N. Children’s Rights Convention. There are two lessons for North Korea. The first is that, as a proud socialist state, it could be criticised for failing to live up to its self-declared status. There are relevant exemplars, for instance the long tradition of efficient universal health care and education systems in Cuba and Nicaragua, despite poverty and external threats. Soviet Russia was the

first country to ban corporal punishment in schools, early last century. The second country, after America, to have a Disability Rights Act was China. The other lesson is more obvious. In relation to child protection, when there is reticence to open your front door, resultant rumor will usually be worse than reality. When assessing children’s rights, we must look beneath the media veneer of national stereotyping. It is then hard to distinguish between states run by leaders claiming legitimacy through revolution or religion, despotism or democracy. Everywhere, children are not kings, just the forgotten pawns of politics and power-play. As a South African street child puts it, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed.”

world’s busiest shipping lanes and offers a perfect haven to the heavily armed pirate gangs. They often dress in military fatigues and use GPS systems and satellite phones to coordinate attacks from small, fast speedboats resupplied by a larger “mother ship.” The pirates usually use rocket propelled grenades, antitank rocket launchers and automatic weapons to capture large, slow-moving vessels like the U.S.-flagged 17,000-ton

Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food aid from USAID and other agencies to help malnourished people in Uganda and Somalia. According to reports from the crew, the pirates sank their boat when they boarded the ship. The captain talked them into getting off the vessel using one of the ship’s lifeboats. Second Mate Ken Quinn told CNN in a live interview Wednesday that the crew also had held a hostage.

Children’s rights From Page 4 the “public education measures” for wayward children, although they sound remarkably like the strategies used by western youth offender teams. It was not clear whether corporal punishment was used but there were no reports, such as that from Egypt last year, of a child dying as a result of being beaten for poor math homework. North Korea certainly does not have the best record in terms of children rights, but nor does it seem to have the worst. There are no abuses that are not found in other countries, and there are many horrors elsewhere that North Korea seems

Somali pirates From Page 14 sixth vessel seized by Somalis pirates in a week. Pirates have staged 66 attacks since January, and they are still holding 14 ships and 260 crew members as hostages, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a watchdog group based in Kuala Lumpur. Somalia’s 3,057-kilometer long coastline borders one of the

rights?” asked Murdoch, the owner of newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States, where his holdings include The Wall Street Journal and New York Post. “Thanks, but no thanks,” the News Corp. chairman said. Robert Thomson, the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, used even harsher language than his boss in describing the situation. “There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet,” Thomson said in an interview with the newspaper The Australian. “It’s certainly true that readers have been socialized — wrongly I believe — that much content should be free,” he said. “And there is no doubt that’s in the interest of aggregators like Google who have profited from that mistaken perception.” The salvos by Singleton, Murdoch and Thomson appear to have been uncoordinated but they reflect rising anger among an industry facing a deepening crisis.