January are a long way from a stable, enduring peace on the Korean peninsula, but these gestures are the best signs of sanity there in decades. On January 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for immediate dialogue with South Korea ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics there. On January 2, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in proposed that talks begin next week in Panmunjom (a border village where intermittent talks to end the Korean War have continued since 1953). On January 3, the two Koreas reopened a communications hotline that has been dysfunctional for almost two years (requiring South Korea to use a megaphone across the border in order to repatriate several North Korean fishermen). Talks on January 9 are expected to include North Korean participation in the Winter Olympics that begin February 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

y comment: “first the ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight
you, then you win”. We are getting close to winning ;-). The response to
this fascist states’ litany of new laws and regulation that stifle free
speech, destroy non-Jews in Jerusalem, kidnap children, deny freedom of
movement, assassinate people etc should fall under these basic categories:

1. Intensify the work for BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) around the
world and take time now to support the 20 groups that the Israeli regime is
trying to silence (and the many others they missed :-)

2. Lobby all governments to treat Israeli citizens in kind: any Israeli
citizen or those connected with Israeli organizations who/which refuse/s to
accept internationally recognized rights of Palestinians (for refugees to
return, for freedom etc) should be denied entry to all countries whose
citizens were denied entry to Palestine (which has to go through “Israeli”
borders).

3. Intensify lobbying governments around the world to withdraw recognition

A long-standing French protectorate briefly occupied by Japan during World War II, Cambodia became independent in 1953 as the French finally withdrew from Indochina. Under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia remained officially neutral, including during the subsequent US war on Indochina. However, by the mid-1960s, parts of the eastern provinces of Cambodia were bases for North Vietnamese Army and National Liberation Front (NVA/NLF) forces operating against South Vietnam and this resulted in nearly a decade of bombing by the United States from 4 October 1965. See ‘Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War’.

In 1970 Sihanouk was ousted in a US-supported coup led by General Lon Nol. See ‘A Special Supplement: Cambodia’. The following few years were characterized by an internal power struggle between Cambodian elites and war involving several foreign countries, but particularly including continuation of the recently commenced ‘carpet bombing’ of Cambodia by the US Air Force.

Resident Donald Trump’s highly criticized so-called Election Integrity Commission, looking into supposed “voter fraud,” was disbanded Wednesday, January 3. The Commission was forged by fire in the tweets of Trump and his bizarre claim that Hillary Clinton’s more than 3 million popular vote win was based on votes by illegal immigrants.

Recently the Commission was in a spat with a dozen or so states when it demanded they submit all of their voter data to them. including partial voter Social Security numbers. Matthew Dunlap, Maine’s Secretary of State and Commission member, sued the commission claiming he was being kept in the dark on the group’s activities.

Ohio’s former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s appointment to the Commission resulted in open derision since he best known for suppressing votes in the notorious 2004 Ohio presidential election. Before Election Day, Blackwell rejected voter registration forms that weren’t submitted on 80-bond paper used prior to the advent of computers, instead of today’s standard 20-bond paper.