For the fourth year in a row, the United States has fallen on the Heritage Foundation’s international Index of Economic Freedom. For 2011, the U.S. fell from 9th to 10th, just behind Ireland. (RELATED: IMF providing bailout support to heavily indebted Ireland)
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The flag of the United Nations flew at half-mast Wednesday at the world’s body headquarters in New York and its Geneva offices to mark the funeral for late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. (more)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday that rival South Korea and other nations should not expect any change from the country’s new leadership. (more)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea declared Kim Jong Il’s son and successor “supreme leader” of the ruling party, military and the people during a memorial Thursday for his father in the government’s first public endorsement of his leadership. (more)
North Korea’s state-run news agency is reporting that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter expressed his condolences following the death of brutal dictator Kim Jong Il. (more)
Kim Jong-il is dead. The question on everyone’s mind now seems to be: What happens next? It is a question that is difficult if not impossible to answer. Because North Korea has essentially been a black box for the past few decades, outsiders’ knowledge about the internal political dynamics and even about purported heir Kim Jong-un is severely lacking. (more)
With North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il gone, here’s a look at how one of the country’s state-owned businesses — one that was frequently viewed by the outside world — was run during his time. (more)
The late, great Kim Jong Il achieved more things than any human could count, except perhaps Kim Jong Il — if he was a human, which he of course most certainly was not. Here are the Dear Leader’s top 10 most impressive accomplishments: (more)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Even as the world changed around him, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il remained firmly in control, ruling absolutely at home and keeping the rest of the world on edge through a nuclear weapons program. (more)
If you haven’t viewed the VICE documentary guides to various third world basket cases, you are really missing out. (more)
Tuesday night’s CNN debate offered Republican presidential contenders the opportunity to prove they are ready to navigate the murky waters of international affairs. The primary season’s twelfth debate focused entirely on national security and quickly set a tone that was in stark contrast to the “rah-rah” atmosphere of the previous debates. The crowd of Washington insiders and think tank employees offered a much more subdued response to the candidates than the primary voters who have been filling the debate halls to this point. But boisterous crowd reactions were not the only things missing from Tuesday night’s debate. There were also some notable geographic and political voids in the debate’s content: (more)
Despite having little demonstrable interest in giving up its nuclear weapons, North Korea is once again headed for a negotiating table to do just that. That the North Koreans have been invited at all is a testament to the strange desperation of both the Obama administration and the South Korean Lee Myung-bak administration to return to the Six Party Talks. (more)
Twenty-one North Koreans, some of them children, have been found adrift in a boat off the west coast of South Korea, the authorities there say. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will make his first trip to Asia as Pentagon chief later this month, as the U.S. works to bolster its relations with countries in the region. (more)
1.) Romney and Perry square off — You know that episode of Star Trek where the Good Kirk and the Evil Kirk are battling it out on the bridge of the Enterprise? That’s kind of what Romney vs. Perry looked like at the GOP debate last night, although opinions vary on which one is which. This time they picked out different ties, at least. TheDC’s Amanda Carey reports: “Nine Republican presidential candidates squared off in Orlando, Florida Thursday night. Once again, the back-and-forth between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney stole the show. The two frontrunners went after each other numerous times during the two-hour debate; Romney and Perry took turns accusing the other of flip-flopping or being too moderate on key issues. On Social Security, Perry assured viewers that he would not transition administration of the program to the states. Romney pounced on that statement, accusing Perry of flip-flopping on Social Security — a program Romney called a ‘job for the federal government.’ Perry, in turn, accused Romney of changing his position on education, and supporting President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program. Romney fired back, ‘Nice try.’” Good comeback, Mitt. Oh, and the other seven candidates said stuff too. (more)
Monumental news comes out of North Korea as the brutish Communist regime announces the release of two new propaganda posters to try to confuse their long-suffering subjects into believing that things are actually going swimmingly in the Hermit Kingdom. (more)
A coalition of 28 human rights groups, led by the Geneva-based United Nations watchdog group U.N. Watch, is urging the world’s countries to protest North Korea’s chairmanship of the U.N.’s Conference on Disarmament. (more)
As the North Korean people die of hunger, the country’s top officials have doubled imports of Chinese luxury goods since last year, reports the Straits Times. (more)
The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program asserts that the government of North Korea bribed top military officials in Islamabad to obtain access to sensitive nuclear technology in the late 1990s. (more)
In the latest ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ news from the United Nations, North Korea assumed the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament Tuesday. (more)
