Pilot for Soap Box Opera

I don’t have a T.V., I swore off listening to NPR in the morning ‘cus having them as my alarm clock is enough of those guys (they all have such pleasant morning voices), zero on internet at home too, no radio in the car, so my first hit of news comes in the form of the Oregonian headline, Portland’s daily fish wrap.

The Oregonian alway is neatly fanned on the shelf at Sydney’s, my regular two shot soy latte stop, which is my breakfast stop. Some days I’ll pick one up for 50 cents, most days I pass unless something really grabs me. I just usually browse the front page to see what’s up. With the news cycle these days I passed on picking up ‘North Korea tests a nuke bomb” or something with the same meaning.

Somewhere in a sealed underground room, or shaft, some scientific hermetically sealed lab big enough to contain a nuclear blast, somewhere across the Pacific Ocean, not too far from where I’m standing, Kim Jong-Il is being evil again!

Or, to be put properly, “the right United States policy toward the DPRK can be expressed in two words: regime change,” Ian Bremmer remarks. “But regime change, in this case, does not mean a shock-and-awe military campaign—although it’s important that Kim…believe that possibility remains on the table. Regime change in North Korea means finding ways to gradually expose the North Korean people to outside influence in oreder to create demand for change from within the DPRK.”

“The immediate objective of such a policy is not to quickly make the government of North Korea look like the government of Sweden, or even to try to force the DPRK to hold elections. But if Pyongyang governed its people a little more like China does today­­—granting them some meaningul economic and social freedoms even as it restricts political liberties—­this would be a solid start toward the opening up of North Korea…”

Just last month Kim Jong-Il shot some missiles into the sea, without nuclear war heads on them, just to see if they had enough punch in their rocket to get one of those warheads they tested today to land in Japan. South Korean’s leaked the news that they detected an unnatural seismic occurrence at the same time the North Korean’s claim they tested their nuke.

Later that day I picked upthe New York Times and they had nothing on the bomb. That doesn’t mean the Times editors were being unusually lazy on the wires that day. The Times had to go to press 3 hours before the Oregonian so it wasn’t in their 24 hour window. The news broke around breakfast so I won’t be reading about it during lunch.

What the New York Times did have was a nifty little piece on the new Secretary General of the United Nations. His name is Ban-Ki-moon. This story had no mention of the North Korean bomb going off, yet the headline was prophetic enough to capture the immediate event:

“South Korean Won’t Need to Wait Long, Or Look Far, For First Crisis as U.N. Chief”
A veteran diplomat says he will engage North Korea directly, and pay a visit.
New York Times, International A9, Monday, October 9,2006
by Choe Sant-Hun and Martin Fackler

Ban Ki-moon, the soft spoken South Korean foreign minister, has spent much of his 35-year career steering his country between its biggest ally, the United States, and its biggest threat, North Korea. Now, on the eve of his confirmation as the next United Nations secretary general, he is preparing to take on the North Korea portfolio on behalf of the world.

With North Korea threatening to test a nuclear weapon, the next secretary general could face an early challenge to help defuse a standoff and coax North Korea to return to the bargaining table. He would also be called on to mend estranged relations with the United States, the largest donor to the United Nations, which have grown more strained with the war in Iraq.

Mr. Ban would become the second Asian to lead the United Nations, at a time when China’s global influence is rising, and Japan, Asia’s largest economic power, wants to raise its international profile by gaining a permanent seat on the Security council. The last Asian secretary general was U Thant of Burma, the nation now called Myanmar. He served from 1961 to 1971.

So far, Mr Ban has been characteristically reserved about disclosing what he might do as secretary general. He has said, though, that he would try to play a more vocal role than the current secretary general, Kofi Annan, in Trying to persuade North Korea to end its nuclear program. He has also said he may depart from his predecessor’s path by engaging North Korea in personal diplomacy.

“I plan to go to North Korea as soon as I get the chance,” Mr. Ban, who is 62, was quoted as saying last Tuesday by the south Korean newspaper Chosum Ilbo. “Secretary General Kofi Annan has never visited North Korea during his 10-year term.”

The selection of Mr. Ban to lead the United Nations would place a seasoned diplomat at the helm of a sprawling organization with an annual budget of $5 billion and a presence in every corner of the globe, including 92,000 blue-helmeted peacekeepers.

Mr. Ban would also take over an organization reeling from criticism over mismanagement of the oil-for-food program in Iraq, reported sexual misconduct by peacekeepers and accusations of opaque and inefficient financial practices.

But the biggest challenge Mr. Ban may face as secretary general could be his own personality. While no one doubts the South Korean diplomat’s credentials, some have questioned wether his quiet, low-key manner is suited to the job. Known as a cautious consensus-builder, Mr. Ban would be taking a post with few formal powers, but one that has best served as a bully pulpit for swaying global public opinion.

“Some Westerners may say I look soft and not pushy. But I remind them that an unreasonably strong character doesn’t win respect.”

Having won the approval of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security council last week, Mr Ban appears certain to replace Mr. Annan of Ghana, who will step down as secretary general at the end of this year.

Mr. Ban won four informal polls in the Security Council, coming out ahead of six other candidates. They all withdrew their names last week to clear the way for the formal selection of Mr. Ban by the Council on Monday. His name then goes to the 192-member General Assembly for approval. He would take office on Jan.1.

North Korea is already emerging as the first big crisis Mr. Ban could face. Last Tuesday, it escalated tensions by announcing that it would test its first nuclear bomb, provoking strong international condemnation.

As secretary general, Mr. Ban would have to assume a role different from the one he has played as South Korea’s top diplomat. Since becoming foreign minister two years ago, he has not always seen eye to eye with the United States on the North Korean weapons program.

Mr. Ban has been an advocated of the policy of the South Korean president, Hoh Moo-hyun, who has favored engaging North Korea in dialogue and using economic incentives to entice it to compromise. At times, this has put him at odds with the United States, which supports a tougher approach.

He will need (his) American contacts to improve the United Nations’ ties with the government in Washington, which frayed after the American-led attack on Iraq. Mr Ban has also promised to mediate disagreements between the United States and third-world member countries. In what seems to be a nod to one of America’s concerns, he has vowed to clean up the United Nations’ financial management.

“I also know the criticism about inefficiency and corruption,” he said. <“Through reform, the United Nations must be reborn as a viable and efficient organization so that it can properly deal with the challenges it faces in the 21st century.”