This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- China urges calm as North and South Korea trade military threats
- Venezuela has anti-American love fest at Chávez’s funeral
China urges calm as North and South Korea trade military threats
Kim Jong-un inspects the troops on Friday
Following the U.N. Security Council’s approval of a resolutioncondemning North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons tests, NorthKorea has upped its vitriolic threats even further and appears to betaking steps to prepare for military action.
North Korea has canceledthe 1953 armistice agreement, as well as other non-aggression agreementswith Sorth Korea. They threaten to turn Seoul and Washington into astrike.” Kim Jong-un is inspecting military installations near theborder and on the islets in the Yellow Sea.
According to the North Korean dictator:
All the service personnel of the ground, naval, airand anti-air and strategic rocket forces are fully ready to fighta Korean style all-out war.
South Korea responded in kind:
If North Korea provokes a nuclear war, it will vanishfrom the earth by the will of South Korea andhumankind.
China has urged both sides to calm down, but calm seems a long wayoff, right now. Dong-a Ilbo (Seoul) and Global Times (Beijing)
Venezuela has anti-American love fest at Chávez’s funeral
Venezuela’s acting president Nicolás Maduro broke into tears again atFriday’s funeral for Hugo Chávez, shouting:
Here we are, Comandante, your men, on their feet.All your men and women… loyal until beyond death.
Huge crowds traveled to Caracas from all over the country to seeChávez’s body and to express their love and eternal devotion. A lineof people stretched 1 1/2 miles to see the body, but many were turnedaway. There will be plenty of time to see Chavez’s body later, as it will beembalmed and enclosed in a crystal case and left on display forever.
Cuba’s preside Raul Castro and Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejadwere there, receiving loud applause. Ahmadinejad said:
It is a great pain for us because we have lost afriend. I feel like I have lost myself, but I am sure that hestill lives. Chávez will never die. His spirit and soul live on ineach of our hearts.
Rev. Jesse Jackson was there, and said, “We pray to God today that youwill heal the breach between the U.S. and Venezuela.” Helater attended Maduro’s swearing-in and was hailed by the actingpresident as “a good man from the United States.”
Sean Penn was there, and like Ahmadinejad, Penn also said he lost a friend, ashe explained a day earlier:
Today the people of the United States lost a friendit never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost achampion. I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts arewith the family of President Chávez and the people ofVenezuela.
As we’ve discussed in previous days, Chávez, himself a mestizo (mixedblood), has become a beloved hero to the mestizo citizens, about 60%of the population, because he defeated the “pure” European descendantélite.
Henrique Capriles on Friday (AP)
The fault line between the mestizos and the European descendants wasclear from the fact that the political opposition, led by HenriqueCapriles, did not attend the funeral at all; they were told,speech in which he called Maduro a bold-faced liar and accused him ofusing Hugo Chávez’s funeral to campaign for the presidency:
“I tell you clearly, Nicolás [Maduro], I am not goingto speak of the times you lied to the country, shamelessly,”Capriles said. “The people have not voted for you,boy.”
AP and Venezuelanalysis
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, United Nations, China, North Korea, South Korea,Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, Henrique Capriles
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