SK tells US to buzz off - keeps doing business w/ NK

Just a few days after the UN passed a resolution sanctioning NK for daring to demonstrate its nuclear capability, South Korea has demonstrated that it's not up to US to dictate how the two neighboring nations will conduct their affairs.

South Korea's leaders told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday that they will continue cross-border economic cooperation that provides millions of dollars to North Korea, despite its underground nuclear test 10 days ago.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said he told Rice that there are "positive aspects" to a huge, South Korean-sponsored industrial zone just across the demilitarized zone in North Korea. A second major project, a tourist resort in North Korea's Kumgang Mountains, "is a very symbolic project for Korea," Ban said. [Notice the reference to 'Korea' without the geographical descriptions 'North' or 'South']

The South Korean stance, delivered to Rice as she toured East Asia to gather support for isolating North Korea, underscores continued frictions over how best to deal with the regime in Pyongyang.

This, of course, is in addition to the very obvious friction between the US and NK, which only two days ago reiterated its interpretation of the sanctions as a Declaration of War.

In its first government reaction since the UN Security Council imposed the measures, the Stalinist regime warned it would strike with ‘merciless blows’ against any countries that impinged on its sovereignty.

* * *

The statement from Pyongyang dismissed the Council’s unanimous decision as ‘immoral behaviour’. It said having a nuclear weapon was its legitimate right and lashed out at the United States, which it accused of plotting to destroy the nation.

‘We will deliver merciless blows without hesitation to whoever tries to breach our sovereignty and right to survive under the excuse of carrying out the UN Security Council resolution,’ a foreign ministry spokesman said.

‘We will watch US movements and take corresponding action,’ the unidentified spokesman said, quoted by the secretive regime’s official KCNA agency.

‘The UNSC ‘resolution,’ needless to say, cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war against the DPRK (North Korea) because it was based on the scenario of the US, keen to destroy the socialist system.’

A system that is already at the brink of financial disintegration.

North Korea workers make about 25 cents an hour, averaging $67 per month. Wages are paid to the North Korean government, which retains 30 percent.

Can you believe it 25 CENTS AN HOUR!!! That's obscene!

The system may be socialist, but the wages sure as hell are CAPITALIST!