Probably in Havana giving the donkey show guided tour...
[Chosun Ilbo] What is North Korean leader Vito Kim Jong-il's eldest son Fredo Jong-nam doing now that his younger brother Mike Jong-un has been confirmed as his father's successor? The unemployed Fredo Jong-nam has two wives and a mistress and three children living in Beijing and Macau. I'm your older brother, Mike nam , and I was stepped over!
That's the way Pop wanted it.
It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm schmart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm schmart and I want respect!
At the Dragon Villa on the northern outskirts of Beijing apparently lives his first wife Shin Jong-hui (late 30s) and son Kum-sol (13). His second wife Lee Hye-kyong (late 30s), son Han-sol (15) and daughter Sol-hui (12) live in Macau, as does his girlfriend So Yong-la (AKA:So Long-ya bum) (early 30s), who used to be a flight attendant for Air Koryo.
Last Wednesday, it emerged that Fredo's Jong-nam's second wife and their two children live on the 12th floor of a modest, 20-year-old apartment in Macau, but nobody answered the doorbell. A junior high school girl living in the apartment said, "I used to meet the Kim siblings often, but I haven't seen them recently." When shown a photograph of Fredo Jong-nam, she said, "I saw him on the news, but I never saw him here." I have, however, seen Moe Yong Green...
According to South Koreans in Macau, the couple are separated. Fredo Kim Jong-nam was rumored to enjoy late-night drinking sessions with his bodyguards and friends at another apartment in the old quarter of Macau, but a security guard in that building said, "I've never seen Fredo Kim Jong-nam. The only people who come here are foreign journalists looking for him."
An international school in the new section of Macau's Taipa Island features the flags of around 60 countries including the North and South Korean flags. "The only North Korean who can afford to send his children to expensive foreign schools in Macau is Fredo Kim Jong-nam, and the North Korean flag means his children are attending this school," said one South Korean resident. Until this spring, the two children apparently lived in a new condo complex called Nova City around 500 m away from the school. But after Japanese reporters came to the school and began tailing the children, the family moved to a new address.
Until three years ago, Fredo Jong-nam and his bodyguards went to the matresses lived in an apartment in the southern tip of Macau's Coloane Island. But the place now looks empty. Also, nobody recalled seeing Fredo Jong-nam at the housing area where his girlfriend So Yong-la is reportedly living. Workers at the casino, restaurant and lobby of the Altira Hotel, where Fredo Jong-nam was spotted by journalists in June this year, said they had not seen him recently. ...probably too busy banging cocktail waitresses two at a time.
A South Korean who runs a restaurant in Macau said, "After the Cheonan sinking [in March], I saw Fredo Kim Jong-nam at the coffee shop of a top-notch VIP-only hotel. When he heard us speaking in Korean, he immediately got up and left. In the past, he used to say hello, but not any more."
A South Korean intelligence official said Fredo Kim Jong-nam has apparently not been to Macau for months now and shuttles between China and another country. The official added Fredo Kim Jong-nam has a different mother from his two younger brothers, Mike Jong-un and Sonny Jong-chol, so his status in the family hierarchy is uncertain.
Kim Pyong-il (56), Vito Kim Jong-il's half-brother, has been in virtual exile in Poland, where he is nominally the North Korean ambassador, since 1998. He'll be introduced in "Dear Leader IV"...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/05/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Kim Jong-nam was rumored to enjoy late-night drinking sessions with his bodyguards and friends at another apartment in the old quarter of Macau, but a security guard in that building said, "I've never seen Fredo Kim Jong-nam. The only people who come here are foreign journalists looking for him."
I like the guard's concern for his principal as well as his smartassedness towards reporters.
#3
I consider it a great disappointment if the answer is anything other than "hanging by his neck from a lamp-post."
Posted by: Mike ||
10/05/2010 14:19 Comments ||
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#4
For those of you that think there will be an uprising as soon as Dear Leader is T.U. Many predicted the same when the Great Leader passed. Dictators do not let people who dissent live very long. The people of North Korea are hungry, cold, and miserable but that has always been their existence.
#5
ION CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > TOKYO, MOSCOW LOCK HORNS IN DISPUTED ISLANDS STANDOFF.
ARTIC > IIUC, Russia is proclaiming its Right to Sovereignty oer the FORMER JAPANESE KURILS/KURILES BY RIGHT OF MIL CONQUEST = JAPAN'S DEFEAT IN WAR; VERSUS THE "AMBIGUOUS" POST-WWII TREATY OF SAN FRANCISCO where JAPAN allegedly agreed to give its claims to its Kurils territories BUT RUSSIA'S SOVEREIGNTY OER THE JAPANESE KURILS WAS NOT FORMALLY RECOGNIZED???
* WMF > UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PROFESSOR ARTHUR WALDRON: POST-WWII US-JAPAN SECURITY TREATY AN EMPTY SHELL. JAPAN NEEDS TO DEV + INCREASE ITS NATIONAL SELF-DEFENSE CAPABILITIES DUE TO US RELIABILITY AS AN MILITARY ALLY. JAPAN AT PRESENT MAY SURVIVE FOR ROUGHLY ONE MONTH IN THE FACE OF A MAJOR CHINESE MILITARY, NUCLEAR ATTACK AGZ JAPAN.
ARTIC > IMO read, JAPAN NEEDS TO GO WEAPONS NUKULAAR.
* WMF > THE BATTLE OF THE DAOYUS AGZ JAPAN IS A DECISIVE BATTLE FOR THE RISE OF CHINA. OKINAWA + GUAM BASES ARE THE US' "MAGINOT LINE" OF ASIA-PACIFIC DEFENSE AGZ RUSSIA.
* WMF > STRONG JAPAN DOOMED BY CHINA'S STRATEGIC DOUBLE/TWIN-EDGED DIVERSIONARY SWORD IN THE DAOYUS + ITS NEW DISPUTE WID RUSSIA OVER THE KURILES, HISTORIC LOSS BY JAPAN OF ITS HALF OF SAKHALIN ISLAND, POST-WWII SOVIET, CHINESE RAPPROCHEMENT ON SOVEREIGNTY OVER SAKHALIN ISLAND.
* EX-CHIEF OF JAPAN DEFENCE AGENCY: US SHOULD CONVERT JAPAN INTO ITS "UNSINKABLE AIRCRAFT CARRIER", + HENCE CREATE ITS STRONGEST MIL BLOCK/BARRIER AGZ CHINA + CPLAN IN ASIA, US-JAPAN BILATERAL SECURITY COOPERATION TO INHIBIT CPLAN MOVES IN WESTPAC + DETER ANY CHIN AGGRESSION AGZ RUSSIA.
* WMF > HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR DING XUALING: 2010-2015 CHINA + CPLAN WILL REMAIN TOO WEAK TO WAGE SUCCESSFUL CONVENTIONAL WAR AGZ JAPAN + JMSDF FORCES OER THE DAOYUS.
ARTIC > IMO read, CPLA's only mil option will be to resort to PREEMPTIVE CONVENTIONAL, NUCLEAR STRIKE = "FIRST STRIKE".
#6
WMF > CHINA ACQUIRES THE "BACKFIRE" BOMBER FROM RUSSIA: CPLA TO DEV "CHINESE BACKFIRE" CRUISE MISSLE CARRIERS FOR LR DEFENSE OF THE "FIRST ISLAND CHAIN" + TAIWAN AGZ THE US AIRCRAFT CARRIER, ATTACKS AGZ US LR HEAVY BOMBERS, DRONES, + SUBMARINES ON GUAM BASE.
ARTIC > IOW, CHINA + CPLA/CPLAAF gets TECH TRANSFERS as per BACKFIRE, BLACKJACK strategic bomber designs.
#7
Lest we fergit, NET > As CHINA STRENGTHENS, + the US seemingly WEAKENS? IN GEOPOL POWER, GUAM + WESTPAC > may devol in LT into a [demarcative]NO-MANS-LAND = STAR TREK-STYLE KLINGON, ROMULAN "NEUTRAL ZONE" WHERE US MIL ASSETS MAY NOT CROSS UNLESS IT IS WILLING TO RISK ITS ACTION BE DEEMED AN "ACT OF WAR" AGZ CHINA???
#1
The biggest issue that is now developing, as we noted last week, is the fact that title insurers (firms such as Fidelity National, First American, Stewart Info and Old Republic) are refusing to insure mortgages in foreclosure or otherwise, uncertain as to who actually owns the title.
If the county administrators weren't already in the pocket of developers and banks, most of the foreclosure titles would already be on the country court house steps being auctioned off by the sheriff for delinquent back taxes the paper holders owe. New papers and titles would go a long way to clearing the books and raise revenue that local governments have been bitch'n about for operations. Now there's corruption in work to protect 'clients' over the duties of office.
#2
No worries. Obama's financial team is coming to the rescue. Our government can assume the role of 401k, pension, precious metal, mutual fund, mortgage guarantor. Seperate cheques please -mandetory throughout the life of the loan regardless of....what was that old term...yes, equity! Only a few short months should be needed to establish the proper agency, hire the patronage team, and print the tens of thousands of necessary forms. This is not a crisis! This is an opportunity. Everything are the governments, everything!
#5
I submitted the following 3 days ago to the 'Burg, not published, still useful: The foreclosure machinery that has forced millions of Americans out of their homes is beginning to seize up. NYT uses the euphemism of 'some lenders and their lawyers are accused of cutting corners in their pursuit of rapid home repossessions' while Judge Jean Johnson of Duval Co., Fl, stated 9 Aug 2010 in a foreclosure case "the Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that WAMU [Bank], Chase [Bank] and Shapiro & Fishman [bankster's law firm] committed fraud on this Court." The law firm of Dewey, Cheatheam & Howe has offices in Cambridge, they specialize in such clients. Jason Grodensky of Fort Lauderdale had his home foreclosed on by Bank of America this year, even though he owned it outright and had never had a mortgage on it.
GMAC, majority-owned by the feds, and JPMOrgan Chase have suspended all foreclosures in the 23 states where they need a court's approval. Investigations are being launched in several states.
A major title insurance company has sent a bulletin to its agents saying that until further notice it would not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, due to doubts about the validity of titles transferred under foreclosure procedures.
Were seeing a fundamental breakdown in the system, because no one cared that much about getting things right, said Representative Alan Grayson,D-FL. You can say that again, and this applies to far more than the housing and banking industries.
Grayson also said, We are reaching a point where the easiest way to make a buck is to steal it." I think we passed that point a few years ago. This may destabilize the banking system, among other things.
It's not a 'mortgage meltdown' but a 'foreclosure and potential bank meltdown.' All those MBS holders around the world now have more reason than ever to wonder whether the paper they 'own' represents anything other than a scam. Properties that have been or will be foreclosed on now have the cloud of a clouded title hanging over them - who is so foolish as to buy one of these properties? State law, not federal law, governs the law that supports who owns real estate. It's way more than the paperwork. The law behind the creation of MBS paper is pretty clear, if the paperwork establishing ownership is not done properly, the entire MBS is INVALID, and taxes are due the IRS (and potentially the state governments depending on their own laws) on the ENTIRE AMOUNT of the MBS. A lot of states need a lot of revenue right now.
#6
It looks like the basic responsibility for this disaster lies in the hands of the banking and real estate industries, not greedy home buyers nor the state/local governments. No one else was responsible for keeping track of who owned what, filing documents at county courthouses, etc.
#10
Barry Ritholz put it this way: This is the third and final step to the disassembling of Capitalisms property rights. It is indirectly related to prior two steps. Mostly it reflects the same disrespect for legal process int he headlong rush for profits, legal and otherwise.
I don't know about '3rd and final', but otherwise he is saying the same thing Rep. Grayson said. Our financial oligarchs live & die by the concept of "What's ours is ours, and what's yours is ours, too."
#11
A Canadian commenter to Barry Ritholz's blog posted this reaction to the scandal: What happened to America? What will happen to America?
Its one thing to watch a person / company / team / country lose its stature based on a clean beat by the competition. We can all handle that. It is quite another to watch a country (b)eat itself from within.
This is where the real estate disaster connects to the Jihad.
#12
I have very little sympathy, people were told that falling affordability was not a sign of economic growth, but of robbing their own children. They believed the path to wealth involved no work ,and maximum loans.
It couldn't happen to a more deserving generation.
#13
It couldn't happen to a more deserving generation. No generation deserved this breakdown of the rule of law and centuries of tradition in maintaining property rights. It is easy to read this as being about generational theft, but that's not the core of this issue. This is about an oligarchy overreaching itself.
#15
Even governments don't have enough money to bail out the housing bubble mess as Ireland is currently discovering.
And as for who's to blame, the regulators should have stopped the sale of the sliced and diced mortgage backed bonds and in particular their purchase by other banks. Anyone who knows anything about bank lending risk could see that was a recipe for disaster.
#17
While I wonder how this nation will survive the boomer generation, it will certainly be everyone after that generation that has to sort out this mess.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/05/2010 21:24 Comments ||
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#18
Looking on the bright side, this house I'm upside down on just might not belong to me. I hope the rightful owner is ready to take it over....
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/05/2010 21:25 Comments ||
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#19
this house I'm upside down on just might not belong to me. I hope the rightful owner is ready to take it over. Check your state laws on 'adverse possession' Stay there long enough, and you'll own it. Unless the powers that be get rid of those laws too.
The nation's biggest, richest and most powerful labor unions spent months organizing the "One Nation Working Together" rally at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday. With midterm elections approaching, they hoped to put on a show of political strength to energize struggling Democratic candidates. But even after giving it everything they had, they still weren't able to draw as many people as Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in August. Why not?
Because the labor movement is shrinking, aging and divided. Because the best program its leaders (and co-sponsors at the NAACP) could put together was one featuring Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Richard Trumka, Van Jones and Harry Belafonte. And because George W. Bush is no longer in the White House. Put those factors together, and Big Labor's big march fell flat.
#3
What's more surprising here? That anyone is interested in what Walter Mondale thinks about anything, or that Walter Mondale thinks that anything he thinks would interest anybody?
Do yourself a favor Walter and remain silent in obscurity. That way, nobody will be reminded what a mediocrity you were
#2
Those who object to the obstructions created by the Constitution to their goals will be the first to cry "my Constitutional rights" when they're before the tribunals for judgment.
#4
They would have collided anyway, because President Obama and the Democratic Congress so greatly expanded the reach of the federal government. But there are also real consequences for the open insult President Obama issued during his last State of the Union speech.
#2
The good old boy club in the Beltway can throw obstructions for a good time. However, never underestimate the will behind the movement. How's about a transparency virtual Constitutional Convention movement that takes this new base and constructs an alternative to the existing system of government just like the original Constitutional Convention did, but behind closed doors. You don't need perfect, just good enough that the number of states could be lined up for ratification. Just try to avoid a phone book size document. It puts in place people who real want it as opposed to those that don't and with enough intelligent people on board to out the saboteurs. You'll know you're close when the usual suspects will start screaming and scheming that the world will end if the product was ever implemented. Not that they would ever modify their own behaviors and lust for power to short stop it. From Tea Party to Constitutional Convention. Now there's a thought.
From Strategy Page...
After a recent incident where U.S. helicopter gunships crossed into Pakistan, in hot pursuit of Islamic terrorists, and killed three Pakistani soldiers (and a lot more terrorists), Pakistan cut one of the two NATO supply routes that pass through Pakistan.
*sigh* The writers at Strategy Page are even fonder of commas than I am.
Aside from the fact that the Pakistani soldiers fired on the NATO helicopters (which they often do, even when the choppers are on the Afghan side of the border), the U.S. didn't have to remind the Pakistanis that such a gesture was self-defeating. The Pakistani government is heavily dependent on American economic and military aid, and more and more of the supplies for foreign troops in Pakistan is coming from non-Pakistani sources. This hurts Pakistani businesses that move, and often provide, the supplies.
At the moment, about half those supplies come through Pakistan. The Pakistanis only closed, for about a day, one of the two main routes. About 30 percent of the supplies come in via Central Asia railroads, and another comes from the Black Sea, via rail to the Afghan border. The remaining 20 percent comes in by air. But some of that may be shifted to the Central Asian route, which is much safer (from bandits, bad roads and the Taliban) than the Pakistan routes.
The U.S. and NATO supplies coming in via railroad from Western Europe, go through Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to Afghanistan. This approach costs $400 a ton to get supplies into Afghanistan, versus three times that to truck it in from Pakistani ports, or $14,000 a ton to fly stuff in. This Central Asian route has been under negotiation since 2003, but Russia kept agreeing to it, and then withdrawing cooperation. What has finally compelled Russia to cooperate in the last year is the growing problems they are having with heroin and opium coming out of Afghanistan into, and through, Russia.
Shipping supplies to Afghanistan via Russian and Central Asian railroads has advantages for the nations it passes through. Russia has an economic interest in this, as more traffic makes it financially attractive for Central Asian nations to invest in upgrading their rail connections to Afghanistan. Tajikistan, for example, is extending its railroad to the Afghan border by building another 145 kilometers of track. Afghanistan itself has no railroads, mainly because there is not enough economic activity in the country to make this worthwhile. Foreign donors have contributed billions of dollars since 2002 to build more paved roads in Afghanistan. Currently, there are 42,000 kilometers of roads there, but only a third are paved. There are few rivers, much less navigable ones, and no access to the sea. The place has long been a logistical nightmare. Most Afghans recognize that roads will make the country more prosperous, by making it economically feasible to export many commodities, and cheaper to bring in, and distribute, foreign goods. Naturally, the Taliban are opposed to all this road building, as it threatens the poverty and ancient customs that Islamic conservatives are so fond of.
Afghanistan's neighbors are eager to trade, and are using the U.S. and NATO need for more access to upgrade their transport links to the country. For example, 90 cargo containers were shipped through the Caucasus, via Turkey, Azerbaijan, the Caspian sea and Kazakhstan, to Afghanistan last year, as a test, and regular shipments began shortly thereafter. It's also possible to ship containers across the Caspian to a port in Turkmenistan, and thence to Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO wants to move up to 50,000 containers a year via these new Russian and Caucasus routes. This makes it economically feasible to ship more civilian goods this way. As the traffic increases, it makes economic sense for Afghanistan to start building rail lines, something most nations began doing over a century ago.
#2
it makes economic sense for Afghanistan to start building rail lines No, good sense has never counted for much in Afghanistan. On the other hand, it looks like upgrading the Central Asian rail system right up to the borders of Afghanistan would be a good investment for many countries. And they would only have to worry about the Afghan jihadis, rather than the Pak jihadis in addition.
#3
If the minerals in Afghanistan are worth developing then if will make RR's worthwhile. Money and land were what paid for the RR's in the US. No money, no development.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The nation's biggest, richest and most powerful labor unions spent months organizing the "One Nation Working Together" rally at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday. With midterm elections approaching, they hoped to put on a show of political strength to energize struggling Democratic candidates. But even after giving it everything they had, they still weren't able to draw as many people as Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in August. Why not?
