Quote:
Originally Posted by Karl F
Howsa'bouta N. Korean restaurant..??
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Well, Karl, I've been murring it ovel. I think to do that I need to be next to a riquol stole.
Here's a funny article from yesterday's
Financial Times:
UN sanctions set to sour Kim's taste for the finer things in life
By Anna Fifield in Seoul
Published: October 18 2006 03:00 | Last updated: October 18 2006 03:00
Are Big Macs and shark fin soup luxury goods? What about James Bond films.
Or roasted donkeys? This is the sort of question the United Nations Security Council will grapple with as it starts to define the sanctions to be imposed on North Korea and its idiosyncratic leader, Kim Jong-il, for last week's nuclear test.
The security council resolution on sanctions prohibits the sale or transfer of material that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction and missiles, as well as still-to-be-determined "luxury goods". Stories of Mr Kim's largesse suggest there is considerable scope for definition.
Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian official who accompanied Mr Kim on a month-long train journey across Russia in 2001, wrote that live lobsters were flown on to the train,
as well as donkey, reportedly the North Korean leader's favourite food.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," Mr Pulikovsky wrote. Such a menu could create problems for three of the five permanent security council members. Mr Kim has a penchant for shark fin soup and reportedly ordered McDonald's hamburgers from Beijing.
Kenji Fujimoto, the pseudonym of the Japanese author of I was Kim Jong-il's Sushi Chef, told of being sent to Iran and Uzbekistan for caviar, to Denmark for pork and Thailand to buy mangoes for Mr Kim.
Other chefs recall a 10,000-bottle wine cellar, while trade figures in the early 1990s revealed that
Mr Kim was the largest single consumer of Hennessy cognac, importing more than $650,000 worth a year.
The North Korean leader is said to have a library of 20,000 Hollywood movies and to buy his family expensive imported toys including jet skis, karaoke machines and basketball courts.
Analysts said the sanctions aimed at clamping down on luxury goods would crimp Mr Kim's ability to pamper those who keep him in power. "This reflects the desire of the Americans to put pressure on Kim Jong-il and his supporters, whom he controls by rewarding them with high-class goods such as caviar and watches," said Nam Sung-wook, a North Korean specialist at Korea University in Seoul.
Analysts said the outline of the sanctions did not appear sufficient to change North Korea's behaviour. Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist at the Asia Foundation, said it was premature to say they would have no bite because they had yet to be defined.
"It's all about defining this vague statement and finding the space between punitive and prudent," Mr Snyder said. "China is going to be the guiding force."
i'm opening up a chinese restaurant
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