In a New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sounded a conciliatory note to South Korea. He indicated that North Korea would be interested in resuming high-level talks to settle differences between the two states. North and South Korea are still technically at war, since the agreement signed by both to end hostilities in 1953 was only an armistice, not a peace agreement. President Kim’s only condition for such talks was that South Korea stop its join military operations with the US. The South Korean leader, Park Geun-hye, welcomed the address, but made no commitments.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 76,021 people died in the Syrian civil war in 2014. Comparable figures for previous years were 73,447 in 2013, 49,294 in 2012 and 7,841 in 2011 indicating that the conflict continues to escalate. And even the deaths of over 200,000 people has not been enough to persuade the international community to make any meaningful moves toward securing a cease-fire. The Syrian conflict ranks among some of the worst UN failures since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Francisco Goya painted more than 200 years ago, and much of his work represented the dissolution of the world order occasioned by the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. His works, however, testify to much of the disorder that exists in the world today. Great art is timeless.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment