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BBC NEWS, 9 - 2 - 2007: N Korea talks enter crucial phase

Delegates at six-party talks in Beijing have held a second day of negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programme. They are discussing a draft agreement which reportedly calls on Pyongyang to shut down its nuclear facilities in the next two months, in exchange for aid.

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BBC NEWS, 7 - 2 -2007: Food aid key to N Korea talks

As six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme resume in Beijing, the BBC's Penny Spiller considers whether food shortages in the secretive communist state may have an impact on progress.

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North Korea, which supposedly launched a test nuke four months ago, is now being engaged in six-party talks to bring down its nuclear programme. These will supposedly be "helped" by the starving population of the People's Republic who will require large amounts of suspended food aid in order to keep alive.

While it is correct and justified to take nukes from near-insane dictators of real-life dystopias, one nevertheless has to think about the kind of workings that could even possibly lead up to a scenario as bizarre as this. Going at length about the Korean War of the 1950's, causing the emergence of the DPRK, would be facetious, along with the United States' development and controversial use of the nuclear bomb, which has led to the proliferation of nukes the world over.

However, the key point of this shall be about the presence of autocracies, and the widespread attempts to create and develop a nuclear bomb by so many "rogue states".

Why do dictatorships arise? People who, reeling from the disasters of war or internal conflict often look for strong leaders. However, many strong leaders are often power-hungry, and they reform the nation so that they alone rule the nation: and the people go along with it, believing their Big Brother capable of single-handedly ruling the nation.

Such dictatorships collapse when the dictator passes on, leaving command to an unsuitable follower. In the Protectorate (of England), and the Soviet Union, and North Korea this has happened, and now The People's Republic faces starvation.

So much for autocracies. Nuclear weapons are also another key problem of this modern age, where men seek to destroy each other with bigger and bigger missiles. Apart of the Powers of the Cold War, other nations have developed nuclear technology: India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and North Korea.

Nuclear proliferation began in the Cold War, when Allies collaborated with each other to out0gun the USSR, while the Soviet Union created thousands of nuclear weapons based on stolen technology. When the Cold War collapsed, the age of nuclear weapons did not die with it; it still flourishes, as can be seen.

The technology of nuclear weapons, once made, was not difficult to deduce, and was quickly realized as a fast means to ultimate power by other nations. Which nation does not want power, after all? Nevertheless, those who had nuclear weapons to start off with denounce this kind of behaviour, and attempt to ban other nations developing such technology.

This strikes one as unfair. Is it moral to have nuclear weapons on the basis that one had them first? Is time, then such a damning factor to those who wish to follow in such footsteps? Or is it simply yet another case of big countries bullying smaller ones? Thus when we look upon the current debacle surrounding North Korea's nuclear programme, we may well ask ourselves: Were it another nation in the People's Republic's positions, would we be so quick to impose a damning judgement on it?