Do we value some lives more than others?

I just wanted to highlight 2 stories from this week that got my blood lukewarm. Those of you that watch any European or Asian news will have noticed that the headline for most of this week has been the plane crashing in the Hudson river. Luckily no lives were lost because of the expert skills of the pilot. My complaint is though that every news agency has decided to give this full news coverage (i will excuse the US on this case because it's local news for them and you would expect extensive coverage) even though for Asia and Europe it isn't local news and although deserves to be mentioned deserves no where near the attention a mechanical failure deserves.

This brings me nicely to the second set of items. This weekend Fiji suffered it's largest ever flooding killing 14 people, an Indonesian ferry also sunk killing about 300 people. However did anyone see these stories in the news. Perhaps you would have if you read in depth regional news but should you have too? 300 people! I'm don't know the process for choosing news items but who ever does it is misguided.

I know many people will read this (OK a few people) and say that's sad and then go on normally and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing because we care about news we relate to. I guess we can relate more to American incidents more than we can Indonesian. However the coverage in our countries (this is not just the UK, Korea and most of Europe is just as bad) shouldn't play on this but provide a more leveled coverage.
That's the end of that rant.

Another news item that I watched and perhaps more personal was the North Korean military spokesman. It was on TV here and I understood some of it but struggled with most of it. The Korean Times reported him saying

"Now that traitor Lee Myung-bak and his group opted for confrontation, denying national reconciliation and cooperation, backed by foreign forces, our revolutionary armed forces are compelled to take an all-out confrontational posture to shatter them,"

This is pretty hard core stuff. I have mixed views about LMB, I hate most of his policies but he has decided to take a hard line on NK reducing aid and taking a stronger line. I kind of agree with him. In the last 10 years the more liberal governments have been kinder to NK and achieved nothing. So maybe a change in strategy is required. I mean there is little incentive for NK to improve it's human rights. They say they will do something like abandon nuclear weapons for large amounts of aid. Then once they get it they go back on their word and the process starts again.

Realistically, NK won't and can't shatter SK. They may have a lot of missiles but they have no international support and would lose any conflict heavily. SK has plenty of missile defences and would probably suffer limited losses (more so economically). The timing of this I think though is key. It's been well documented that Kim Jong Il is deciding on who will replace him.

I personally put my money on Chang Song Taek. He's Kim Jong Il's brother in law and considered the number 2 man. I don't think any of his sons are capable or willing to take control. The problem is the military, they must by now have a massive influence over the government but all the senior generals are in there 70's and 80's and suffer from poor health. This announcement though suggests that the military is positioning itself should any decision not be to their liking. Hyon Chol Hae is a name that may crop up in regards to the military. He was Kim Jong Il's bodyguard during the Korean war and is now the 2nd in charge of the army (the top guy is somewhat a lame duck).

The next few weeks are going to be interesting. With Obama coming into power it will be interesting to see what NK does. Maybe we'll see something symbolic like missile tests again but I doubt there will be anything too bad.