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By Donald Kirk

Kim Jong-Nam showed the warm and human face of North Koreas dynastic family.

You had to like the guy, judging from sightings in the gambling enclave of Macau, across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong off Chinas southeastern coast. One time he was spotted in a Macao bus. Another time he was seen at a doorway with a funny little smile on his face.

Then, for a while, he dropped out of the news. Speculation was hed been told to keep his mouth shut and stay out of sight after making disparaging comments about his younger half-brother, Respected Leader Kim Jong-Un. He had had the nerve to say he doubted if the kid would last long in power.

You cant imagine any offense much worse than suggesting the man on the throne might be deposed. Perhaps it was a case of sour grapes. Kim Jong-Nam, at 45 a dozen years older than Kim Jong-Un, had been cast aside as a potential heir by their father, Kim Jong-Il, after trying 16 years ago to enter Japan on a fake Dominican Republic passport. Apparently, the Dear Leader didnt care for the excuse that his oldest son, born of an actress who died in Moscow, had yearned to visit Disneyland Tokyo with his kid.

From then on, Jong-Un, not Jong-Nam, was destined as Kim Jong-Ils successor, and hes been ruling with an iron fist since taking over after his fathers death more than five years ago.

Not content with knocking off his uncle-in-law, Jang Song-Thaek, married to his fathers younger sister, Kim Jong-Un methodically ordered the executions of all those connected with Jang plus many of their family members. That word comes from an authoritative source, Kang Chol-Hwan, who recounts his own tale of imprisonment and escape from North Korea in his classic, The Aquariums of Pyongyang.

Perhaps Kim Jong-Nam was lucky to have lived as long as he did. He survived an assassination attempt seven years ago a staged car accident similar to any number in which North Korean have been killed in accidents after falling out of favor.

Now it seems Kim Jong-Nam has met his fate, the victim of chemicals smeared on his face, presumably at the behest of North Korean agents, by at least one woman identified as Vietnamese at Kuala Lumpur International Airport outside the Malaysian capital. Seems the chubby fellow, cut off from funding by his chubbier half-brother, had been moving now and again around the region, partly for fun, partly to evade agents who were out to get him.

The demise of Kim Jong-Nam is another of many innumerable tragedies that have befallen those on the wrong side of power in Pyongyang. What could be sadder than that of the hundreds of thousands consigned over the decades to the countrys vast prison camps?

And what about the hundreds of South Koreans whove been captured or kidnapped or otherwise fallen into the clutches of the regime? Considering the ferocity of Kim Jong-Uns rule, we may be pretty sure hes not going to show the quality of mercy by freeing any of these poor souls, mostly fishermen whose boats had strayed into North Korean waters.

One who seems destined never to get out is Hwang Won, a TV producer who was on a Korean Air plane hijacked over South Korea in December 1969 and forced to land near the North Korean east coast port of Wonsan. His son, Hwang In-Cheol, who was two at the time, has no idea why his father was among 11, including the pilot and co-pilot, whom North Korea refused to send home after freeing 39 passengers on Valentines Day, Feb. 14, 1970.

At the gates of the unification ministry in central Seoul on the latest Valentines Day anniversary, Hwang read an impassioned statement protesting the reluctance of Korean officials to press for his fathers release. They politely sympathize, then tell him theres nothing they can do and advise him to cool it. You wonder whats in it for North Korean rulers to display such cruelty. Was it totally coincidental that Kim Jong-Un ordered the firing of an advanced model of a mid-range missile the day of his brothers murder?

Kidnapping South Koreans to the North and killing foes of the regime such individual tragedies show the harsh insecurity of a regime that survives on chest-beating rhetoric while squandering resources on nukes and missiles.

Donald Kirk has been covering war and peace in Asia for decades. Hes at kirkdon4343@gmail.com

Brotherly love lost: More trouble in communisms first and last dynasty, WorldTribune.com

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Brotherly love lost: More trouble in communism's first and last dynasty - World Tribune

The political ideologies and opinions of a ten-year-old aren't often taken as seriously as they should be, but a YouTube user, alias "Sceneable," is one that you should listen to.

Sceneable's YouTube "About" section reveals that he once had lofty goals:

We're way past that now. Dylan's account has over 3,000 subscribers and is growing. The above video, titled "I'm Communist," has been making the viral rounds on Facebook after being shared by Jacobin. He gives a "very good disclaimer," that he does not support Josef Stalin or Mikhail Gorbachev (I won't even try to spell his adorable mispronunciation), but he does support communism and "the idea of a nation sharing the wealth."

Sceneable is BLOWING UP on "Socialist Twitter" and Reddit already. It's only a matter of time before the whole world sees the video.

Note the way he keeps looking over his shoulder, like he's worried a drone is about to come take him down for his political leanings. Good little commie!

In all likelihood, there will be some dank "Sceneable memes" coming soon, but let's not forget that this kid is woke and will probably be leading a proletarian revolution when he's in college.

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Meet Sceneable: the communist kid who will lead a revolution - Popdust

Jules et Jim of the revolutionary left? ... The Young Karl Marx Photograph: PR

Raoul Peck is the Haitian film-maker who has an Oscar nomination this year with his James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro. Now he comes to Berlin with this sinewy and intensely focused, uncompromisingly cerebral period drama, co-written with Pascal Bonitzer, about the birth of communism in the mid-19th century. It gives you a real sense of what radical politics was about: talk. There is talk, talk and more talk. It should be dull, but it isnt. Somehow the spectacle of fiercely angry people talking about ideas becomes absorbing and even gripping.

Despite the title, it is not exactly about the young Karl Marx, more about Marxs bromance with the young Friedrich Engels. Given the potent presence of his wife Jenny, they for a microsecond almost threaten to become the Jules et Jim of the Revolutionary left. Peck saves up his biggest joke, or coup de cinma, for the very end. After an austere movie featuring men in top hats and mutton chop whiskers, the closing credits explode in a boisterous and even euphoric montage of political events in the 20th century Che, the Berlin Wall, Ronnie and Maggie, Nelson Mandela, the Occupy movement to the accompaniment of Bob Dylan. No Stalin or Lenin or gulags or Erich Honecker in the montage, though.

Marx is played by August Diehl: ragged, fierce with indignation and poverty, addicted to cheap cigars, spoiling for an argument and a fight. Engels, played by Stefan Konarske, is the rich kid whose father is a mill owner, with a dandy-ish manner of dress and a romantic mien, like a young Werther who isnt sorrowful but excited about the forthcoming victory for the working class.

They meet cute. Marx glowers on being introduced; he remembers the young Friedrich from an earlier encounter, strutting and entitled, for all the world as if he had invented the class struggle. The chippy young bruiser clashes with the arrogant puppy. But the ice breaks: Engels admires the clarity of Marxs material thinking; Marx is a massive fan of Engelss groundbreaking study of the English working class. Together, they inhale the new thinking in the air, ideas for which Pierre Proudhon (seductively played by Olivier Gourmet) is partly responsible. Expelled by the French, Marx flees to London with Engels where they are invited to join the socialist fraternity League of the Just, and lend intellectual and methodological rigour to their evangelical movement. But the break with Proudhon emboldens them both, and in slightly entryist style, Engels finally declares to its stunned annual congress that the League of the Just is to be reconstituted as the Communist League.

This is a film which sticks to a credo that people arguing about theories and concepts while also periodically angrily rejecting the notion of mere abstraction is highly interesting. And Peck and Bonitzer pull off the considerable trick of making it interesting: aided by very good performances from Diehl and Konarske, although a real flaw is the films relative lack of interest in their partners: Jenny, played by Vicky Krieps, and millworker Mary Burns (Hannah Steele) with whom Engels is in love: it is a rather perfunctory relationship.

There is a tense moment when Marx and Engels chance across a wealthy mill owner who is a friend of Engelss plutocratic father: Marx coldly challenges him with his practice of exploiting child labour and says that the market force that demands this is not a law of nature, but a matter of manmade relations of production. The man replies sneeringly that this phrase sounds like Hebrew to him.

The action of the movie proceeds at a steady, intense rate: a pressure-cooker tempo, which despite the periodic shouting and yelling, does not vary much. But you can see Marx visibly ageing from his mid-20s to the brink of 30, exhausted by the birth of communism and the composition of his Communist Manifesto. It shouldnt work, but it does, due to the intelligence of the acting and the stamina and concentration of the writing and directing.

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The Young Karl Marx review intelligent communist bromance ... - The Guardian

The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism Breaking Israel News Amnesty International, which beats the Muslim refugee drum louder than anyone else, joined in the effort to cover up Communist genocide in Cambodia. Allegations made by refugees must be examined with care in view of their possible partiality, the ...

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The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism - Breaking Israel News

Featured Although the government has promised to repeal the controversial decree legalising corruption, there are several loopholes.

Protesters use phones and flashlights during a protest in Victoriei Square, in Bucharest, Romania. Credit: Inquam Photos/Adriana Neagoe/via Reuters

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country.

The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE). Among other things, this aimed to weaken anti-corruption legislation and offered potential amnesty for those convicted of corruption.

The decree was issued at 10pm on the evening of Tuesday, January 31 and did not have to face parliamentary scrutiny. Many saw it as a back-door attempt by the government to help its supporters, both within the party and in the media, who are currently either in jail or under investigation for corruption.

The amnesty for those with convictions was also seen as an attempt by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to clear his own path to becoming prime minister a position from which he is currently excluded due to a conviction for electoral fraud. Dragnea is prime minister in all but name, such is his domination of the PSD. Sorin Grindeanu, the sitting prime minister, is entirely dependent on Dragneas patronage.

The Romanian government is simultaneously strong and weak. It commands a parliamentary majority, controls many institutions and has backers in the media. But it is continually vulnerable to anti-corruption efforts, which have seen many of its prominent members and supporters jailed. Both Dragnea and ALDE leader Clin Popescu-Triceanu are subject to investigations and court cases.

The emergency decree is part of a broader PSD campaign to unpick anti-corruption safeguards through legislative initiatives which will benefit its expansive patronage networks.

People vs government?

Protesters of all ages, social backgrounds and political leanings have come from across the country in response to this situation. Many are angry at the content of the proposed law as well as the surreptitious way in which it has been introduced. This is an unprecedented mobilisation of society but also reflects how Romania has changed over the past decade. Civil society is becoming increasingly vocal and active.

Protesters hold effigies with the faces of leader of Romanias leftist Social Democrat Party (PSD) Liviu Dragnea and other members of the party dressed as prisoners, during a demonstration in Bucharest. Credit: Reuters/Stoyan Nenov/File photo

The government meanwhile has shown no interest in backing down. Its public statements and actions have been conscious efforts to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Although it promised on Saturday February 4 to repeal the decree, this was more an attempt to confuse people and take them off the streets rather than a real concession. Closer inspection revealed that the repeal was not really a repeal at all. It contained clauses that had previously been declared unconstitutional so could be declared invalid at any moment meaning the initial decree would stand.

Whats more, Grindeanu suggested sending the controversial measures through parliament, which would easily approve them thanks to the PSDs majority. When his justice minister spoke out against this plan, Grindeanu threatened to sack him. Grindeanu has shifted the blame for the crisis over the decrees onto the justice ministry.

The governments supporters and media allies have been quick to attack the protesters as anti-democratic, even claiming they were being paid by US financier George Soros, fascists, or were out on the street as part of a coup dtat led by President Klaus Iohannis, who has called for a referendum on the reforms proposed in the decree and took part in the protests.

A test for Romanian democracy

The complex legal machinations and contradictory statements are part of a deliberate strategy to draw out the issue. The government seems to want to stall for as long as possible in the hope that the protesters will give up and go home.

The PSD has a lot resting on this matter. Dragneas career depends on him getting out of his own ongoing corruption case. A second conviction would see him sent to jail, perhaps ending his political career.

The PSD is also very heavily dependent on local barons and oligarchs for financial and organisational support. The price for that support is the government weakening anti-corruption legislation.

The PSD government of Victor Ponta fell in November 2015 in the face of the street protests that followed a fire in a Bucharest nightclub in which 64 people died. Although the government was of course not responsible for the fire, many Romanians felt it was responsible for the administrative culture that allowed permits to be granted in exchange for bribes with no regard for safety, and for a health service that could not cope with the aftermath of the accident.

Dragnea has positioned himself as a political hardman. He wants to face down the latest protests and show that his government and party not the people on the street are in charge. There is a fear that retreating now will embolden government opponents in the future.

Although, on the face of it, this is a simple issue of anti-corruption, it has wider implications for Romanian democracy. The government may continue its approach of legal obfuscation to try to slide its decree through or it may, for the time being, abandon this attempt to unpick anti-corruption measures. However, this will be only a short pause. For the demonstrators the question remains whether the protests can be sustained and be effective in getting the government to abandon its anti-anti-corruption strategy.

Dan Brett is an associate lecturer at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Romania Protests: What Caused the Biggest Uprising Since the Fall of Communism? - The Wire