Readers may wonder why on a day when the news breaks that DPRK has tested a nuclear device, I choose to do a post on animation outsourcing. Well, the main thing is that this site is not meant to be a news blog, or a political blog1. When there are hundreds of professional and amateur reporters and commentators out there covering this space, there’s no point in a humble bank functionary in London chipping in. I have no value to add.
It seems like only yesterday or the day before that I was reading a blog somewhere which said that people who really think that Kim Jong-il is going to test a weapon over the Chuseok holiday period just don’t understand Korea; and it’s also a common view the North gets better leverage by threatening to do things than actually doing them. But the cynics who said that the North were just doing this to spoil the South’s moment of glory with the appointment of Ban Ki-moon to the UN secretary-generalship were, unfortunately, more on the mark, as confirmation of his nomination also came through today.
Covering and commenting on events as they unfurl is time-consuming; and trying to predict outcomes risky. So the choice of the timid and the time-constrained is to stay on the sidelines. And if I do ever get around to posting on a hot topic, it’s usually cooler than luke-warm, and my purpose is usually to gather together a few useful links on the subject for my own benefit so that I can read them later.
So I’m making this particular post just in case I want to remember the date the test was carried out. For the record, 10:36am local time on 9 October, according to Yonhap, and picked up by the BBC.
And Tom Coyner recommends an op-ed piece in the Washington Post dated 5 October entitled Pyongyang Phooey (for subscribers only, unfortunately). If I find any other useful articles over the next few days and weeks I’ll add them to this post.
Links:
- That, plus the fact that my posts are often lined up days or even weeks in advance, so if I don’t have time to spike a post it just pops up at lunchtime on the appointed day just like I told it to [↩]