Author Topic: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it  (Read 1055 times)

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It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« on: October 26, 2013, 09:08:10 PM »
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/
Araminta Wordsworth | 26/10/13 7:00 AM ET



Deep research: Kim rises a roller-coaster in Pyongyang
AP Photo / Korean Central News AgencyDeep research: Kim rises a roller-coaster in Pyongyang


Any subject would be better than the one an irony-free Malaysian university chose for an honorary doctorate for North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un — economics.

The privately run HELP (for Higher Education Learning Philosophy) handed over its useless piece of paper in a ceremony at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur. In sucking up to the world’s last Stalinist regime, it’s clearly hoping for some favourable PR.

And maybe students, though this could be in doubt. Kim said this month privately funded study abroad was being curtailed as it led to tensions. (The dictator himself spent part of his high school years in Switzerland, but never mind.)

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hubag bohol

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Re: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2013, 09:09:19 PM »
The optics though are beyond horrible. The North Korean ruler presides over one of the world’s poorest countries, where millions of people are starving — and dying — and thousands are held in ghastly prison camps.  In August, the United Nations said almost a third of children under the age of five suffered from chronic malnutrition. But most of Pyongyang’s budget is spent on the military and buying forbidden luxuries for the elite.

At least Kim’s first honorary degree will help to bolster his meagre C.V., notes Tom Mendelsohn at The Independent.

Although the youthful leader of North Korea has been credited with many feats — amongst citizens he is particularly beloved for the daily prayers he offers to persuade gravity to stay on — his official credentials have always been relatively few and far between.

However Kim Jong-Un’s slightly precarious grip on power will be perhaps now be strengthened by the fact he’s earned his first doctorate — in economics … He was reportedly handed the doctorate in recognition of his “untiring efforts for the education of the country and the well-being of its people.”

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Re: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2013, 09:10:37 PM »
The Daily Caller’s Robby Soave cannot restrain his sarcasm as he notes it’s easy to see why HELP picked Kim.

Under the dictator’s brilliant economic vision, North Korea has continued to languish as one of the poorest countries in the world — a veritable wasteland of non-productivity inhabited by millions of starving, miserable people. Its lack of economic output rivals the most destitute African countries, and though the government funnels every dime it has into military development, its armed forces remain outdated and its nuclear ambitions an embarrassment.

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Re: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2013, 09:11:47 PM »
Isaac Stone Fish, a blogger at Foreign Policy magazine who broke the story, provides some insights into the university, its philosophy.

Founded in 1986 to “provide affordable quality educational opportunities for Malaysians,” the private Kuala Lumpur-based college brands itself as the “university of achievers.” (HELP’s website brims with happy reports, noting, for instance, that the “lower foyer of HELP University was the scene of jubilation today” because of a “Dramatic Increase in Straight A’s” and its Team Legacy “emerged Champion in the prestigious Cheerleading Association and Register of Malaysia (CHARM) Cheerleading Championship.”)

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Re: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2013, 09:13:04 PM »
Within six years, North Korea “will engage the world in many constructive ways,” predicts [Dr. Paul Chan, the president and vice chancellor,] in a statement that leaps from Socrates to Henry Kissinger to Malala Yousafzai.

“[L]et’s start with offering education opportunities to the people of this country with the support of their President,” adds Chan, who has an actual Ph.D. in economics. “Why deny them? Why punish them with sanctions? The people are hungry for education to change their lives. Give it to them.”

Assuming North Koreans are alive to take advantage of this opportunity.

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Re: It’s Dr. Kim — and don’t you forget it
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2013, 09:14:26 PM »
In a posting on the Malaysiakini website, Koon Yew Yin says HELP is simply helping itself.

In the chase for students and profits but confronted by their low standard of their students and staff, private universities in Malaysia … have to look to other ways to publicize themselves and to catch the public eye.

This to me is the reason why HELP has bestowed what is for most universities their most prestigious academic award to a dictator and tyrant who presides over one of the most totalitarian and repressive regimes in our region. It is doubly scandalous that the honorary degree is in economics, a subject which the North Korean government has failed its people so miserably that many of its children are victims of hunger and malnutrition.

compiled by Araminta Wordsworth


:P

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