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Focus
Page 14
Borneo Bulletin, Monday July 15, 2019
Trump ‘ditched Iran
deal to spite Obama’
(From Page One)
the first of which caused Darroch to resign
earlier this week.
Separately, the
Sunday Times
reported
that a government investigation into the leak
had identified a civil servant as the person
responsible.
Working with officials from the National
Cyber Security Centre, part of spy agency
GCHQ, and MI6, the probe has homed in on a
suspect who had access to historical Foreign
Office files, the paper said.
The first leaked reports authored by
Darroch were published last weekend, causing
major turmoil between Britain and its closest
ally.
The ambassador was reported to have
described the White House as “inept”,
prompting Trump to claim the ambassador
was a “pompous fool” whom he would no
longer deal with.
Darroch resigned last Wednesday, saying it
was now “impossible” to do his job.
In May 2018, Britain’s then-foreign minister
Boris Johnson went to Washington to try to
persuade Trump not to abandon the Iran
deal.
In a cable sent afterwards, Darroch
reportedly indicated there were divisions in
Trump’s team over the decision, and criticised
the White House for a lack of long-term
strategy. “They can’t articulate any ‘day-after’
strategy; and contacts with State Department
this morning suggest no sort of plan for
reaching out to partners and allies, whether in
Europe or the region,” he wrote.
He reported back that Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo, during his talks with Johnson,
“did some subtle distancing by talking
throughout about ‘the President’s decision’”.
SEOUL (AFP) - One of the first things
North Korean defector Ri Kwang-myong
did after reaching the South was to go
back to school - 12 years after finishing
his education.
North Korea claims a 100 per cent
literacy rate and boasts that its free
compulsory education demonstrates the
superiority of its socialist system.
But those who escape from the
impoverished country often struggle
in the South from a lack of basic
knowledge.
Lessons at North Korean schools are
peppered with praise for the leadership,
defectors say, and for many, education
is also disrupted by grinding poverty or
their long journey to freedom.
Ri, 31, is among a handful of adult
students at Wooridul School in Seoul,
an educational haven for North Korean
students too old, or lagging academically
and so unable to go to appropriate state
schools.
“Although I studied in the North and
graduated, I don’t know much,” said Ri,
who went back to school last year, six
months after arriving in South Korea.
Much of what he was taught in the
North was not applicable in his new
home, he added, “Everything I learned is
different.”
One of the most important subjects in
the North Korean education curriculum
is revolutionary studies, which focusses
on the ruling Kim family.
Lost lessons: N Koreans get
‘re-education’ in South
F
EATURES
It starts with two hours a week at the
age of six - when pupils are taught the
official versions of the childhoods of the
country’s founder Kim Il-sung and his son
and successor Kim Jong Il, grandfather
and father of the current leader Kim
Jong-un.
Soon afterwards Kim Jong-Il’s mother
Kim Jong-suk joins the pantheon, and
in secondary school six classes a week
are devoted to the subject - a significant
percentage of the total teaching.
When AFP visited Manbok high school
in Sonbong, North Korea, Principal Ri
Myong-guk said, “Our students grow up
in the love and care of the party and
the state. We believe it’s important to
educate the students with political and
revolutionary history so they appreciate
the love and care of the great leaders,” he
explained.
The South Korean government
describes the North’s education system
as designed to instil “unconditional
loyalty to the party and the leader as the
most important aspect of life”.
And
Lee
Mi-yeon,
a
former
kindergarten teacher in the North who
fled in 2010, added, “They are taught
as mythical figures who created the
country and made grenades out of pine
cones.”
Adult students study at Wooridul School in Seoul, an educational haven for North
Korean defectors too old to go to appropriate state schools
AFP