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North Korean defector found to have 'enormous parasites'
- etiam 9y agoAssociate disgust with North Koreans. Check. Motivate military invasion as humanitarian intervention. Check.
- cxspoon 9y agoYes, this will be Iraq war, Part II
- myst 9y agoIraq. Part IV.
- Chris2048 9y agoBecause obv the BBC are just a mouthpiece for the Trump administration...
- acqq 9y agoBecause obviously it wasn't so to prepare for the war in Iraq? I suggest reading the articles from 2003, I think a lot of them are still online.
- Chris2048 9y agoIs the UK signing up for a war with NK?
- saladeen 9y agoRegardless of how bad Trump is considered to be, and how true that will turn out to be, in my opinion this is the first time that someone is actually doing something that has a chance at ending this horrible situation that we've been just sweeping under the rug for the past few decades. He put a squeeze on their only ally, China, put in meaningful sanctions that are hitting where it hurts, the elite, and is calling out their leader on his bluffing tactics that worked well (for the leader and the elite) so far. Hundreds of thousands of people, slowly languishing in famine and unspeakable suffering, all ignored because it's an 'inconvenient problem'.
- mercurysmessage 9y agoIt's easy for Trump to talk, as he always does, when he doesn't face the threats that Asia does. There has always been a hard stance on NK.
- Chris2048 9y ago> There has always been a hard stance on NK Can you justify that opinion? Why did it take the US to sanction a Chinese bank?
- saladeen 9y agoThe hard stance you speak of was always simple containment and ignoring, and then when their leader would start shaking sabres and making threats, he would get appeased with free food. That was exactly my point. The problem was ignored, and at times when it couldn't be ignored, NK would bluff, and the rest of the world would appease them.
- dazc 9y agoThe BBC are obsessed with Trump in a way that is 180 degrees opposite of what you are suggesting.
- egeozcan 9y agoWell, then it de-escalated pretty quickly from nuclear weapons to parasites. I find it unlikely, even as a side-story to the main propaganda.
- dingaling 9y agoI always appreciate a cynical take on the news, but to be fair there has been plenty of justification for humanitarian intervention in NK for the past 60 years. We don't really need more 'reasons'. This is more like titillation wrapped-up in a respectable jacket of 'serious current affairs' to get some clicks.
- ainiriand 9y agoGo to Africa then, you have a lot of market there.
- CamperBob2 9y agoThere's the question of what humanitarian aid Western nations might be morally obligated to offer to its former colonies. That's one question, with many different opinions. Then there's the question of how history will view the rest of us for looking the other way while the Kims turned an entire country into a concentration camp. That's another question entirely. Imagine if we'd left Auschwitz up and running at the end of WWII.
- rurban 9y agoHappened to Buchenwald. Was a nice KZ for the Russians.
- legulere 9y ago60 years? North Korea used to be more industrialized and further along than the south at the beginning.
- jchw 9y agoBoth of those things are already things that we have and do not need any more of to justify a full-scale nuclear war. I'm pretty sure the thing keeping it from becoming a real war zone is mutually assured destruction. Even mutually assured destruction aside, I think most people realize whatever kind of conflict occurs it won't be pretty for the parties involved. Of course, letting things go for long enough to actually allow North Korea to produce working nuclear weapons is probably not very smart either, but I guess hindsight is 20:20.
- sorokod 9y ago"North Korea is a very poor country and like any other poor country it has serious health problems" Sounds like a reasonable statement. How do you get from this to "motivate military invasion"?
- porfirium 9y ago> "North Korea is a very poor country and like any other poor country it has serious health problems" Thing is, I'm sure Koreans have an average IQ high enough that they should not be a poor country, yet they are.
- Supernaut 9y agoCan you provide some examples of countries that are poor because of the generally low IQ of their populations?
- jabretti 9y agoHoo boy, taking part in that discussion is a good way to get yourself banned, but here's a place to start: https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country And with that comment I'm out before I lose all my karma in the followup discussion.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoLarge tracts of Africa have 10 points shaved off their average IQ because of parasite infestation, if you get bilharziosis in early childhood it really makes you more stupid. Malaria doesn't help either, also because it causes you to miss school. Fun fact: South Korea had a very serious schistosome problem, too. Merck discovered Praziquantel in the early 1970s, it's the only medication that really works but Merck could not provide doses at a price the country could afford. So South Korean chemists got to work and developed their own process, and it gave the Korean chemical industry a big boost. Shinpoong still produce 50 % of the world's supply of praziquantel. The WHO report is here, btw: http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Jwhozip48e/1.html http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Jwhozip48e/1.html
- necessity 9y agoIf you're not disgusted by this nazist country and do not support freeing it's people you should be the one getting shot.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoHow can one make the land of milk and honey look bad? Military invasion, while unlikely (cost, mainly destruction,) would probably be better for 99.99% of North Koreans. Oh, if they are ever attacked it will be because they have threatened to nuke quite a few countries.
- jwilk 9y ago0.01% of NK population is ~2500. There's going to be a lot more casualties of war than that.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago>>0.01% of NK population is ~2500. There's going to be a lot more casualties of war than that. wrong way to calculate. Sometimes you need to die so others, including your family, have a chance. Of course, you can say who are we to decide that "John" in North Korea should die for freedom...
- nl 9y agoOh come on, not everything is a conspiracy. Parasites are often closely associated with unusual diets. Here's the CDC page on screening refugees for parasites[1]. There's a vast amount of literature about this[2] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/domestic/intestinal-parasites-domestic.html https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/domest... [2] https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=parasites+and+diet+refugees https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=parasites+and+diet+r...
- mtgx 9y agoStart seeding the tech media now with stories about North Korean malware about which they knew since 2013. Check.
- Feniks 9y agoNobody wants military intervention. Not the EU/UK Not Japan Not China Not South Korea Not Russia The US possibly but who listens to them anymore?
- skummetmaelk 9y agoI wonder if most people had similar levels of parasites before sanitation became common.
- askvictor 9y agoThere is a theory that humans co evolved with gut worms, and only very recently live without them; certain body functions improve when worms are present: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_on_the_immune_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_o...
- 55555 9y agoGoogle helminthic therapy and old friends hypothesis.
- stephengillie 9y agoConsider parasites as a tax on the calories consumed. Evading this tax was beneficial to our existence.
- davidsong 9y ago> Nine charts which tell you all you need to know about North Korea You won't believe number 6! What on earth happened to the BBC?
- cjsuk 9y agoSomeone saw buzzfeed and went "me too!"
- simonswords82 9y agoDon't get me started. The BBC used to be a flagship for balanced, meaningful and insightful news. I've been reading the BBC news website for at least 15 years. In the last couple of years I've noticed a stark movement towards clickbait titles and imagery and a movement away from emphasis on balanced news reporting. Looking now, the home page is in fact littered with click bait titles: - The degrees that make you rich... and the ones that don't - How one abuse victim found foster help for her dog Dusty - The deadly problem with US fraternities - What you may not have realised about acid attacks Back in the day, that first headline would have been something much more specific. For example "Computer, maths and science degrees lead to highest paid jobs". Sadly, I guess just reporting the facts does not bring the visitors, which is a shame.
- justinpombrio 9y ago> In the last couple of years I've noticed a stark movement towards clickbait titles I have too (have been reading bbc for past 5 years). Do you have any recommendations for what to read instead?
- simonswords82 9y agoTo be honest I don't think anybody should rely on one single source of the truth for their news. The ideal scenario is that you take your news from a couple of sources, and come to your own conclusions. Sources I use for news in no particular order: - Reuters - Al-Jazeera - Russia Today - The Guardian - Reddit - although admittedly this is less for the news itself and more for the commentary that inevitably follows in various news sub Reddits
- nl 9y agoTapeworm and other parasites are fascinating things. One of the most interesting cases was when Laurent Fignon, at the height of his powers in 1988 withdrew from the Tour de France (which he'd won in 1984, and would just lose in 1989). The pundits at first blamed Fignon’s problem on a return of the hypoglycemia that had plagued him in the past but, after the eighth stage in Nancy, he suddenly discovered the real cause of his fatigue when his trainer pulled six feet of a tapeworm out of him.[1] SIX FEET OF TAPEWORM! [1] http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/riderhistories/laurent-fignon.html http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/riderhistories/laurent-fignon.ht...
- jwilk 9y agoFor metric units users: 6 ft ≈ 1.8 m
- pvaldes 9y ago27 cm long. Not exactly what I would call enormous, (in this context!). I bet that the journalist never had seen a cetacean's worm.