Monday, March 5, 2012

Overlords and the Underworld

Interesting commentary in Sunday's New York Times about the leader of North Korea and his family: while the people of North Korea starve, the members of the Kim family have been acting like mafia dons:  they have put millions into criminal enterprises.

There have also been both print and radio reports about the increase in criminal activity regarding endangered wildlife species.  As more Chinese get wealthier, the demand for elephant tusks, rhino horns, etc as gone up exponentially.  The access to poachers has been facilitated by the large numbers of Chinese working in Africa on resource and infrastructure projects.