DEMOCRACYDIGEST: “Is North Korea liberalizing?”

U.S. President Barack Obama will make a keynote speech on North Korea policy when he visits South Korea in two weeks and, according to reports, take a ‘pilgrimage’ to the demilitarized zone, or DMZ.
The White House announcement came a scuffles broke out in the UN Human Rights Council today after a North Korean diplomat violently objected to a critical report by Marzuki Darusman, the UN’s rapporteur on human rights. The report states that the human rights situation in North Korea has “continued to deteriorate” between September 2011 to January 2012.
Darusman expressed hope that the “new leadership in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will use the recent succession as an opportunity to engage with the international community and to secure global confidence.”
“The current transition may be a window of opportunity for the country to adopt a reform process and address all questions and concerns in relation to human rights,” he said.