North Korea, the so-called Hermit Kingdom, has paradoxically proved that it was wrongly bestowed this sobriquet. The latest test-fire by Pyongyangof the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile Hwasong-15, which has a range of 13,000 kilometers and was made specially to hit major US cities, has brought the world closer to the brink of annihilation. The belligerent North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who rules with an iron hand over a brainwashed population 70 per cent of which is starving and is reduced to hunting rodents and lizards for survival, seems unaffected by the sanctions imposed against his country. But then he has the gall to behave in this manner because North Korea became a nuclear power thanks to the clandestine help of libya and Pakistan and it was the latter's nuclear scientist AQ Khan who did the dirty.
Had the United States and the United Nations acted with force much, much earlier and imposed sanctions against Pakistan and libya alongwith North Korea, things would not have come to such a pass and all three countries would have been brought to their knees. Ifthe North Korean despot ever attacks the US with nuclear weapons and the latter retaliates, can the rest of the world remain safeIJ I doubt it. Former President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, rightly said:"War is never a lasting solution for any problem." May God prevail over the North Korean dictator to come to his senses.