DR.STRANGELOVE IN PYONGYANG

Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear war, Dr Strangelove, was subtitled How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Like Strangelove, North Korea's Kim Jong-il wants his neighbours to love the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK's) bomb. In announcing the nuclear test on 9 October 2006, the (North) Korean Central News Agency argued: "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the area around it."

His neighbours, however, do not see it that way. South Korea, Japan, and even China have condemned the nuclear test. All three countries, after all, are within range of North Korea's missiles. The United States says that the world cannot live with a nuclear North Korea.

Few people know that Kim was first a filmmaker, only later a leader of a nuclear-weapons state. Chapter VII of his turgid text on moviemaking reads: "The Art of Directing Cinema Lies with the Director". This may be a bad movie, but there's no doubt that Kim is choreographing this drama.

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