North Korea bans laughing for 11 days during mourning for anniversary of Kim Jong-il's death

 

Video from Pyongyang shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un looking very dour as he attends the memorial service to mark the 10th anniversary of his father's death. As part of the national memorial, North Koreans have been banned from showing any sign of happiness. The restrictions include an explicit ban on laughter and alcohol during the 11-day period of mourning. On the exact anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s death, 17 December, North Koreans were even banned from going grocery shopping

The man who met the founder of North Korea - BBC News

 

The Kim family have ruled North Korea for over seven decades but how did the original "Great Leader" get the job?

A tour of North Korea's answer to Disneyland

On a rare press trip to Pyongyang we were presented with a night at the bustling Kaeson Youth Park, where residents are marshalled in line by military personnel for a dose of state-sanctioned fun. But while the UN warns of food scarcity in the rest of the country, is this just a welcome distraction for the privileged few?

Donald Trump and North Korea: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

About a year and a half after Bill Clinton became President the U.S. discovered that North Korea had created a nuclear weapons programme.  Alarmed, President Clinton came within moments of ordering a military strike against those facilities.  Fortunately his advisors persuaded him to find another course of action.  Jimmy Carter was dispatched to Pyongyang as an evony of the president in an effort to engage Kim-Jong il in talks on dissuading them from their chosen course.  While not initially successful Jimmy Carter was able to have the North agree to talks with the U.S. and South Korea.    Those talks would become the Agreed Framework in which North Korea would cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons and decommission its heavy water reactor in exchange for a light water reactor built by South Korea to provide electricity to the country. 

While not perfect, the Agreed Framework did for, several years  halt North Korea's attempts to construct nuclear weapons. 

The election of 2000 brought in the Republican administration of George W. Bush and with him came the neocons. A group of conservative Republicans who were quite skeptical of the  Agreed Framework believing that the previous administration had acquiesced to the demands of North Korea and were looking for reason to scrape it.  The attacks on September 11, 2001 would give them the pretext for doing so.  It all came to halt following George W. Bush's axis of evil speech at the State of the Union.

George W. Bush would constitute the Six Party Talks which never managed to deter North Korea from its nuclear ambitions with their first test of a weapon in October of 2006. 

Six tests of these weapons have taken place in the intervening years and no progress has been made on halting the North's weapons programmes.

Donald Trump is now the occupant of the Oval Office and in March made a startling announcement agreeing to a summit with North Korea's Kim-Jong un as early as May of this year.  This is Donald Trump were speaking about. A man who will convey one policy message on Tuesday and by Thursday have a complete reversal.  He's done it on every major policy issue confronting his administration.  From immigration, to taxes, social programmes, health care and numerous other issues.  Just this week the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced there would be new sanctions placed on Russia only to be undercut by Donald Trump who wants to be besties with Vladimir Putin.

One has to wonder given these conditions what will happen.
 He doesn't believe in diplomacy, has no ambassador to South Korea, no Under Secretary for Asian Affairs, the offical in charge of dealing with this issue resigned, the ambassador designate withdrew his name over comments he made about bombing North Korea and has been involved in twitter insult war with Kim-Jong un.  Given North Korea's record on such negotiations and how difficult those can be, one has to believe that Donald Trump, given his short attention span, lack of foreign policy experience, inability to make the difficult decisions and always listening to the last person in the room. These talks are a major recipe for disaster. 

To further elaborate on the issue of policy and advisors.  Remember John Bolton who was recently named Donald Trump's National Security Advisor.  He was nominated for the post of Ambassador to the UN by George W.  Bush and failed to be confirmed by the senate because of his extreme views on foreign policy.  He believes that foreign policy should be carried out through military  engagement rather than actual policy implementation.  John Bolton, in recent op-ed published in the New York Times advocated for a military  attack on North Korea and would like to see America use it armed forces against  Iran.

"We'll Handle North Korea" Donald Trump

Donald Trump, a man who has little understanding of foreign policy or North Korea is going to "handle" North Korea.   If Trump had any curiosity he'd ask the most simple of questions. What does North Korea want?   As ridiculous as this sounds North Korea wants complete and full diplomatic relations and a peace treaty with the United States. Granted they also want the U.S. to end its military and political alliance with South Korea which every administration has adamantly refused to do.

Does Kim-Jong un really want a war on the Korean peninsula? Of course not. Kim-Jong un is concerned with his and regimes survival.  Kim-Jong un after viewing what happened to Saddam Hussein after giving up his pursuit of nuclear weapons following sanctions placed upon Iraq and various government  officials decided that giving up North Korea's nuclear  weapons programs would lead to regime change.

Is Kim-Jong un a dangerous leader? Yes.  His government has committed crimes against humanity, constructed an extensive system of gulags, sells drugs and other stolen merchandise to help finance the country's nuclear ambitions.

 Donald Trump is more dangerous due to his lack of self confidence, his fragile ego and an inability to actually listen to advice from those known to be experts on the relevant issue.  One can just imagine Donald Trump taking offense at some action by the North Koreans and starting a war.

Donald Trump Will Handle North Korea All By Himself (Ha Ha Ha)

In the summer of 1994 the Clinton administration seriously considered attacking North Korea's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon to prevent the recovery of raw nuclear material for the development nuclear weapons.  Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the military strike never came to fruition.   What happened next nearly succeeded in fully ending North Korea's nuclear weapons development. North Korea, South Korea and the United States started negotiations which became the Agreed Framework.  

Those talks resulted in an agreement which stated: South Korea would construct a light water reactor incapable of producing weapons grade plutonium, but provide much needed electricity to the North Koreans.  Just prior to the end of President Clinton's term in office it was discovered that the North Koreans had resumed their pursuit of building and deploying nuclear weapons and the agreement collapsed.   George W. Bush's election didn't lead to further talks with the North and were further soured when in his 2002 State of the Union address accused North Korea of being part of the axis of evil along with Iraq and Iran.

In August of 2003 the Six Party Talks began. With the United States, Russia, North and South Korea China and Japan.   From the start until their discontinuation in 2009.  Even though several agreements were reached, North Korea would violate the terms setting the negotiations back.  It was during these talks that North Korea tested their first nuclear weapon in October of 2006.  Several tests have taken place since then with the  last test in September of 2016.  Analysts believe that North Korea may have as many as eight nuclear devices but are unable to verify that number.


Now Donald Trump in an interview with the Financial Times where he intimated that he would go it alone against North Korea if China refused to influence Kim-Jong un in his pursuit  of nuclear weapons, especially ICBMs capable of reaching the U.S.   To believe that China would abandon North Korea for geopolitical reasons is foolish.  Why won't China harm its relations with North Korea?

Say China decided to fully enforce all the sanctions in place against the Kim's government the Chinese believe the following would happen: Ten's of thousands of refugees would cross the border into Northeast China, it would lose a buffer between it and American forces stationed in South Korea, the reunification of the two Koreas along an economic collapse.  China's Communist Party views this as unacceptable.  


Donald Trump bullying China? Like that's going to happen. Former President Bill Clinton came the closest to reaching an equitable agreement with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program through diplomatic interactions. Not by bluster and bullying.   Donald Trump is immature, narcissistic and lacks intellectual curiosity.  None of his senior advisors have foreign policy experience and none are Korean experts  yet he and they believe China can be bullied into accepting a policy that would act against their national interests.  That will never happen.      


 

Half-brother of Kim Jong-un 'killed' in Malaysia

Kim Jong Nam reportedly poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by female North Korean operatives, S Korean media says.

The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been killed in Malaysia, the Yonhap News Agency and other South Korean media outlets reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified sources.

Yonhap, citing a South Korean government source, said Kim Jong Nam was killed on Monday morning in Malaysia. It gave no more details.

TV Chosun, a cable television network, said separately that Kim was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women believed to be North Korean operatives, who were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.

The reports could not be independently verified. 

Panama Papers: Briton Set-Up Shell Company So North Korea Could Sell Weapons

North Korea is widely known to be one of biggest sellers of methamphetamines (meth), market in high end fake luxury items and the manufacture of counterfeit U.S. currency.  As with any secretive repressive government with a large standing army large sums of money are needed to support the military apparatus keeping you in power.  Who do you turn too? A British banker who lived in Pyongyang for two decades.  Even though the UN   and numerous countries have placed severe sanctions on North Korea Nigel Cowie was there to help set-up a front company ensuring Pyongyang's quest for nuclear weapons would be funded through illegal arms sales.

A British banker who spent two decades living in communist North Korea set up a secret offshore finance company allegedly used by the Pyongyang regime to help sell arms and expand its nuclear weapons programme.

Nigel Cowie – a fluent Korean and Chinese speaker, who studied at Edinburgh University – was behind a Pyongyang front company, DCB Finance Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, papers show.

He says DCB Finance was used forLEGITIMATE BUSINESS and that he was unaware of any unlawful transactions.

Cowie moved to North Korea in 1995 when Kim Jong-il was in power, and went on to become head of its first foreign bank, Daedong Credit Bank. Initially operating out of a ramshackle PyongyangHOTEL with a staff of three, Cowie led a consortium that in 2006 bought a 70% stake in the bank.

He was unaware that the shell company he help create was being used to get around the embargo on the sale of military equipment by North Korea. Unaware because he's now been implicated in a blatantly illegal scheme to circumvent the sanctions placed on North Korea,

      

North Korea Has Computer Operating System And It's Paranoid

Like everything in North Korea paranoia is king. From control of historical and cultural information to complete censorship of the media and the internet. So naturally it's Red Star OS is completely paranoid just like the government and its leaders.

The operating system is not just the pale copy of western ones that many have assumed, said Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess of the German IT security company ERNW, who downloaded the software from a website outside North Korea and explored the code in detail.

“[The late leader] Kim Jong-il said North Korea should develop a system of their own. This is what they’ve done,” Gunrow told the Chaos Communication congress in Hamburg on Sunday.

This latest version, written around 2013, is based on a version of Linux called Fedora and has eschewed the previous version’s Windows XP feel for Apple’s OSX – perhaps a nod to the country’s leader Kim Jong-un who, like his father, has been photographed near Macs.

Ask a North Korean: can you get hold of pornography?

In an ongoing series, NK News poses a reader’s question to a defector. This week: x-rated films and sex education

Pornographic movies and x-rated magazines are very rare in North Korea.
If you ever came across one, they’re most likely to have been smuggled and distributed on the black market. It’s not like in America or South Korea, where you can go buy this month’s Playboy at your nearest bookstore. In the North, the government simply don’t allow it.
If someone gets caught with porn – or distributing it – they get sent to a correctional prison camp.

A correctional prison? What happens you're corrected by being forced to watch documentaries about the Kim family? Or worse, forced to believe that Kim-Jong il holds the record for most holes in one.

Sex education
But that’s part of a much larger problem: sex education also doesn’t exist at schools in North Korea.
When I was a high school student, students went on dates but even cuddling was inconceivable to us, let alone kissing. The bravest thing we could do was walk holding each others’ hands in alleys when no one else was watching. If we ran into someone unexpectedly, we would pretend we hadn’t been doing anything as “obscene” as holding hands.

This sounds just like something American conservatives would promote. While people like Bristol Palin gets pregnant.  During which time she promotes abstinence as form of birth control.  Which hasn't worked out too well for her.

North Korean defector flees to Finland 'with evidence of chemical testing on humans'

The researcher left the country in June and said he plans to present his information to the EU parliament

A North Korean biochemical weapons scientist has defected to Finland, taking with him gigabytes of information on human experiments that he plans to present to EU parliament.

The expert fled a research centre on the border of China on June 6 via the Philippines, a source from a North Korean human rights group told Yonhap news agency.

“His ostensible reason for defection is that he felt sceptical about his research,” they told Yonhap.

The 47-year-old told the human rights group that he took with him 15 gigabytes of information on human experiments being carried out at the laboratory he was working at.

He will present his information in front of the EU parliament later in July, Yonhap claimed.

Given North Korea's overall human rights record and that the United Nations has issued a report on the issue following a year long investigation it shouldn't surprise anyone if these claims are verified.

Malnutrition and kidnappings: broadcast that

North Korean statistics may not be reliable but tape measures, that show defectors to be between three and eight centimetres shorter than their South Korean couterparts, are.

The World Food Programme attributes this disturbing reality it on mass malnutrition, from one generation to another. Broadcast that.

Most of the scant information about North Korea comes from defectors and a tiny number of westerners who have been chewed up by the regime. The latest to write a book is Hyeonseo Lee. Broadcast that.

 Broadcast, too, the state’s history of kidnapping foreign nationals. In 1978 a Romanian artist, Doina Bumbea, was taken from Italy and forced to travel to North Korea. The best guess for the insane rash of kidnaps was to enhance the regime’s intelligence efforts. .

Once there, Doina was invited to marry James Dresnok, an American GI who had defected to the DPRK in the 1960s and the couple had two sons, Ted and James Jr. Blond-haired, blue-eyed young American-Romanians who speak English with a North Korean accent. Broadcast that.

Italian chef Ermanno Furlanis was flown to North Korea in 1997 at the height of the famine, which one estimate sayskilled between 600,000 and 2.5 million people, to cook for Kim Jong-il. He was given the finest ingredients flown in from the world’s most expensive shops, banquets of delight washed down with Barolo wine and Remy Martin. Broadcast that.

Decoding North Korea's fish and mushroom slogans

Magazine Monitor

North Korea has published 310 new patriotic slogans (see full list below) - so what do they say, what do they mean and what do they tell us about the leadership in Pyongyang, asks Alison Gee?

"Let this socialist country resound with Song of Big Fish Haul and be permeated with the fragrant smell of fish and other seafoods!

"Let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms by making mushroom cultivation scientific, intensive and industrialised!

"Make fruits cascade down and their sweet aroma fill the air on the sea of apple trees at the foot of Chol Pass!"

Apart from increasing food production, the slogans urge North Koreans to defend their way of life and not bow to the influence of foreign enemies, such as Washington and Seoul.

"Should the enemy dare to invade our country, annihilate them to the last man so that none of them will survive to sign the instrument of surrender!

"Let us build our country into the most powerful one in the world, into a people's fairyland, as wished by the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il!

"Let us raise a strong wind of studying the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism!"

For the full list of slogans, read on:

Let us all turn out in the general offensive to hasten final victory in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu!

Let us greet the 70th anniversaries of national liberation and Party founding with high political enthusiasm and brilliant labour feats!

Remember Kim-Il song wasn't born in the usual manner he came to life on a mountain after desending from a comet, or was that a weather ballon? Who knows. Kim Jong-il holds the record for the most  holes-in one.  Even if he did have a life long bad hair day and wear elevated shoes.  

Park Yeon-mi has become an outspoken critic of the country she escaped at 13.

This from a live Q and A she did with the Guardian:

It’s time to wrap up. Thank you to everyone for the questions. Apologies we couldn’t get to them all, but I think we covered most of the bases. Here’s a parting note from Park Yeon-mi:

When I was four years old, my mum told me not to even whisper. Even the birds and mice could hear me. Even in China I had to hide. My whole life I had to hide. I hid my opinions and could not express anything.
Everyone participating in this conversation have given me a platform to express my voice. Thank you for listening and giving me this opportunity. I hope we can have more of these conversations.

neddles

29 October 2014 12:40pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

What would you say is the one aspect of life in North Korea that you think foreigners from outside the country don't know about or understand, even if they read about North Korea a lot?

As a North Korean myself, I can’t even describe it honestly to you, so how can we expect the media to give the whole picture? The day North Korea opens their door and lets people free, we will understand them fully. Hopefully it won’t be too late for them.

Das Wunderkind

29 October 2014 1:43pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

How was sport regarded in North Korea? Was it openly enjoyed or a tool of social control?
How were North Korea's international sporting achievements, real or otherwise, presented to the population?

When people win, they have to say a speech, and talk about how their success comes from King Jong-un. Nothing escapes the regime. If you lose, you can be punished, or even sent to jail. Sport just becomes propaganda.

Japan Demand's Swift Resolution Of The Abduction Issue WIth North Korea

In September of 2002 former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi went to North Korea to hold a summit with Kim-Jong il it was during that meeting that North Korea admitted to abducting 13 Japanese citizens using them to train North Korean agents in Japanese society, culture and language.

Japanese North Korean reached their zenith during that summit and its been down hill since.  The North allowed five of them to be repatriated to Japan. This eventually included their families.  Japan demanded the return of all its kidnapped citizens to which the North replied the rest had died.  One body was returned that of Megumi Yokota upon DNA examination it was determined that the body returned was that of someone else unknown to the  Japanese government.

The kidnapping issue has servilely strained relations between the two Asian with no resolution in sight.  Yes, North Korea has agreed to conduct yet another investigation. Already they are stalling and delaying the release of any further information on those still missing.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe demanded Thursday that North Korea quickly complete an investigation into Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted by the North's agents in the 1970s and '80s.

North Korea agreed in May to launch a new probe into the abductions. In response, Japan eased some sanctions.

Abe said senior officials of the two countries, which don't have diplomatic relations, would meet in China on Monday.

"We will strongly demand the North Korean side expeditiously conduct this investigation as well as report the result very speedily," Abe told a news conference on the sidelines of an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

He said Japan was keeping its policy of "dialogue and pressure" on North Korea, but did not threaten to re-impose the sanctions.

North Korea Goes For The Wrestling Hold Of The Week

That's right the next fantastic pro wrestling move could be the Kim-Jong un 200mm mortar bounce. Just don't get in the way or you just might end up like his uncle. At least it won't the Dennis Rodman drunken buffoon move.


 North Korea Wants Pro Wrestlers From U.S. For Summer Tournament

The wild world of professional wrestling is heading to North Korea.

The authoritarian nation locked in a long standoff with its neighbors and the United States over its nuclear bomb ambitions announced plans Monday for an international pro-wrestling match in the capital, Pyongyang, in late August.

"World renowned pro-wrestlers" from Japan, the U.S. and other countries will take part, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch. It provided few other details.

A former professional wrestler turned Japanese lawmaker, Kanji Inoki, will head the organizing committee along with the chair of North Korea's International Martial Arts Games Committee, the dispatch said.

Why North Korea's Kim Jong Un Isn't as Powerful as Kim Jong Il

It's difficult to understand North Korea given its secrecy and the opaque face shown to the world through state propaganda, yet there is an outlier  unique to the hermit kingdom the hereditary transference power passed by a single dictatorial  family, the Kim's.   Beginning with Kim-Il song followed by his son Kim-Jong il and now the grandson Kim-Jong un power, while still held nominally by the Kim's it has become diluted as new centers of influence emerge  be it the military or government functionaries.  

The following is an interview with the former poet laureate and spy for North Korea.


    In the late 1990s, Jang Jin-sung was North Korea’s state poet laureate and a spy.

He reached the pinnacle of his charmed life in 1999 when he met the "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, at the age of just 28.

Below is the translation of an interview he gave NBC News’ Director of International News Adrienne Mong during a recent visit to London.

Q: What was your job?

In North Korea, I was a writer. But in North Korea there's no such thing as a writer the way the outside world understands it. It's not as an individual that you are a writer. It is as a bureaucrat, as a civil servant, as a revolutionary.

I was a part of the so-called United Front Department [the key division in the ruling Workers’ Party that was also responsible for inter-Korean espionage, policymaking and diplomacy]. My job title was counterintelligence officer with special oversight of psychological warfare against South Korea.

Q: So your position gave you a unique perspective on how the North Korean government functions?

When I was growing up, I didn't even think to question what we read and were taught. It was only when I became part of the system, writing over and over the story that I’d been taught as a child, that I realized it wasn't the truth. I realized it was policy that was forcing our history, our culture, and our identity to be written a certain way -- not because it actually happened this way.

Kim Jong-il: Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

North Korean 'defector' Mr K reveals 'assassination plots' drove Kim Jong-il to madness

A former North Korean officer has given a detailed account of the permanent state of paranoia and fear that has engulfed the world's most secretive regime, marred by assassination plots and brutal repression.
In one attempt, a lone gunman using heavy weapons tried to shoot Jong-il dead but was captured before firing.  In a separate attempt on his life, a dissident driving a 20- tonne lorry rammed his motorcade but failed to kill the dictator after he struck the wrong vehicle in a convoy of identical limousines, the Daily Telegraphreported.
Mr K also claims to have witness two attempted coups against the supreme leader by Soviet-trained members of the Korean People's Army using military equipment and missiles.
A group of officers attempted to blow up the Russian consulate in the city of Chongjin hoping the attack would trigger military action against North Korea in retaliation from the Russian government.
Separately, a military unit planned a missile strike on the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Both plots were discovered and suppressed before they were set in motion.

Of course none of this can be verified but what the hell, it makes for a great story. Perhaps Kim-Jong un will move into a hotel penthouse and do an impersonation of Howard Hughes. 

Kim-IL sung and Kim-Jong il Wrote Childrens Books How Unfortunate For Us

I realise that its difficult for one to  phantom that with all those enemies of the state they had to imprison and execute that these two sociopaths found time to write books for children.  Of course these "childrens books" are exceedingly violent but hey, its North Korea.

   "At last the left cyst burst, emitting fierce flames and the captain fell down, dejectedly dropping his club. At that moment a loud battle cry was heard from outside. Villagers killed the rest of the bandits."

This is an extract from Boys Wipe Out Bandits by Kim Jong-il - North Korea's "Dear Leader" who died in 2011.

Kim Jong-il and his father, Kim Il-sung, recognised the power of books and they are both credited with writing children's stories.

This one is "an extraordinarily violent and exuberant tale," says Christopher Richardson, who is researching North Korean children's literature at Sydney University.

Illustration from Boys Wipe Out Bandits 

It is a story "of reactionaries and bandits and gluttons lurking in the hills of North Korea, predating on the pure-hearted and virtuous villagers who incarnate all of the traditional virtues of the North Korean revolution," he says.

The heroes are a group of brave youngsters who stand up to the bandits. Despite its political message, Richardson thinks it would be wrong to dismiss tales like this simply as propaganda.

"They can be quite fun to read and they're actually quite good yarns, and I imagine children aren't even that aware of the ideological content," he says.

"If you made a cartoon of Boys Wipe Out Bandits and showed it to a bunch of Western six-year-olds or eight-year-olds they'd go nuts for it. They'd love it because it's the same kind of silly violent nonsense that boys everywhere tend to like."


Most of these stories are anti American which I'm sure is just shocking, but back to the original premise how could these two ever found the time write childrens books when they had a country to ruin and population to suppress.

Everyone knows that the dictator business can be a difficult one as you must always watch your back.