North Korea

both look like they're in a 16-bit videogame

Kim looks like a very large action figure of Kim.

"your wife looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-08/48456549.jpg

the "journalists" have been pardoned and will be released with Bill.

well done bubba!

a friend of mine works for Gore's news agency, was totally freaking out about this

somehow i don't have a lot of sympathy for these "journalists"/"hikers" doing questionable activities whilst straddling the border of some of our most vocal countries of opposition... is this just me?

what are you some kind of police state stan

Happy birthday, Barry. Got you 2 azn hottiez lol

Bill

PS - send video

somehow i don't have a lot of sympathy for these "journalists"/"hikers" doing questionable activities whilst straddling the border of some of our most vocal countries of opposition... is this just me?

― (*ﾟーﾟ)θ L(。･＿･)　　　°~ヾ(･ε･ *) (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, August 4, 2009 2:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yep, they were asking for it.

I cannot believe it

Can't wait for the "Rambo 6 Meets Air Force One" movie version.

I heard from somewhere that they WERE aware they were on NK territory, and that they purposefully took their camera crews etc into the restricted area, and then had to hoof it back across the border when they were discovered, and those are the two people who didn't make it across. HOWEVER that doesn't mean that NK isn't completely ridiculous and isn't trying to imprison them for life for "spying" in, say, the middle of a forest where there isn't anything there.

Feel free to correct me if they were captured in a top-secret military encampment.

first statement since their release:
http://current.com/sl/laura_ling.htm

couple of nice photos from the dpr korea website, although they were taken in south korea...

http://www.korea-dpr.com/ocn/wp-content/uploads/NK001-3.JPG

http://www.korea-dpr.com/ocn/wp-content/uploads/NK001-5.JPG

they used that same awesome backdrop of waves for the recent clinton photo op; and for albright's photo op when she went there in there in 99/2000 or whatever. so dope.

north korea's too depressing for me to find anything hilarious about it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63B0US20100412?rpc=60

lynchrabbits.jpg

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2009/08/04/ba-nkorea_journa_0500447422.jpg

if kim jong-il was actually terry richardson

If we soldiers see beans, we become happy
If we soldiers see beans, we become happy
If we soldiers see beans, we become happy

anyway, this is my favorite kim jong-il piece of trivia:

If the official government media is to be believed, Kim is easily the greatest golfer, the world has ever seeen.

Pyongyang media say Kim enjoys golf, having shot multiple holes-in-one during his first try at the game. He reportedly aced five holes and finished 38 under par on the golf course. The "Dear Leader" routinely shoots three or four holes-in-one per round, the government-controlled media reported.

I could see a Gymkata remake only it's golf instead of gymnastics, Tiger Woods has to restore his honor by challenging Kim to the death...

sooooo...

lol legernd

Hello new peninsular war (had to be careful typing that)

What books should I read about NK? http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/01/samuel-johnson-prize-nothing-to-envy sounds OK but any other recs?

Welcome to this one man show
Just take a seat, they're always free
No surprise, no mystery
In this theatre that I call my soul
I always play the starring role, so ronery

"Great Leader, Dear Leader" is v. good; "Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader" is good as well, if you want to go deeper (900 pages)

thanks! GLDL is sadly out of print (?) or unavailable on amazon uk. 900 pages was a bit more than i had in mind. i will try to track down GLDL, but any other tips?

I caught the North Korean exhibition at Vienna's MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) last month. The art was technically proficient but uniformly awful. And the overall impression of the kind of State that produced it was at least seven different kinds of horrifying.

This was made all the more interesting by the fact that I attended it with my Croatian girlfriend, a resident of Vienna, who has strong memories of seeing very similar State artworks from her childhood in the former Yugoslavia. It was a great big nostalgia fest for her...

lil' typo in North Korea's statement about regarding their intention to retaliate with nuclear war:

"The army and people of the (North) will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises," the commission said in a statement run on the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

..."The more desperately the US imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the (North's) nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defence and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula will be become," the NDC statement said.

Guardian

It's really fun to read that last sentence slowly, and with a threatening tone of voice rising to shouting and beating of fists on the table with "will be become".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/7918468/North-Korean-football-team-shamed-in-six-hour-public-inquiry-over-World-Cup.html

That's actually quite positive. I was expecting to hear that they were all shot in the head.

North Korea's ruling party is to hold a conference on Sept. 28 for electing its supreme leadership board, North Korea's KCNA news agency said on Monday.

The agency gave no details of the agenda, but the conference is expected to pick a new leadership and likely anoint an heir as Kim Jong-il's health deteriorates.

we're all following north korea on twitter, right?

Maybe we'll finally get a photo of the esteemed party center.

The other point here, though, is what - exactly - did you find out? Seemingly nothing of any consequence whatsoever. Marcus Noland reported markets in the DPRK in the mid-1990s, there's absolutely nothing new in your article - it's a boy's own jaunt in the DPRK.

Do you now have privileged insight into the leadership transition? No. Do you have any greater understanding of the living conditions of ordinary people in the DPRK? Doesn't look like it. Apart from a bit of glossy prose, this article contributes nothing to our understanding of life or politics in the DPRK. Nothing. You're a fool.

And pity your guide. What (and I want an answer to this question) have been / will be the consequences for him? If he loses his job as a result of your stupidity, what are you going to do about it?

I agree with that comment, especially the last sentence - seems they had no regard for what might happen to their guide. obviously as westerners they would have been offered a lot more wiggle room had some bad shit gone down.

Cheap lol in view of the preceding posts but:

Photo:

http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/photo/2010-09/56386430-27101838.jpg

Headline:

N. Koreans prepare for transfer of power

I have just been reading how in the early 1970s when they started grooming Kim Jong Il for the top job, they had to change the official dictionary of political terminology so that "hereditary succession" was no longer a symptom of oppressive and backward societies.

I don't know if it has been mentioned already on this thread, but the book "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick is an excellent peek into the non-hilarious lives of ordinary North Koreans.

bryan myers' han sǒrya and north korean literature + the cleanest race are both good, readable works on nk (mostly polit ideology type stuff rather than barbara demick common people stuff)

i wonder, how much collective memory of elderly north koreans is there of the period before the war? did most koreans unsympathetic to communism flee to the south before 1953?

I don't know if it has been mentioned already on this thread, but the book "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick is an excellent peek into the non-hilarious lives of ordinary North Koreans.

have been tip-toeing around reading this; i think the first thing i heard about it was the criticism that, focusing as it does solely on disillusioned ex-pats (blanking on the more appropriate term, one that doesn't conjure someone needing a change of scenery) rather than its citizens, but everything i've heard since has been positive.

did most koreans unsympathetic to communism flee to the south before 1953?

I don't think they could have gone south after the Korean War started, so that would give 1949 (or whenever it was) as the cut-off date), though I suppose people could have scarpered south during the war when the ROK and US forces moved north. But at that stage there was not really much to choose between the two Koreas - both dictatorships heavily backed by mysterious external powers.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49306000/jpg/_49306637_010301005-1.jpg

Apparent photo of heir apparent.

chip off the old block

But at that stage there was not really much to choose between the two Koreas - both dictatorships heavily backed by mysterious external powers.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, September 29, 2010 11:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

hmmm. a hell of a lot of people did move from north to south before the war. perhaps there was also south-north migration too, given that there was so little to choose between.