Over at Rimjin-gang they have an interview posted with one of their North Korean contacts in regards to the recent Workers’ Party Convention. The interview concludes with the North Korean explaining why the Kim regime will never implement Chinese style reforms that would improve the well being of the people:
The reporters for the congress should report only about ‘the developing Pyongyang.’ Ordinary people in Pyongyang earn a living through a business. A woman in the photo is selling Chinese made sausages. Taken by Koo Gwang-ho at Moranbong District on June 2011. (ASIA PRESS)
Q: What is your expectation from Kim Jong-un regime?
A: I hope that they would open the door like China. Frankly speaking, if they do so, there would be no people who flee from their hometown (North Korean defectors). I don’t know why they fear so much about opening, or reform. While drinking, an official, one of my acquaintances, said: “If we open like China, we would be overthrown. So the top never open our door.”
Q: Do you mean that they don’t try to reform since they know their regime to be overthrown even if the opening would bring better off for the people?
A: Absolutely! Those son-of-bitches (Kim Jong-un and his followers) think that they should survive to the last. That is why they don’t. (open the door) [Rimjin-gang]
Clad in a suit and accompanied by key aides, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tours a machinery and equipment exhibition in Pyongyang in this combined image released on May 13, 2016, by the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. It marks Kim’s first public outing since the closing of the party’s congress on Monday. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
It is not much of a gift set when people are told they have to first pay for it, especially when the items are of inferior quality:
To celebrate its seventh congress, Pyongyang distributed one tube of toothpaste, one toothbrush and one bottle of liquor per household, the Tokyo-based Asia Press reported on Wednesday, citing sources in North Korea. Not only were the gifts sets depressingly mean – they weren’t even free.
“Collective farms near where I live refused to take the gift sets because they cost about 1,500 (North Korean) won [$1.67],” a source was quoted as saying, “and I didn’t claim them, either.”
The anonymous source added that the toothpaste distributed by the government was unpopular among the public because of its much lower quality compared to products from China. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I understand that having a nuclear weapon used against you is a horrible experience, but the two atomic bombs were a key factor in ending World War II which ultimately brought independence to the entire Korean peninsula:
A special monument commemorating Korean victims stands in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. (Yonhap)
A group of South Korean victims of the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Thursday demanded an apology and compensation from both the United States and Japan.
“Nuclear bombs were dropped and Koreans in Japan at the time were victims,” a shelter for bombing victims in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province, said in a press release.
The demand comes as U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month, making him the first sitting American president to do so.
The victims pointed out that “Japan has thoroughly hid its own war crimes while only emphasizing the fact that it was victimized by the bombing.” [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but I recommend readers check out this link to see why I think the US has nothing to apologize for in regards to using nuclear weapons to end World War II.
This has to horrible news to the residents of this apartment who have been using the tap water contaminated with a decomposed corpse:
A body was found in a water tank on the roof of an apartment block in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, local daily Kyunghyang Shinmun reported Tuesday.
Management staff at the apartments in Gongdan-dong found the body of a 38-year-old Chinese at 1:30 p.m. Monday after a resident complained that the tap water had a bad smell.
“The body had no particular injuries,” police said. “The Chinese is presumed to have been dead for two weeks.”
Police are investigating and an autopsy will be held Wednesday.
Gumi City has provided bottles of mineral water to apartment residents as an emergency measure. [Korea Times]
Chinese vessels are seen fishing illegally in South Korean waters near an island close to the inter-Korean maritime border in the West Sea on May 10, 2010, in this photo provided by the Onjin county office that administers the island. Officials say more than 180 Chinese boats were fishing illegally in the area on the same day. (Yonhap)
That is what former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is claiming:
Bolton, currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, also said the North may be trying to “reprise circumstances at the end of the Clinton administration,” referring to late 2000, when relations between Washington and Pyongyang warmed so significantly that then-President Bill Clinton even considered visiting the North.
A Clinton trip did not materialize, but a top North Korean military official paid a visit to Clinton at the White House in October 2000 and then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Pyongyang later that month and met with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, father of the current leader.
“Although Kim’s father had to be satisfied with a visit by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Obama would be an easier get. Kim could figure that even a farewell visit by peripatetic Secretary of State John Kerry would at least return the North to the status quo in 2000, after long years of isolation from Washington’s top leadership,” Bolton said.
The North could also be targeting Obama’s successor, he said.
“Kim may be calculating that Hillary Clinton would like a significant foreign-policy accomplishment early in her presidency, thereby demonstrating her seriousness and, early on, setting herself ahead of Obama’s international pace,” Bolton said. “While Donald Trump authored ‘The Art of the Deal,’ Kim knows that Pyongyang has outmatched Washington in every negotiation since the Korean War. He may think the challenge is worth the risk.” [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but I just don’t see President Obama going to Pyongyang or sending someone like John Kerry there as well. Pardon the pun, but the Kim regime is just too radioactive and has been proven repeatedly that it cannot be trusted that I just don’t see how this helps the legacy of an outgoing Presidency? Even a future President I think would have a hard time politically justifying taking a trip to North Korea unless something extraordinary was to occur. I guess we will see what happens.
