Tag: Kim Jong-un

Once again President Trump has the media all worked up by a Tweet:

If you were looking for a two-word slogan to describe Donald Trump’s life, that would be a fitting one. In everything — from the size of his buildings to the size of his genitals to the size of his nuclear arsenal, Trump is totally and completely obsessed with being the biggest and the best.

Witness his tweet Tuesday night directed at North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un:

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

“Much bigger & more powerful.” “My Button works.”

North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un pays respect to his late father at a mausoleum in Pyongyang in this photo published in the Dec. 18, 2017, edition of the North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun. The North’s media had been mum on the leader’s whereabouts on Dec. 17, when the entire country mourns the death of Kim Jong-il, raising curiosity among North Korea watchers. The photo on the right shows the basket of flowers Kim placed at the mausoleum. (Yonhap)

North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un is seen holding a cigarette in this photo capture from the North’s Korean Central TV on Dec. 13, 2017, as he attended the 8th Conference of Munitions Industry in Pyongyang a day earlier. North Korea launched a nationwide anti-smoking campaign last year, but outside watchers say the smoking rate is actually increasing, partly due to Kim’s smoking habit being frequently shown in public. (Yonhap)

The New York Times has a very good article published that shows who are the various scientists in North Korea that have made Kim Jong-un’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions so successful:

“We have never heard of him killing scientists,” said Choi Hyun-kyoo, a senior researcher in South Korea who runs NK Tech, a database of North Korean scientific publications. “He is someone who understands that trial and error are part of doing science.”

Analysts are still trying to explain how North Korea managed to overcome decades of international sanctions and make so much progress so quickly. But it is clear the nation has accumulated a significant scientific foundation despite its backward image.

Its new ICBM is a feat of physics and engineering that has stunned the world, and each of its six nuclear tests has been more powerful than the last, boosting Mr. Kim’s stature at home and his leverage abroad.  [New York Times]

Also if you are wondering how the North Koreans have been so successful so quick with their nuclear and missile programs, this may explain it:

In 1992, a plane carrying 64 rocket scientists from Moscow was stopped before departing for North Korea. It is not clear how many, if any, former Soviet scientists made it to North Korea in the decades since.

Theodore A. Postol, a professor emeritus of science, technology and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the North has “this fantastic record for flying rockets the first time and having them succeed.”

In this undated photo provided on Sunday, Dec. 3, 2017, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects a local tire factory in Chagang Province, North Korea. Kim thanked workers at a factory that built the tires for a huge vehicle used to transport a new intercontinental ballistic missile that was test-launched this week. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency.
KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY/KOREA NEWS SERVICE VIA AP

The many styles of KJU offices.. pic.twitter.com/5wT8wKnKP7

— Nathan J Hunt (@ISNJH) November 29, 2017

As much as I don’t like Kim Jong-un I don’t think it is fair to blame him for a parasite epidemic when it wasn’t too long ago when South Koreans were doing the same thing and having the same problems:

The hermit nation’s leader issued an instruction to farmers in 2014 telling them to use human faeces with animal waste and organic compost on their fields. With a lack of livestock to provide animal fertilizer, agriculturists poured the human excrement, also known as “night soil”, on their fields.

Kim’s pronouncement further precipitated  the falsehood in North Korea that human waste was the best fertilizer for crops despite the dangerous parasites and worms found within in it, Reuters reported.

The nutrition and widespread health problems that blight North Korea have been highlighted by one North Korean soldier who has recently defected to the south. The army sergeant was found to have dozens of flesh colored parasites in his digestive tract, one of which measured 10.6 inches in length.  [Newsweek]

You can read the rest at the link, but I can remember about 20 years ago I was out near the Imjim River in South Korea during a military training exercise.  From my Bradley Fight Vehicle we could see this old Korean woman in the distance walk into a rice paddy pull her pants down, squat, and take a dump right there in the field.  And no she did not wipe afterwards.  Seeing that made me laugh nearly as hard as when I was flashed by a Korean transvestite while driving in a HMMWV in Dongducheon.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un drives a tractor while touring a factory. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the story on Nov. 15, 2017, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. (Yonhap)

I spy with my little eye…Kim Jong-un's boat house in Wonsan: pic.twitter.com/uTMQqUpVdP

— Curtis Melvin 커티스 멜빈 (@CurtisMelvin) November 14, 2017

Released by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Nov. 4, 2017, this composite photo shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the March 16 Factory, a truck manufacturing plant, with officials. (Yonhap)