Members from various workers’ organizations gather in Pyongyang on Dec. 15, 2016, in a ceremony observing the fifth anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il, the late leader of the country and the father of current leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)
American elementary children go play dodgeball during physical education periods while in North Korea their elementary students are used to go break and haul rocks to repair a railway line:
Grafting in the blazing sun, Kim Jong-un ’s child slaves load heavy rocks into sacks as others mend railway tracks with hammers.
Taken out of lessons and forced to carry out back-breaking work, they toil for up to 10 hours a day.
The footage of North Korea ’s human rights abuses, uncovered by the Daily Mirror, will shock the world.
Yet in his palace hundreds of miles away, despot Jong-un enjoys a life of luxury and thinks nothing of enslaving innocents as young as five.
Michael Glendinning, of the European Alliance of Human Rights in North Korea, said: “The footage obtained by the Mirror is startling in its documentation of one of the worst abuses the North Korean state inflicts – child labour.” [The UK Mirror]
You can read more and see the video at the link.
Read my #nytimes Oped! Can Smuggled TV Shows Change #NK? https://t.co/Sb5lCx2Ji7 @nytimes
— Jieun Baek (@JieunBaek1) December 13, 2016
I am always careful to caveat these type of stories coming out of North Korea because there is no way to confirm whether they are true or not. They could just be a random rumor that a newspaper editor saw an opportunity for a sensational headline to publish:
Kim Jong Un got drunk and ordered military leaders to write statements about their failures while visiting his summer villa, according to a Japanese press report published Tuesday. The punishment also required the military veterans to write an apology.
“That none of you were able to produce not even one military satellite is a misconduct that is commensurate to treason,” Kim allegedly told senior officials at the time. The veterans were required to stay up all night writing the letters, but when Kim found them in the morning, he was allegedly confused about why there were gathered at his vacation home. “Why are you gathered here?” Kim allegedly said, before adding: “Be careful about your health because you are all old.”
Some of the military leaders began crying, fearful that Kim would order their executions or forced deportations from North Korea, as he has done in the past to other North Korean leaders who were faced with his reportedly hot temper. [International Business Times]
You can read more at the link.
Here’s why so many Chinese tourists are vacationing in North Korea https://t.co/4ihb7qwhSn by @SurekhaRagavan
— Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) December 12, 2016
These photos from North Korea’s daily Rodong Sinmun on Dec. 13, 2016, features the country’s top leader Kim Jong-un visiting the Wonsan Army-People Power Station in southeastern Kangwon Province. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
1/6: Once again, Pyongyang does not want peace or even a peace treaty. It wants an endless peace treaty negotiation. https://t.co/e5nKmlJxkj
— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) December 12, 2016
Spotted anew in Chongjin: Charcoal-powered Seung-ri 58 (Victory 58) and Chinese Hae-Bang-Ho (Liberation) vehicles. https://t.co/YHChZz4Cuu
— Richard Horgan (@LiberateLaura) December 10, 2016
Obviously the sanctions put on North Korea are not working when Dr. Andrei Lankov writes about the large economic expansion Kim Jong-un has helped to usher in during his first five years of ruling North Korea:
Next month it will be five years since the sudden death of Kim Jong-il led to the second dynastic transition in North Korean history. Kim Jong-un’s reign is approaching the five-year mark, the length of a presidential term in many modern democracies, so it is probably a good time to say what we think of the young North Korean leader.
To an extent, we can see the directions that Kim Jong-un wants to take and the trajectory that he wants to steer his country toward. I would dare to describe Kim Jong-un as a modest, perhaps hyper-cautious, but rather determined reformer in economic matters. Unfortunately, his foreign policy is difficult to appraise in anything but a critical fashion: it is quite likely that, in the long run, his diplomatic blunders will be his undoing.
But let’s start with the good news. In the last five years the North Korean economy has grown faster than any time since the early 1980s. Economic statistics are murky, speculative and controversial, but the majority of inside observers (diplomatic staff in Pyongyang) tend to estimate growth as being 3 percent to 4 percent per annum. This is much better than anything North Korea has seen since the 1980s, if not the 1970s. The results of such growth are felt through the whole of society, though the results are highly unevenly distributed. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link.
You can read the whole article at the link, but I would speculate that China has been playing the “North Korea card” for years considering they have done little to nothing to stop North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs:
– China could exercise a veto against any new U.N. sanctions on North Korea, ignore existing sanctions and even accept the communist neighbor as a nuclear state if the incoming administration of Donald Trump plays the “Taiwan card,” a U.S. expert said.
Trump sparked China’s anger by accepting a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this month in breach of the decades-long diplomatic tradition that the U.S. has kept under its “One China” policy since severing ties with Taiwan and normalizing relations with Beijing.
China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland and rails against any support for Taiwan’s independence or the notion that the island is not part of the country. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwan.
On Sunday, Trump went a step further, saying he doesn’t understand “why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.” The remark suggests Trump could use the Taiwan card in dealings with Beijing. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link.
