Tag: North Korea

To people that haven’t spent a whole lot of time in Korea these slogans may seem humorous, but domestic food security provided by rice farming and fishing are very important to the Korean people on both sides of the DMZ:

North Korea could one day become a land of fairies, where a pungent, fishy aroma permeates the air as stylishly dressed children walk to school.

This is what the reclusive communist nation actually wants its people to aspire to, according to a list of 310 national slogans released by its state media Thursday.

There are five different references to building a socialist, scientific or military-influenced fairyland, according to a translation of the Rodong Sinmun story by the KCNA Watch blog.

Several of the slogans concern food production. One calls for “fragrant smell of fish and other seafoods,” while another declares, “Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!”

Other slogans are less aspirational and more educational, for example: “Fertilizer means rice and socialism.”

The slogans were printed in Korean and haven’t yet been posted in the English versions of the Rodong Sinmun or the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s primary media organs.   [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Reuters Seoul correspondent and author James Pearson to talk about capitalism in North Korea http://t.co/VdCgRNCE6D #NorthKorea @pearswick

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) February 11, 2015

I don’t think the Chinese really mind the North Koreans having a few nukes for regime security, but the brinkmanship and continual threats against neighboring countries and the lack of Chinese style economic reforms is what I think is really causing the Chinese to snub Kim Jong-un:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may not be able to visit China on his first foreign trip if there is no progress in diplomatic efforts to persuade the North to give up its nuclear ambitions, South Korea’s ambassador to China said Wednesday.

Amb. Kwon Young-se was also cautious when talking about the possibility of a visit by Kim to Russia in May, saying it is too early to conclude that Kim’s trip to Russia would take place.

Kim took the helm of the authoritarian state in late 2011 after his father, Kim Jong-il, died. China is North Korea’s ideological ally and economic lifeline, but their political ties remain strained, particularly after the North’s third nuclear test in early 2013.

Russia has said that Kim would be among those attending the May 9th ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I believe that a visit by Kim Jong-un to China is connected to the issue of denuclearization,” Kwon told Yonhap News Agency in an interview.

“From the perspective of China, there is a clear aspect that it would be burdensome to conduct a highest-level exchange with North Korea at a time when North Korea shows no progress in the nuclear issue,” Kwon said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but with that all said the Chinese are not about to abandon the regime to collapse either.  They are just not providing as much to the regime as before and the regime may think buddying up to Putin may make up for the economic aid they have lost from the Chinese.

This KCNA photo released on Feb. 5, 2015, shows North Korean students marching on a mountain road during a nationwide march to celebrate Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. (No sale outside of South Korea) (KCNA-Yonhap)

Despite Chinese depredations, N.K. fishing industry growing: http://t.co/69a9KWfd3S

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) February 10, 2015

Ask a North Korean: How do North Koreans spend days off? http://t.co/zgW0tdjYrk

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) February 7, 2015

Just the fact that Pyongyang is allowing them to do this shows that they are useful idiots for the Kim regime:

Female activists from around the world will march from Pyongyang to Seoul in May to express their wish for inter-Korean peace, a global non-profit said Sunday.

The Peace Development Fund said around 30 female activists will be participating in the march, which will see them cross the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) bisecting the Korean Peninsula, on May 24.

The activists include American feminist Gloria Steinem, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire and Chung Hyun-kyung, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, the organization said.

“Our wish is to cross the DMZ, which separates tens of millions of Korean families, on foot to express our hope for peace,” the group said in a statement.

Participants will also hold peace seminars in the two Korean capitals and discuss the role of women in reducing inter-Korean tension.

The two Koreas are technically at war since the Korean War in the 1950s ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.  [Yonhap]

I wonder what these activists leftists will do anything to criticize North Korean human rights or even the conscription of women for 5 years in the North Korean military?

Here we go again with yet another North Korea doesn’t have enough food story so lets give them free money:

SEOUL — As North Korea heads toward the “barley hump” – the lean season before the rice and corn harvest in the summer – aid agencies are warning that an unusually dry winter is compounding chronic food shortages in the impoverished country.

And while North Korea may no longer be in a state of famine, malnutrition remains such a widespread problem that even slight changes in weather can have an outsized impact on ordinary people’s food supply.

“We’re concerned about seed scarcity and the low level rain and snowfall,” John Aylieff, deputy Asia director at the U.N.’s World Food Program, said from Pyongyang. “All of these things are raising concerns about the winter harvest this year.”

Winter crops – including wheat and barley – should be growing now, but after an exceptionally dry year in 2014, rainfall around the country has been markedly lower than usual so far this year, particularly in the “cereal bowl” provinces of Pyongan in the west and Hwanghae in the south.

Although the winter harvest makes up only 5 percent of North Korea’s domestic food supply, it is a critical time because the crops see the country through the lean season known locally as the barley hump – the period between May and August before rice and corn crops are harvested.  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but for a country that supposedly can’t afford its own food they sure do find ways to pay to develop plenty of new missiles and submarines.  Why should the world be forced to subsidize these military programs by buying food for the Kim regime?

North Korea has recently test-fired a new anti-ship rocket that will be deployed “before long” at its naval units, according to its state media on Feb. 7, 2015. The photo here shows North Korea leader Kim Jong-un watching the test-firing, though details on when and where it was conducted are not available. (Yonhap)

Illegal Sale of ‘Double Portrait’ Lapel Pins Flourishes in North Korea http://t.co/q2zh4lqj9F

— KimcheeGI (@KimcheeGI) February 5, 2015