Little Kim sucks donkey bum-bum

North Korea is our favourite rogue / almost failed state. This is because although Iran is in itself a fundamentalist Absurdistan, North Korea is a combination of Boris & Natasha, 1984 and Confucianism.

Looking at this pathetic leader in photos, you almost always see him clapping. Clapping is his main way to express himself, learned most likely as a child, back when he had to clap for his father, along with the other communist state slaves.

Like any communist prison, North Korea is a country everybody is trying to escape. This is why I was surprised to recently read about the South Korean boy (no, not the ukulele covers kid) who wants to visit North Korea and meet Li’l Kim:

A 13-year-old American schoolboy is hoping to go where few senior US politicians have been before, to North Korea for a meeting with the country's leader. Jonathan Lee, who was born in South Korea, wrote to Kim Jong-Il outlining his plans for a "children's peace forest" in the demilitarized zone between the two countries. Lee believes his project would give "hope to the people and children around the world".

That’s all very interesting, even though we’re not being told that the DMZ is filled with over a million landmines. Let’s have a quick look at what North Korea means for me.

First, I oughtta tell you that I’ve never been there, but I did have a relationship with a Korean person of the opposite sex. It was quite different. I already knew quite a bit about both Koreas (even more than what M*A*S*H has taught us). Here’s a list of the most recent developments this 2010, courtesy of NYT (RSS):

• AUG. 9, 2010 North Korea seized a South Korean squidding boat in waters near their eastern sea border, the South Korean Coast Guard said, straining already high tensions between the two Koreas. — NYT
  
• AUG. 5, 2010 A North Korean land mine stored in a wooden box apparently washed ashore in South Korea during heavy flooding. It exploded in an inter-Korean border area, killing one South Korean civilian and injuring another, South Korea’s Joongang reported. — Global Voices Online
  
• AUG. 3, 2010 After meeting with South Korean officials, American officials elaborated on Washington’s intention to increase pressure on foreign banks and businesses that help North Korea in illicit activities. — NYT
  
• JULY 21, 2010 The Obama administration announced that it would impose further economic sanctions against North Korea, throwing legal weight behind a choreographed show of pressure on the North that included an unusual joint visit to the demilitarized zone by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. — NYT
  
• JULY 20, 2010 A video of a North Korean waitress in Cambodia who bears a striking resemblance to a well-known South Korean actress has become a big hit on YouTube in South Korea, amidst rumors on political blogs that she may be a government agent. — Global Voices Online
  
• JULY 16, 2010 Drawn from interviews with more than 40 North Koreans who had defected over the past six years, as well as with health professionals who had worked with North Koreans, a report by the human rights group Amnesty International depicted a North Korean health system in dire straits. — NYT
  
• JULY 9, 2010 Key Security Council members have agreed on a statement that condemns the sinking of a South Korean warship that left 46 sailors dead, but avoids singling out North Korea for the attack. — NYT
  
• JULY 7, 2010 While tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years over the sinking of a South Korean warship, North Korea continues to allow South Koreans to enter the Kaesong Industrial Complex, where 121 mostly South Korean companies employ 44,000 North Korean workers. — NYT
  
• JUNE 18, 2010 Political tensions were sidelined this week, as South Korean blogs were filled with praise over the North Korean performance in a World Cup match against Brazil. — Global Voices Online
  
• JUNE 16, 2010 North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations said that his country’s military would respond forcefully to any Security Council condemnation over the sinking of a South Korean warship, warning that “our people and army will smash our aggressors.” — NYT
  
• JUNE 10, 2010 Interviews with eight North Koreans who recently left their country paint a haunting portrait of desperation and growing political resentment. — NYT
  
• JUNE 8, 2010 In an unusual public rebuke, China said on June 7 that in the previous week a North Korean border guard shot dead three Chinese nationals and wounded one in an incident in northeast China, prompting it to file a formal complaint. — NYT
  
• JUNE 7, 2010 As its leader, Kim Jong-il, was watching, North Korea’s Parliament elevated his brother-in-law to the regime’s No. 2 post, according to the state-run news agency, another sign that the ailing Mr. Kim was depending more heavily on close relatives as he engineers a dynastic succession of power to his third son. — NYT
  
• JUNE 6, 2010 A top North Korean official believed to be working to secure an eventual transfer of power from Kim Jong-il, the ailing North Korean leader, to one of his sons died last week, but analysts say they do not think it will impede the succession process. — NYT
  
• JUNE 4, 2010 Endless doubts and conspiracy theories about the alleged sinking of the South Korean warship by North Korea pervade the South Korean blogosphere. — Global Voices Online
  
• JUNE 1, 2010 K. M. Lawson from The Korea History Blog criticizes the "Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea" for lack of critical discourse on North Korea, most recently in reference to the sinking of a South Korean warship. — Global Voices Online
  
• JUNE 1, 2010 The Telegraph shows a series of Google Earth photos titled A bird's eye view of the prisons and palaces of Kim Jong-il's North Korea. They include photos of forced labor camps and Kim's luxurious residences around the country. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• JUNE 1, 2010 Citizens in China and Hong Kong discuss the North Korea warship sinking incident in online forums, from a Chinese perspective. — Global Voices Online
  
• MAY 24, 2010 The Obama administration on Monday supported steps by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship. — NYT
  
• MAY 24, 2010 Moves by President Lee Myung-bak amounted to the most serious actions the South could take short of an armed retaliation for what Mr. Lee called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship. — NYT
  
• MAY 24, 2010 Chinese leaders face two unpalatable options: mollify North Korea or join the U.N. Security Council in condemning it. — NYT
  
• MAY 24, 2010 American intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that Kim Jong-il, the ailing leader of North Korea, must have authorized the torpedo assault. — NYT
  
• MAY 21, 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton harshly condemned North Korea for a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean Navy warship last March, and promised to marshal an international response in the coming week with Japan, China and other countries. — NYT
  
• MAY 20, 2010 South Korea’s formal accusation that a North Korean torpedo sank one of its warships, killing 46 sailors, will set off a diplomatic drumbeat to punish North Korea, backed by the United States and other nations, which could end up in the United Nations Security Council. — NYT
  
• MAY 19, 2010 South Korea has concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank one of its warships in March, killing 46 sailors, according to government officials and domestic news reports. South Korean officials are preparing to announce the results of their investigation later this week. — NYT
  
• MAY 6, 2010 Despite an aggressive offense by Chinese police officers who detained several camera operators at one stop and asked them to erase images, foreign journalists have managed to track the movements of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, from a luxury hotel and a car factory in the port city of Dalian to the official state guest house in Beijing. — NYT
  
• MAY 4, 2010 Amid reports that Kim Jong Il's train crossed into China, scholar Alexandre Mansourov argues that the DPRK's currency reforms are part of the "uneasy but symbiotic relationship" between state and market in North Korea, undergirded by "burgeoning economic ties" to China. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• APRIL 28, 2010 North Korea Freedom Week is being held in Seoul, South Korea from April 25 to May 1. This marks the first time the North Korea Freedom Coalition is holding the annual event outside of Washington D.C. The program includes prayer vigils, photo exhibitions, seminars, press conferences and balloons which are intended to float to North Korea. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• APRIL 26, 2010 Mourners in South Korea paid tribute to at least 40 sailors killed in the sinking of a warship, as the country inched closer to placing blame on North Korea and faced the urgent question of how it might respond. — NYT
  
• APRIL 25, 2010 A photograph published in March in North Korean newspapers shows Kim Jong-il with a man said to be Kim Jong-un, his son and presumed heir, at possibly his first public event. — NYT
  
• APRIL 21, 2010 South Korean security officials claim to have arrested two North Korean agents who had posed as defectors in a plot to assassinate the highest-ranking North Korean defector by slitting his throat. — NYT
  
• APRIL 20, 2010 The Daily NK reported that a former North Korean refugee who worked for Free North Korea Radio in South Korea was kidnapped in Dandong, China on February 19 and sent back to North Korea. The 50-year old man was supposed to rendezvous with his wife and son at the Chinese border city, the report said. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• APRIL 17, 2010 North Korea denies involvement in the explosion and sinking of a South Korean war ship in disputed border waters. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• APRIL 9, 2010 The North Korean government's announcement on the sentencing of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a U.S. citizen, raises serious concerns about whether his trial was fair, especially given the lack of transparency and extremely harsh punishment for a vaguely worded charge, Human Rights Watch said in a statement. Gomes was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined the equivalent of US$700,000 for illegal entry and "hostile acts" against North Korea. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• APRIL 6, 2010 According to RFA and VOA, Jae-won "Joseph" Shin, widely known as one of the first North Korean refugees to resettle in the U.S. after the North Korea Human Rights Act went into effect in 2004, committed suicide at his home in Flushing, New York. According to his family, Shin has been suffering from depression. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• APRIL 5, 2010 The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, was the host of a weekend party in his country’s capital, Pyongyang, for the new Chinese ambassador, both countries’ state media reported, disputing a South Korean news report that Mr. Kim visited China. — NYT
  
• APRIL 2, 2010 In an unusual interview with AP Television News (in Pyongyang), North Korean economist Ri Ki Song insists that the economic situation "is being stabilized overall." For now, supplemental private market activity is being allowed, but the government's plan is to slowly phase-out markets by "expanding planned supply through state-run commercial networks." Ri claimed that foreign media reports of "social disorder" due to the December currency reforms were unfounded. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• MARCH 31, 2010 Anticipation of an imminent Kim Jong Il visit to China is intensifying based on official statements by Seoul and a flurry of PRC-DPRK diplomatic activity. Such a visit would raise expectations for announcement of a resumption of the Six Party Talks, presumably adding some momentum going into President Obama's Global Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on April 12th and 13th. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• MARCH 31, 2010 Dr. Kwon Tae-jin of (South) Korea Rural Economic Research Institute says in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that by May/June, North Koreans could face a severe food shortage comparable to the famine in the 1990s, unless North Korea receives food aid. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• MARCH 30, 2010 The Daily NK reports that wholesalers who survived through North Korea's monetary reform are releasing food in markets again, contributing to a sudden decrease in both food prices and the US dollar's black market rate against the North Korean won. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• MARCH 29, 2010 North Korea warned of deadly consequences unless the United States and South Korea stop allowing journalists inside a heavily guarded buffer zone that has divided the Korean Peninsula since the armistice more than a half century ago. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• MARCH 29, 2010 North Korean citizens, using cellphones to pierce North Korea’s near-total news blackout, are feeding information about life there to South Korea and its Western allies. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• MARCH 26, 2010 The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a new resolution against North Korea and extended the mandate of the North Korea special rapporteur by another year. The Council said it deplored grave, widespread and systematic human rights abuses in North Korea. — Kay Seok, Human Rights Watch
  
• MARCH 24, 2010 A handful of North Koreans who recently crossed the border into China to give interviews to Times Online and The Los Angeles Times indicate near-famine conditions and increasing disaffection in the wake of failed currency reforms. A new paper by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, based on defector interviews in 2005 and 2008, suggests that such disaffection has been on the rise for over a decade, and finds expression in "everyday forms of resistance" such as trading in markets and listening to foreign media.— John Delury, Asia Society
  
• MARCH 22, 2010 Reports that North Korea executed a top finance official suggest intensifying economic instability. University of Vienna professor Rudiger Frank and RAND economist Charles Wolf Jr. argue that planning for North Korea's long-term modernization is falling behind the speed of events. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• MARCH 19, 2010 North Korea has arrested and possibly executed its top financial official, Pak Nam-gi, as it struggles to contain chaos set off by its botched attempt to halt inflation through a radical currency revaluation, according to news reports in South Korea. — NYT
  
• MARCH 5, 2010 A Russian student studying in Pyongyang opened a window onto North Korea's own version of Windows by posting a blog entry, translated by Russia Today, about using "Red Star", the DPRK's official operating system. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• MARCH 3, 2010 The blog Ask a Korean! translates an article that explains how NGOs obtain information from North Korea via cell phones imported from China. — Global Voices Online
  
• MARCH 3, 2010 Robert Neff from The Marmot's Hole blogs about Korea's role in the logging of Siberian timber, in particular how North Koreans are working as slave loggers in Russia. — Global Voices Online
  
• FEB. 25, 2010 North Korea makes its usual threat against a planned joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise.— Choe Sang-Hun
  
• FEB. 22, 2010 Amidst another wave of rumors that North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan is likely to visit the United States in the coming weeks, the Korean Central News Agency released a statement insisting that nuclear disarmament will require peace talks and an "end to hostile relations" with the US— economic aid alone will not suffice. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• FEB. 22, 2010 Security Council Report, a non-governmental organization affiliated with Columbia University, released a useful overview and update on DPRK-related activities at the UN Security Council in its monthly forecast. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• FEB. 13, 2010 North Korea ends talks with China, and says that the two sides discussed ways to "speed up" the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, such as the signing of a peace treaty. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• FEB. 12, 2010 The South Korean news agency Yonhap reports that the top North Korean nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, may visit Washington in March. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• FEB. 11, 2010 The North Korean government has made a rare apology for a policy blunder and lifted a ban on using foreign currency, according to South Korean news organizations. — NYT
  
• FEB. 4, 2010 Recent moves by the North Korean government to crack down on illegal private markets have triggered runaway inflation. — Choe Sang-Hun
  
• FEB. 2, 2010 The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report focused much of its attention on the threat posed by North Korea, estimating that within 10 years, if left to its devices, the DPRK "will be able to mate a nuclear warhead to a proven delivery system." One of the most thorough open-source, non-governmental assessments is the International Crisis Group's "North Korea's Nuclear and Missile Programs," last updated in June 2009. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• JAN. 29, 2010 Choe Sang-hun’s article this week on North Korean defectors' underground news services draws attention to the critical problem of getting accurate information about North Korean politics, economy and society. See the sidebar on this page for more resources. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• JAN. 27, 2010 Three provocative new books about North Korea parse the slivers of light that escape this enigmatic and often baffling place. — NYT
  
• JAN. 19, 2010 Experts on the North Korean economy are closely monitoring the effects of last month's currency re-denomination and foreign currency ban, which have profound implications for the DPRK's political economy going forward. The most thorough study to emerge so far is "The Winter of their Discontent: Pyongyang Attacks the Market" by Marcus Noland (Peterson Institute for International Economics) and Stephan Haggard (UC San Diego). —John Delury, Asia Society. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• JAN. 13, 2010 Barbara Demick, Beijing bureau chief for the LA Times, has published Nothing to Envy: Lives of Ordinary North Koreans, a book that chronicles the harrowing socio-economic freefall experienced by ordinary North Koreans since the end of the Cold War. —John Delury, Asia Society. — John Delury, Asia Society
  
• JAN. 7, 2010 North Korea apparently began pursuing a uranium enrichment program in 1996 at the latest, the South Korean foreign minister said on Jan. 6, bolstering fears that the North’s second route to building a nuclear bomb could be well on its way. — NYT

One event that the 13 yo’s trip conjures up is the “Axe murder incident”. On that occasion, Korean soldiers attacked and killed 2 US military personnel who were trimming a tree in the DMZ as scheduled on common accord. Here’s a description of the event from wikipedia:

On August 18, 1976, a group of five Korean Service Corps (KSC) personnel escorted by a UNC security team consisting of the Joint Security Force (JSF) Company Commander (Captain Arthur Bonifas), his South Korean (ROK) Army counterpart, Captain Kim, the platoon leader of the current platoon in the area (1st Lt. Mark Barrett), and 11 enlisted personnel, both American and South Korean, went into the JSA to trim the tree as previously scheduled with the KPA delegation. The two captains did not wear sidearms, as members of the Joint Security Area were limited to only five armed officers and 30 armed enlisted personnel at a time. However, there were mattocks in the back of the 2½ ton truck. The KSC workers had the axes they brought to prune the tree branches. The tree had been scheduled to be trimmed seven days earlier, but rain had forced the work to be rescheduled.

After trimming began, 15 to 16 KPA soldiers appeared, commanded by Senior Lt. Pak Chul, whom the UNC soldiers had previously nicknamed "Lt. Bulldog" due to a history of confrontations. Pak and his subordinates appeared to observe the trimming without concern for approximately 15 minutes, until he abruptly told the UNC to cease the activity stating the tree could not be trimmed "because Kim Il Sung personally planted it and nourished it and it’s growing under his supervision." Capt. Bonifas ordered the detail to continue, and turned his back on Lt. Pak Chul.

After being ignored by Capt. Bonifas, Pak sent a runner across the Bridge of No Return. Within minutes a North Korean guard truck crossed the bridge and approximately 20 more North Korean guards disembarked carrying crowbars and clubs. Pak again demanded that the tree trimming stop, and when Capt. Bonifas again turned his back on him, Pak removed his watch, carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief, placed it in his pocket, and then shouted "Kill them!" as he swung a karate chop to the back of Capt. Bonifas' neck. Using axes dropped by the tree-trimmers, the KPA forces attacked the two U.S. soldiers, Capt. Bonifas and Lt. Barrett, and wounded all but one of the UNC guards.

While Capt. Bonifas died instantly, Lt. Barrett jumped a low wall which led into a 15 ft. (4½ m) deep tree-filled depression. The depression was not visible from the road. The entire fight lasted for only about 20–30 seconds before the UNC Force managed to disperse the KPA guards and place Capt. Bonifas' body in their truck. However, there was no sign of Lt. Barrett and the two UNC guards at OP#5 could not see them.

They did, however, observe the KPA guards grab (by the heels) approximately five members of their own force and drag them back across the bridge. They also observed the KPA guards at KPA#8 (along the UNC emergency egress road) exhibiting strange behavior, in that one guard would take an axe and go down into the depression for a couple of minutes and then come back up and hand the axe to another guard who would repeat the process. This went on for approximately 90 minutes until the UNC guards at OP#5 were informed that Lt. Barrett was missing, at which time they informed their superiors about the KPA activity in the depression. A search and rescue squad was quickly dispatched and found Lt. Barrett had been attacked with the axe by the North Koreans.

A helicopter on a training mission was also sent to the location (its crew issued yellow armbands and .45 automatics) and used for a medevac, but Barrett did not survive.

A corporal witnessed the attack from OP#5 and recorded the incident with both a camera and a movie camera.

Reaction

Shortly after the incident, North Korean media began airing reports of the fight. The North Korean version stated:

"Around 10:45 a.m. today, the American imperialist aggressors sent in 14 hoodlums with axes into the Joint Security Area to cut the trees on their own accord, although such a work should be mutually consented beforehand. Four persons from our side went to the spot to warn them not to continue the work without our consent. Against our persuasion, they attacked our guards en masse and committed a serious provocative act of beating our men, wielding murderous weapons and depending on the fact that they outnumbered us. Our guards could not but resort to self-defense measures under the circumstances of this reckless provocation."

Within four hours of the attack, Kim Jong-il (son of the North Korean leader Kim Il-sung) addressed the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he presented a prepared document describing the incident as an unprovoked attack on North Korean guards, led by American officers. He then introduced a resolution asking the conference to condemn that day's grave U.S. provocation and called on participants to endorse both the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea and the dissolution of the United Nations Command, which was seconded by Cuba. With such a short time since the incident, with details still sketchy, and the nature of Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, the members of the conference passed the resolution.

Operation Paul Bunyan

In response to the "axe murder incident", the UN Command determined that instead of trimming the branches that obscured visibility, they would cut down the tree with the aid of overwhelming force. The operation, named after mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan, was conceived as a US/South Korean show of force, but was also carefully managed to prevent further escalation. It was planned over two days by General Richard G. Stilwell and his staff at the UNC headquarters in Seoul.

(..)Although the operation was carried out peacefully, there was concern that it could spark a wider conflict. The incident led to increased tensions along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, but did not develop into full-scale war. Some shots were fired at the US helicopter which, carrying Major General Morris Brady, circled Panmunjom later that day, but nobody was injured.[6] The firing stopped abruptly when six Cobras banked line abreast and swung into firing position, their laser sights illuminating the North Korean gun position.

North Korea represents all that is wrong with statism namely, its worst manifestation: STALINISM. Such a state does not deliver even the raison d’etre of the state: security. Survival is arbitrary and at the latitude of those in power. Apart from violence, a demented cult of personality and cruel repression, the regime has subjected its citizens to famine starting with the 1990s and as the regime started to pursue its nuclear ambitions more closely. According to wikipedia:

In 2006, Amnesty International reported that a national nutrition survey conducted by the North Korean government, the World Food Programme, and UNICEF found that 7% of children were severely malnourished; 37% were chronically malnourished; 23.4% were underweight; and one in three mothers was malnourished and anemic as the result of the lingering effect of the famine. The inflation caused by some of the 2002 economic reforms, including the Songun or "Military-first" policy, was cited for creating the increased price of basic foods.[117]

The history of Japanese assistance to North Korea has been marked with challenges; from a large pro-Pyongyang community of Koreans in Japan to public outrage over the 1998 North Korean missile launch and revelations regarding the abduction of Japanese citizens.[118] In June 1995 an agreement was reached that the two countries would act jointly.[118] South Korea would provide 150,000 MT of grain in unmarked bags, and Japan would provide 150,000 MT gratis and another 150,000 MT on concessional terms.[118] In October 1995 and January 1996, North Korea again approached Japan for assistance. On these two occasions, both of which came at crucial moments in the evolution of the famine, opposition from both South Korea and domestic political sources quashed the deals.[118]

Beginning in 1997, the U.S. began shipping food aid to North Korea through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to combat the famine. Shipments peaked in 1999 at nearly 700,000 tons making the U.S. the largest foreign aid donor to the country at the time. Under the Bush Administration, aid was drastically reduced year after year from 350,000 tons in 2001 to 40,000 in 2004.[119] The Bush Administration took criticism for using "food as a weapon" during talks over the North's nuclear weapons program, but insisted the US Agency for International Development (USAID) criteria were the same for all countries and the situation in North Korea had "improved significantly since its collapse in the mid-1990s." Agricultural production had increased from about 2.7 million metric tons in 1997 to 4.2 million metric tons in 2004.

Though healthcare is free,

North Korea's healthcare system has been in a steep decline since the 1990s due to natural disasters, economic problems, and food and energy shortages. Many hospitals and clinics in North Korea now lack essential medicines and equipment, running water and electricity.

The differences between the North and South Korea clearly show the difference between the Stalinist “model” and authoritarian capitalism followed by democracy / liberalization. Whereas the citizens of the North live in abject poverty and do not have enough food, those in the South enjoy the benefits of democracy and a vibrant economy. If they could, all those living in the North would jump the border over to their southern brothers and sisters, but they are not allowed by the northern repressive military apparatus.

It is difficult to even begin to describe North Korea without mentioning its constant provocations toward UN / South Korean personnel, its demented cult of personality, its contraband and abduction of foreigners, pervasive corruption, prostitution, slavery of its citizens in the Siberian logging industry. We will mention, however, that the North Korean soccer team was publicly humiliated for failing to get a World Cup for their fearless leader:

The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People's Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched. The players were subjected to a "grand debate" on July 2 because they failed in their "ideological struggle" to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported. The team's coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers' Party of Korea. The coach was punished for "betraying" Kim Jong-un - one of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il's sons and heir apparent. The country, in its first World Cup since 1966, lost all three group games – including a 7-0 defeat to Portugal. The broadcast of live games had been banned to avoid national embarrassment, but after the spirited 2-1 defeat to Brazil, state television made the Portugal game its first live sports broadcast ever. Following ideological criticism, the players were then allegedly forced to blame the coach for their defeats. Only two players avoided the inquisition - Japanese-born Jong Tae-se and An Yong-hak, who flew straight to Japan after the tournament. However, media in South Korea said the players got off lightly by North Korean standards. "In the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who performed badly were sent to prison camps," a South Korean intelligence source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Current US policy

What US is doing under Hillary Clinton seems incredibly intelligent and inspired.

The newly announced sanctions are meant to strike the very communist cleptocracy and its oligarchic stranglehold on that country’s resources. US is leaning hard on the regime’s collaborators and making it more difficult for them to obtain luxury items which are out of the reach of the subjugated population anyway. Furthermore, the US is showing its confidence with Hillary’s visit in the DMZ. This renders Li’l Kim’s attempt to scare everybody moot.

No matter how much we know about the atrocities this laughable but contemporary regime is committing against its population and other countries as well in our own time, we will still have Westerners preaching communism to the confused. They will most likely emphasize that they are “Trotskyites”. AFAIK, that means that they plan to do nothing and die with a pick axe buried in their brain – this preferred murder weapon of Stalinist regimes.

My hope is to see the last Stalinist regime toppled in my lifetime and the Korean people reunited in a prosperous, happy island.

Sources / More info: wiki-nk, wiki-axe, wiki-trotsky, bbc-boy, faxo-bieber, mashable-4chan-nk, cia-wfb-nk, flickr-nk, korea-dpr, sk-ministry-uni, nkeconwatch, pbs-kims-nuclear, daily-nk, economist-sabre, gg-fp-lk, nyt-nk, wp-artillery, bb-nk-drills, ts-vessel, sk-drill, nk-retaliation, nk-dance, nk-soccer, bbc-nk-eyes, np-us-sanctions, wp-sanctions, yt-nk

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