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Category: Kim Jong Il

September 15, 2009

And Yet, Christine Ahn Wants You to Know that Sanctions Kill North Korean Babies

Italian customs recently confiscated 420 bottles of expensive liquor on their way to North Korea. Italian newspaper Vivere Ancona said customs in the eastern port city seized 150 bottles of brandy and 270 bottles of whisky in containers destined for North Korea at the end of last month. The confiscation follows a UN Security Council ban on the export of arms, high technology and luxury goods to North Korea after the communist country’s nuclear test in May. The liquor is...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy
September 5, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

The Daily Mail has republished photos, released yesterday by KCNA, showing Kim Jong Il visiting what’s described elsewhere as the Kim Jong Suk Sanitarium. The report doesn’t specify what city it’s in, but Kim Jong Suk is Kim Jong Il’s mother and a native of Hoeryong in North Hamgyeong Province. Many of the sites in Hoeryong are named after her. You’d think that a country that’s trying to show the vigor of its geriatric oligarch wouldn’t dress him in funereal...

Categories Kim Jong Il
August 12, 2009

The Palaces of Pyongyang on Google Earth

Congratulations to our friend Curtis Melvin, whose Google Earth imagery of a Kim Jong Il palace in north Pyongyang is currently the Chosun Ilbo’s top story. This palace, I should point out, is one of no less than six very large palaces I know of in the Pyongyang area alone, though I can’t confirm who lives in all of them: This is the one I posted pictures of previously. A Daily NK piece previously confirmed that it’s one of Kim...

Categories Google Earth/Kim Jong Il
July 17, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

Here at OFK, many posts and comments have ruminated about whether the North Korean regime really cares about how it’s portrayed in the foreign media.  That may be a silly question to ask in light of South Korea’s unnatural obsession with its image:  the ridiculous Tokdo evangelizing, the many Chosun Ilbo stories about the popularity of Korean food overseas, or the mischaracterization as a “Korean Wave” of Korea carving out its own proportionate market share of global culture.  An obsessive...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
July 13, 2009

S. Korean Sources Claim Kim Jong Il Has “Serious Disorder” of the Pancreas (Updated, Bumped: Pancreatic Cancer?)

This report comes from “a South Korean intelligence official” to “a Japanese television network” to AFP, and contains no detail about the alleged condition, so the uncertainties about the accuracy of this should be obvious: The TBS network reported that Kim has been resting and is being treated at his villa in the southeasten area of Wonsan by a team specialists.  The unidentified official told TBS Kim would be aware of the disorder which was made known to US and...

Categories Kim Jong Il
July 8, 2009

Is Kim Jong Il Dying?

Broadly speaking, we all are, but if you ever see a face this dessicated in the mirror, seek medical attention.  Kim Jong Il emerged from his seclusion, reportedly from one of his seaside palaces where he’d been recovering from a stroke, to attend a memorial for his late god-king father.  The man looks liked warmed-over death, and he needs some Rogaine:   (Photo credit:  Reuters / KRT) A comparison of these pictures to images of the 67 year-old thug from...

Categories Kim Jong Il
June 20, 2009

Chosun Ilbo: Kim Jong Il’s Health Failing Rapidly

If he looks like Jagger in Vegas at 4 a.m., there might be a reason: The health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is rapidly deteriorating, prompting the hasty decision to name his third son Jong-un as heir apparent, sources told the Chinese press. The Global News, a sister paper of the official People’s Daily, on Thursday quoted a foreign ambassador in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il’s fragile health made the situation in North Korea “very complicated.”  [….] A...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 5, 2009

Anticipating Kim Jong Il’s Next Move

The North Koreans seem to be itching for a fight with Lee Myung Bak, but they’re afraid he might actually tell his military to shoot back.  He knows that if that happens, he risks a national humiliation at a delicate moment.  He might, just might, be engineering a tricky sucession as we speak.  Some are even speculating that a bloody purge may be on the horizon.  What does a tyrant have to do to raise the bar from a nuclear...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 5, 2009

The Issue of Grooming

While recent announcements of Kim Jong Un as the named successor have been downplayed here at OFK, I can’t help but feel that whoever will eventually take over the reins once Kim Jong Il is gone will be severely disadvantaged if the next leader is indeed directly from the Kim bloodline. Kim Il Sung spent half a lifetime being “groomed” for leadership by the Soviets, including one intense year where he was accompanied in Korea by a Soviet spin doctor...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 2, 2009

Meet the New Boss, Part 3

Via the Dong-A Ilbo, the wire services are reporting that North Korea’s overseas missions have been instructed to swear loyalty to Kim Jong Un, who is also following Kim Jong Il around in his daily rounds. Time reports that he’s the spitting image of his father. Update: Yonhap, citing South Korean intel reports to legislators, confirms. Update 2: Here’s a roundup of my previous postings on Kim Jong Un and his brothers: Feb 07: Oldest son Kim Jong Nam, out...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
April 10, 2009

Video: Kim Jong Il Greets the Rubber Stamps; Taepodong Launch

In the video, His Porcine Shriveled Majesty is noticeably gaunt as he shuffles stiffly onto the floor of the Supreme Peoples’ Assembly. He’s aged ten years in the last year. The video also appears to show North Korea’s most recent missile test, which is interesting, but not as interesting as the system of hillside pipes shown at 1:38. Google Earthers will recognize them instantly; contraptions like these are a common sight along North Korea’s east coast, but I’ve never figured...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 9, 2009

Understatement of the Year: “Mr. Kim Ran Unopposed”

Citizens of North Korea, change has not come! The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, had himself re-elected to another five-year term by Parliament on Thursday as questions persisted over his failing health and his regime’s confrontation with the outside world after its recent rocket launch. The Supreme People’s Assembly “upheld” Mr. Kim as chairman of the country’s most powerful agency, the National Defense Commission, said the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Mr. Kim ran unopposed. [N.Y. Times, Choe Sang Hun]...

Categories Kim Jong Il
April 7, 2009

Tearful Kim Jong Il Apologizes to Starving Subjects for Blowing Their Kids’ Lunch Money on Missiles

I did not make this up, and I have the link to prove it: North Korea’s state-run media reported Tuesday that Kim Jong-Il shed tears of regret during the country’s controversial rocket launch because he could not use the launch funds to provide aid to his people, the AFP reported. [….] Kim “felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people’s livelihoods and was choked with sobs,” AFP quoted ruling communist party paper Rodong Sinmun as...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 7, 2009

Eberstadt: Kim Jong Il Has Looked Better (Update: See for Yourself)

Never mind missiles or the U.N., says Nick Eberstadt. The real North Korea story is still Kim Jong Il’s health: In the most recent official footage, undated but released late last month, North Korea’s leader looks like one of the beneficiaries of an extended stay in the Yodok political prison camp. In an alleged outing to a swimming pool at Kim Il Sung University, his signature belly is gone. Indeed, to judge by the picture, this sepulchral figure can barely...

Categories Kim Jong Il
March 23, 2009

Kim Jong Il Now Parade Magazine’s World’s Third-Worst Dictator

In a statement released by KCNA, Kim’s publicist thanked academy members for their votes and said that it was an honor just to be nominated. And in related news — sit down for this one — here’s the latest report that North Korea has been diverting international humanitarian aid. Yet another survey shows that need North Koreans never saw a spoonful of it, except for sale in the markets at prices they couldn’t pay. The charge appears not to have...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il
February 6, 2009

‘Chosun Gripped With Boundless Emotion and Joy’

You have to wonder what goes through the minds of the people who write this stuff today. It’s so over the top as to suggest a subversive intent. KCNA’s words, my links: Pyongyang, February 4 (KCNA) — Upon hearing the news that General Secretary Kim Jong Il was nominated as a candidate for deputy to the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly at Constituency No. 333, the entire army and people are full of great happiness and pride of having the peerlessly...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Unintended Humor/WTF?
January 28, 2009

Kim Jong Il Still Unable to Hold Up a Current Newspaper

North Korea continues to want us to believe that Kim Jong Il is hale and healthy, and a surprising number of journalists continue to report the KCNA’s uncorroborated claims of his public appearances as “evidence” of his recovery: “When he appeared in the auditorium the audience broke into the stormy cheers of ‘Hurrah!’ and extended the warmest lunar New Year greetings to him,” KCNA said. While state media reported his appearance, they did not release any photos or footage of...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Media Criticism