AP Exclusive: Another Great Moment in North Korean Agriculture!

What’s all this I keep hearing from fringe organizations like the World Food Program that North Korea isn’t agriculturally self-sufficient?

To mark what would have been Kim’s 100th birthday, thousands came to central Pyongyang to view elaborate displays, mostly of the violet orchid Kimilsungia named in his honor and the red begonia Kimjongilia named for his son and successor, Kim Jong Il. The Kimilsungia, named after Kim by the late Indonesian dictator Sukarno, has become an integral part of the ever-present state-sponsored propaganda that surrounds the late leader.

The Kim family’s hold over the country has continued with Kim Il Sung’s grandson, the young Kim Jong Un, taking over after his father’s death in December. No flower has been named after him, but an ode “Footsteps” in his praise was played at the exhibition. Pictures of the late leaders’ smiling faces towered over some 30,000 potted plants. So did a floral mock-up of the Unha-3 rocket that broke up over the Yellow Sea in a controversial launch Friday.

Kim’s birthday on Sunday was the biggest celebration of the year for North Koreans, who received three days off for it. Many came to Pyongyang’s Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Exhibition House in their best clothes on a warm spring day to have family portraits taken. One teenager stood primly next to the rocket as her father snapped her photo with his cell phone. [AP, Jean H. Lee]

The AP also brings us exclusive photographs of the agricultural bounty of North Korea, now repurposed toward showing the devotion of the people to their leaders:

Thankfully, Lee’s article makes no reference to the slander that the DPRK is experiencing shortages of other, less essential agricultural products, like grain. In fact, it is now well established that North Korea, despite having experienced twenty-eight consecutive years of crop-devastating floods, has sufficient resources to feed every last North Korean without accepting aid from the imperialists. Thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding between the Associated Press and North Korea’s official state information agency, the AP now has a bureau in Pyongyang and the comradely assistance of two highly trained North Korean journalists, all working together in single-minded unity to reveal the Officially Approved Truth at last! For example, this exclusive new AP video from Pyongyang irrefutably proves that North Koreans are extremely well nourished:

Sadly, not all of the world’s people are fortunate enough to thrive under the wise and loving guidance of Kim Jong Eun:

Poor thing. She was found dead in a cornfield a few weeks after this was taken, obviously in some other country. It’s hard to be sure where, because this country does not seem to have a Memorandum of Understanding with the AP, and it is therefore underserved by credentialed professional journalists.

But in Pyongyang, they have … a department store! That’s not all, either — the store has shelves, with things that people can take off the shelves all by themselves. And they can buy those things, too! Even food! The AP has exclusive video:

Look at how shiny it all is! It is not at all like the markets in some other country, that open at 3 p.m., where merchants dole out food in bulk to the few who can afford to buy it, as they keep an eye open for the officials stalking them to confiscate their meager wares. This other country does not bask in the comradely light of the AP, so its goings-on must be filmed by unqualified and uncredentialed persons who are not even actual journalists. How pitiful they must feel, the people of this other country.

In return for their well-stocked shelves and excellent diet, the eyes of all North Koreans are filled with tears of adoring devotion, or possibly devoted adoration. The AP proves that it is true:

North Korean children must be especially grateful for the eternal love of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Indeed, the AP’s Official Kim Il Sung Truth Exhibition proves that it is so! They are so much more fortunate than the children of this other country.

In this other country, some cannot afford to buy food at all (skip to 3:10).

Wow. That country surely would not welcome the AP to film its children, who seem much less happy than the smiling children we see in the AP’s exclusive reporting from North Korea. It is sad that there are countries where the people are not as happy as the people of North Korea. But if the AP isn’t reporting about it, we can at least take comfort in knowing that it isn’t anything we need to know.