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May 15, 2009

Court Trials in North Korea

Yes, the concept of a court trial is hard to fathom in the context of North Korea, but apparently, they do exist over there. Now that we have a court date set for the (questionable) accusations posed against U.S. reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling, what can we expect to happen in a North Korean court hearing? Slate has an interesting article exploring the topic. For those wondering if the trial will be public, Slate reports: Trials are supposed to...

Categories Inside NK
May 13, 2009

Open Source Center Details DPRK Leadership

Anytime someone claims to have documents that have not been approved for public release and then releases them, I get a bit nervous. Personally speaking, I would never publish anything classified on this site, or any other Web site for that matter, but after discussing this find with Joshua, I can justify sharing this bit of information with you since a) there are no classification markings on the document, and b) it’s already circulating the Internet on a public Web...

Categories Inside NK
February 11, 2009

You Tube Find: ‘Truth of the Border Area Between China and North Korea’

This Japanese documentary (with English subs) follows a camera crew that motored halfway across the Tumen River to a tiny, remote, impoverished North Korean island where the entire population has been mobilized for an irrigation project, yet lives hand-to-mouth on gleaning the fields and the river of things that the Chinese would not eat. We also learn what can happen to Chinese who cross the river. This is the only time I ever recall seeing film of foreigners entering North...

Categories Inside NK
February 9, 2009

You Tube Find: ‘Don’t Tell My Mother That I Am in North Korea’

I’ve had my fill of guided travelogues of Pyongyang’s mandatory sights, but occasionally, something irreverent and daring pierces the veil and gives you a few glimpses behind the facade. The “Vice Guide to North Korea” was one of these. Commenter Ditto 81 gets a big hat tip for “Don’t Tell My Mother That I Am in North Korea,” the observations of a group of French Canadian journalists who lied their way in by claiming to be actors and real estate...

Categories Inside NK
November 24, 2008

So I Can Keep the Masthead for a While, I See

Blackouts frequently interrupted a four-day stay in Pyongyang for South Koreans attending a rare joint seminar between the Cold War rivals, with the North’s showcase city often plunged into pitch darkness by power outages. ‘What is going on here?’ a North Korean border control officer said when computer terminals lost power and the lights went out at the Soviet-era Sunan Airport terminal, which serves Pyongyang, while he was processing the documents of the visiting South Koreans. One of his colleagues...

Categories Inside NK/NK Economics
November 16, 2008

New Media Lead the Way in Covering North Korea

Interestingly, this tacit admission comes from the L.A. Times, no less. [Defector Zhu Sung-Ha, now a journalist] criticized South Korean intelligence for not getting inside the Pyongyang government. “The two Koreas have been at war for 60 years,” Zhu said, in reference to the state of war that has officially existed since the Korean War. “During that time they should have placed someone close to Kim. I am surprised their intelligence is so weak.” As a result, much of the...

Categories Inside NK/Media Criticism
October 24, 2008

Domestic State Terrorism: North Korea Expands Use of Public Executions

[Updated below] A few weeks ago, the Chosun Ilbo, quoting NGO’s that in turn cite interviews with recent defectors, reported that North Korea carried out 901 public executions in 2007.  This figure, of course, does not include summary executions or those carried out in secrecy, or the ordinary toll of starvation, disease, and torture in the North Korea’s vast concentration camp system.When a society is as opaque as North Korea’s, I originally thought it strained to suggest, as some newspapers...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Regime Change
April 7, 2008

Another Public Execution in North Korea

On the March 30, in Hyesan, Yangkang Province, three residents were publicly executed and 30 households were forcibly expelled after a public trial. Aggravated uneasiness and growing horror spread among residents. “Three residents were executed for human trafficking at a vacant lot in the Hyesan Airport while a crowd watched,” a source from Yangkang Province told Daily NK. [Daily NK] If the people of North Korea were better armed, the Chinese and North Korean authorities might have to consider alternatives...

Categories Human Rights/Inside NK
April 5, 2008

Watching Porn in Pyongyang (Part 2)

Because man cannot live on diverted food aid and crystal meth alone: The demand for X-rated movies among North Korea’s high cadres is so great that a single VCD sells for 50 US dollars. The latest publication of Good Friends, a North Korea-related aid organization, tells the story of Mr. Park, a resident of Hyesan, Yangkang Province. Mr. Park was arrested for making copies of South Korean adult movies–called “colored movies” in North Korea–and selling them in Pyongyang. Despite the...

Categories Deprogramming/Inside NK/Korean Society
April 5, 2008

MUST READ: BBC on Clandestine Journalism in N. Korea

[Update: The Daily NK has more.  There is no English Rimjingang yet, unfortunately, but you can read a somewhat clunky google translation of their home page here.] The North Korean regime has a name for journalism that it does not control: espionage. I need not elaborate on the penalty for those caught. Seven months ago, North Korea reminded us (ht) of how seriously it takes the surreptitious possession and use of a camera, and we’ve seen relatively little of that...

Categories Inside NK/Resistance
March 10, 2008

Video: The Vice Guide to North Korea

I know, I know, you’ve seen a thousand permutations of this same tour circuit, but this one is so much edgier and funner than the rest of them. We take for granted that we can satize anything (well, except for Ohmmad-May and the Oran-Kay) without consequences, and occasionally describe ourselves as brave for it. You want brave? These guys smuggled videocameras into North Korea for the express purpose of making a satirical documentary. Now that’s brave: The culture shock is...

Categories Humor/Satire/Inside NK
March 2, 2008

North Korea Has a Meth Problem

North Korea’s government has long been suspected of producing illicit drugs for export. In 2003, a high-level defector testified that the goverment is deeply involved in producing and exporting opiates, including heroin, and amphetamines. North Korea’s official ideology, really “crude, race-based nationalism” thinly veiled in socialism, would have had no problem justifying the poisoning of Japanese and Australian kids, but it was just a matter of time before North Korean drugs found their way into North Korean society. Until recently,...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Inside NK/Regime Change
February 12, 2008

Stage Four Watch: The Great Purge of 2008?

The Korean edition of the Chosun Ilbo is reporting on the impending execution of a beautiful 35 year-old North Korean woman, “Miss Kim,” who grew wealthy as a defection and reunion broker in Moosan, North Hamgyeong Province. To put this delicately, Miss Kim shared both her substantial wealth and (rumor has it) her substantial physical blessings with a number of senior North Korean officers and officials, so as to ensure that each passage through the border would be, erm, well...

Categories Inside NK