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December 29, 2011

KIm Jong Il’s Funeral Ride Was in an American Made Car

Source: KCNA via NK Leadership Watch Well if this doesn’t take the cake!   I suspected it, but then thought twice about it — surely even the North Korean higher-ups wouldn’t go against their own propaganda for an event to be watched into perpetuity by every one of their subjects.  Yet commenter Thomas was the first here to come out and say it, and now ABC News Radio says it’s true: …But a curious detail was that the boxy black...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Propaganda/WTF?
December 22, 2011

He was a god, you know

At times like this, I do wish that the Korean Friendship Association would enable comments: North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il’s death. State media say the ice on volcanic Lake Chon at the mountain in the far north cracked with a load roar.  And in the city of Hamhung, a Manchurian crane circled a statue of Kim’s father, late President Kim Il...

Categories Propaganda
July 19, 2011

Reunifying Korea, One Shot at at Time!

You may remember that several years ago, a liquor distributor in the United States tried to introduce North Korean soju into the U.S. market. That effort failed long before President Obama reimposed trade sanctions on North Korea, partially because of the importer’s legal troubles, but probably also because the stuff supposedly tasted awful. Apparently, North Korean consumers share that assessment, because the same brand of South Korean soju that once kept me fully occupied as a prosecutor and defense counsel...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Subversion
June 15, 2011

State Department Funds Global Internet Revolution

I believe that history will eventually record this little-noticed policy decision as the game-changer in America’s half-century standoff with North Korea. No one can predict when we’ll see the result, but for all their imperfections of vision and execution, the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Clinton in particular deserve tremendous credit for this. The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek...

Categories Subversion/Technology
February 20, 2011

Mesh Networking: Another Way to Bring Cell Phone Service to North Korea?

This video gives a simple explanation of the concept of mesh networking, which allows android phone users who download some additional software to connect with each other wirelessly without a base station or cell phone towers. An Australian group known as The Serval Project is trying to raise funds to test and prototype the technology, and OFK reader Josh Hansen wrote me a few weeks back to start a discussion about the potential this technology could have for bring cell...

Categories Subversion/Technology
February 8, 2011

South Korea should close Kaesong and encourage remittances.

The Chosun Ilbo reports that as the North Korean diaspora swells, those who have escaped are forming stronger financial links with their hungry families in the homeland. And this has some people concerned: North Korean defectors settled in South Korea are sending some US$10 million a year to their families back home, it was reported on Sunday. The amount is expected to grow as there are more than 20,000 North Korean defectors in the South and the number is increasing,...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Refugees/Regime Change/Subversion
January 8, 2011

South Korean Hackers Hit North Korea’s Twitter, YouTube Accounts

Someone is sending birthday greetings to Kim Jong Eun, the guy who may or may not be North Korea’s next figurehead, but who certainly has tremendous potential as an anti-regime propaganda foil. Most YouTube viewers won’t notice a key detail about this crude (and rather clever) animation — it’s hosted on the pro-North Korean “uriminjokkiri” channel. Mr. Kim, you’ve been hacked: Hat tip to argfoub. The Washington Post’s Chico Harlan reports that they’ve also hit North Korea’s Twitter account (the...

Categories Humor/Satire/Kim Jong Un/Propaganda/Subversion
December 20, 2010

North Korea Furious About Leaflets That Only Reinforce Loyalty

So … if the leaflet drops merely reinforce the loyalty of North Koreans to the regime, then what is the regime so upset about? The North’s official Web site, Uriminzokkiri, said the bills are “nothing more than waste paper” and that the leaflets do little to undermine the pride of its people in the communist regime. “Such confrontational madness will only snap up the extraordinary alarm and ire of our army and people,” it said in a commentary. North Korea’s...

Categories Subversion
December 16, 2010

Clandestine Broadcasters Want Access to Medium Wave Frequencies

Until now, I did not realize that the South Korean government’s practice of bogarting all the good radio frequencies was imposing such a high cost on dissident broadcasting to North Korea. This week, some of those broadcasters have joined to rally for access to medium-wave frequencies. In the current times, I can’t see why the South Korean government wouldn’t agree to this: Four radio stations broadcasting programs to North Korea joined hands in a live event at Cheonggye Plaza in...

Categories Subversion
November 27, 2010

North Korea: Sorry We Shelled Your “Human Shields”

You have to admit that it was pretty diabolical of Lee Myung Bak to have planted those human shields in their own villages and homes years before he was even inaugurated. In fact, the two civilians who were actually killed were construction workers on the ROK Marine post, but the given the North’s shelling of civilian neighborhoods, it’s lucky there weren’t a lot more “human shields” killed: The North really does have a special gift for adding insult to injury....

Categories Propaganda/Subversion/U.S. Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
October 15, 2010

Lack of Money Is the Root of All Evil

While most of the media are fixed on the movement of stage props on reviewing stands in Pyongyang, mine remains in North Korea’s outer provinces, markets, and ratlines across the Yalu. These, after all, are the things that will drive real change in North Korea. A new report from the Korea Times suggests that increasingly, money smuggling has become an engine of regeneration for North Korea’s free markets: It is common for North Korean defectors here to send money to...

Categories NK Economics/Refugees/Subversion
July 13, 2010

Götterdämmerung Watch

Open News reports that banditry by hungry North Korean soldiers is turning the population against the army: According to our source, this kind of situation, where soldiers clean out cattle pens, steal pickled cabbages, take everything from people walking in the streets, and rape women in broad day, has been going on for a long time ““ ever since Kim il-sung’s death. The source revealed, that North Korean residents looking at rice bags with American flags say, “They once said...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Military/Propaganda
July 10, 2010

If there was ever any cognizable justice in holding Gomes in a prison cell for peacefully presenting a petition to North Korean border guards, it ended months ago. North Korea says an American man being held for illegally crossing its border has tried to kill himself. A statement issued by the regime’s official Korean Central News Agency says Aijalon Mahli Gomes’ suicide attempt was “driven by his strong guilty conscience,” plus disappointment and despair that the U.S. government “has not...

Categories Aijalon Gomes/Anju Links/Deprogramming/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/NK Military/Propaganda/Reconstruction/Refugees
July 7, 2010

Son Jong Nam, R.I.P.

It is a terrible thing to say, but I will say it: it is better that Son Jong Nam is dead than that he still endures torture in North Korean captivity. Truthfully, I had long assumed that Son had died, even by the time I wrote this post in late 2007. Now, Son’s brother has told an AP reporter that his brother is dead. Like most North Koreans, Son Jong Nam knew next to nothing about Christianity when he fled...

Categories Deprogramming/Religion/Resistance/Subversion
July 6, 2010

New Survey Suggests More New Defectors Listened to Foreign Broadcasts

I tend to wonder how anyone can put much stock in statistics that claim to reflect public opinion in North Korea, but I report, you decide: According to the poll conducted by InterMedia the majority of the 250 defectors who agreed to be surveyed ““ 57 individuals ““ responded that they listened to private radio broadcasts when they were in North Korea. This makes up over 20% of the respondents and shows that 1 out of 5 people listen to...

Categories Deprogramming/Propaganda
June 23, 2010

Take a Drink!

Hillary, U.S. secretary of State, was recently reported to have blustered during her junket of Middle and South American countries that the DPRK poses a threat to the world peace and it is necessary to “convince” the world public of this fact. Such sophism is intended to win the support for the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK from other countries. Her remarks about the DPRK’s “threat” to the global peace are brigandish sophism reminiscent of a thief crying “Stop...

Categories Humor/Satire/Propaganda/Unintended Humor
June 18, 2010

Could North Koreans get wireless internet through the power grid?

Until I saw this linked at Instapundit, I had no idea that it was possible to plug a router into an electrical socket, tap into the electrical grid, and get wireless internet service in areas where the signal is usually weak. Exploring a bit more, I found this customer review, which gives some idea of the performance capabilities: I loved my network-able Blue-ray player I purchased, but I hated the wireless adapter which left me always praying my Netflix or...

Categories Deprogramming/Technology