You know, until I was introduced to KCNA, I did not fully realize that living under the “dignified” Juche system was the human right that replaced all the rest of them: There exists no such issue as “human rights issue” in the DPRK nor can it exist there as it provides full legal and institutional guarantees to the independence of human being and the equal rights of the popular masses guided by the Juche idea. The south Korean puppet group...

Are you happy to see me, or is that just a cargo train? _______________________ Make that two officials executed over The Great Confiscation. Just to show that North Korea hasn’t lost its flair, it forced a crowd of economic officials to observe the proceedings. How many executions does it take to make this officially a purge? _______________________ Some surprisingly interesting observations from Hwang Jang Yop, via Don Kirk. _______________________ The collapse of North Korea’s educational system is creating a lost...

Sounds like the perfect time for a coup: Kim Jong Il, and possibly his son Jong-Eun, are rumored to be in China. ______________________________ North Korea has accused South Korean soldiers of firing on a police post on the North Korean side of the DMZ. ______________________________ Vitit Muntarbhorn calls for the U.N. to set up a commission of inquiry into North Korea’s crimes against humanity. If only someone at the U.N. really understood and cared about the history, suffering, and han...

Nearly a year after voting for UNSCR 1874, Russia gets around to implementing anti-proliferation sanctions. Let’s hope that Russia takes enforcement more seriously than China, though I’m not particularly optimistic. ________________________ Projection: “The south Korean conservative regime is no more than a marionette as it acts according to the script written by outsiders, bereft of any independence. This reactionary ruling group is bound to go to a ruin any moment as it goes against the requirements of the times and...

Writing in the Asia Times, Andray Abrahamian, a doctoral candidate at a small South Korean university, finally gets around to publishing — apparently unedited — the term paper that’s been on his hard drive for the last three years: At present, goods from Kaesong are excluded [from the U.S.-Korea FTA] but could be used as enticement for North Korean reform. The requirements for Kaesong-produced goods to be included in the FTA are deliberately vague: they are dependent on US interpretations...