Korea News & Discussion

Zebra

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The North Korean Navy Acquires a New Submarine | 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea

By Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
19 October 2014

A review of commercial satellite imagery from 2010 until the present covering North Korea's submarine bases and building shipyards has revealed the presence of a previously unidentified submarine moored in the secured boat basin at the Sinpo South Shipyard. This shipyard, also known by the cover designation "Pongdae Boiler Plant," is the primary manufacturing facility for North Korea's submarines and the headquarters of the Maritime Research Institute of the Academy of the National Defense Science. The institute is responsible for research and development of maritime technology, naval vessels and submarines, and naval related armaments and missiles.

The newly identified submarine has a length of approximately 67 meters and a beam of 6.6 meters, possesses a rounded bow, a conning tower located amidships, and no visible diving planes.
These dimensions suggest a dived displacement in the 900-1,500 ton range. Visible in the image are mooring lines, people moving about and equipment stored on the pier adjacent to the submarine. The long object on the pier forward of the conning tower is likely a line of closely packed shipping crates or equipment and not a missile tube, as the overall measurements are approximately 8.4 meters long and .65 meters wide. A blue tarp is covering the stern portion of the top of the sail. No torpedo or missile tubes are readily discernable on the bow or deck of the submarine in any of the available imagery.....
 

nrupatunga

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NoKo has released few photos of kim jong un's visit to children playhome and orphanage supposedly on Oct 26th.







 

sorcerer

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North Korea officials 'publicly executed for watching South Korean soap operas'

North Korea has reportedly publicly executed up at least 50 people this year, including several party officials for watching soap operas.

According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), Pyongyang has purged about 10 officials from Kim Jong-un's Workers' Party for watching South Korean soaps.

The officials, who also faced charges of bribery and womanising, were thought to be close to Kim's executed uncle, Jang Song-thaek, Yonhap news agency reported.

All television and media is under strict state control and access to the internet is limited but despite a harsh crackdown, banned foreign shows and films have been gaining popularity in recent years.

Some are believed to be secretly streamed over the internet, while others are smuggled into the country on DVDs, video cassettes of memory sticks sold on the black market.

A North Korean defector calling himself "Mr Chung" revealed North Korea's preferences in a Channel 4 documentary last year.

He smuggles radios, USB sticks and DVDs of soap operas and entertainment shows into the North, posing as a mushroom importer.

"The men prefer watching action films," he said. "Men love their action films! I sent them Skyfall recently. The women enjoy watching soap operas and dramas.

"The more people are exposed to such media the more likely they are to become disillusioned with the regime and start wanting to live differently."

A group of activists in South Korea led by another defector from the North send satchels containing anti-regime flyers, noodles, $1 bills and USB sticks containing South Korean soap operas over the border attached to balloons.

North Korea forbids its 24 million people from watching foreign broadcasts and videos out of fear outside influence could undermine the dictatorship's ideology.

Anyone caught smuggling them in or distributing illicit material can be executed for crimes against the state and viewers have reportedly been sentenced to years in prison camps or hard labour.

A similar purge was reported last year, when around 80 people were said to be executed for watching South Korean television shows in November.

In the eastern port of Wonsan, the authorities gathered 10,000 people in a sports stadium to watch the execution of eight people by firing squad, JoongAng Ilbo reported.

It is not known whether the most recent group of officials executed include the six reported missing earlier this month.

Kim recently sparked global speculation over power struggles and even a coup by disappearing from public view for 40 days.

South Korean spies have since claimed the leader is recovering following an operation to remove a cyst from his right ankle, although there is a chance the condition could recur because of his weight.

North Korea officials 'publicly executed for watching South Korean soap operas' - The Times of India

===========
Ohkay!!!
Kim is back in action. :sad:
 

nrupatunga

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Young sister of North Korean leader takes senior party post: KCNA
The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has assumed a senior position in the ruling Workers` Party, state media reported on Thursday, consolidating a third generation of Kim family rule in the secretive state.

Kim Yo Jong, who is believed to be 27, had previously only been named as a party official, but was rumoured to have a managerial role in her brother`s government.

She was identified on Thursday as a vice director of a department within the powerful Central Committee of the ruling Workers` Party in a report carried by state news agency KCNA. Kim Yo Jong is the only other member of the ruling Kim family known to have an official job within the North Korean government. Her brother is the third generation Kim to rule North Korea. Kim Kyong Hui, the sister of late leader Kim Jong Il held senior military and Party positions within the government, but has not been seen since her husband, Jang Song Thaek, was purged a year ago.

Kim Jong Un, 31, and his sister were born to Ko Yong Hui, the fourth partner of late leader Kim Jong Il. The pair are believed to have attended the same boarding school in Switzerland with their elder brother Kim Jong Chol.

The elder brother does not have any publicly identified role in the government. Kim Jong Un, who is regularly the centrepiece of state propaganda, recently disappeared from state media reports for over a month, prompting speculation about alternative structures of power within the ruling Kim family.
 

nrupatunga

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Meet Kim Jong Un's BFFs
Kim Jong Un has had a wild and crazy 2014. He rang in the New Year with rumors (later retracted) that his executed uncle had been "stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs." If you think that's a grotesquely creative way to die, a second unconfirmed tale soon swirled that his uncle's loyalists were killed by a rocket grenade and their corpses "incinerated by a flamethrower." By September, the boyish leader had gone missing, only to show up later walking with a cane.

And now his regime is in full hissy-fit mode, threatening to test another nuclear weapon and forewarning "catastrophic consequences" for his detractors.

Why the belligerence? A few analysts speculate that Kim and his friends may someday find themselves behind bars.

In mid-November, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution requesting that North Korea's leadership be referred to the International Criminal Court, for possible charges of "crimes against humanity" relating to its human rights record.

North Korea had lobbied hard to squelch the move, going on an odd charm offensive that featured an actual press conference at the United Nations — a big deal for the reclusive regime. It also released two American prisoners last month, Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae.

And it tried, ham-handedly, to discredit the U.N. commission that investigated the country's rights record. Through state media, Kim's regime questioned how a gay man (Mark Kirby, who happens to be a distinguished Australian lawyer) could lead such a prominent global inquiry. And it issued a 50,000-word counter-report, claiming North Koreans "feel proud of the world's most advantageous human rights system."

Still, the UN vote passed by 111 to 19.

Which raises the point that even a celebrated rogue like Kim Jong Un needs political allies around the world — and not just drunken hoops-players.

It turns out that North Korea does court allies. The People's Republic of China is a fairly reliable BFF. Yet while Beijing values the Kim clan as a useful buffer against U.S. influence near its borders, there's evidence that China's leaders are growing impatient with their awkward neighbor.

As a global outcast, the regime also has a lot of friends of dubious value at U.N. headquarters. Here's a gallery of the businesspeople, humanitarians and ideologues who've warmed up to North Korea:

American neo-Nazis and white supremacists

North Korean military parades look like the garish rituals you would have seen in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, with triumphant goose-stepping soldiers, missiles (and missile mock-ups), and, looking on from a regal pedestal, the Supreme Leader himself.

Such cavalcades reveal the soul of this hawkish regime, which is built on a fervor for Korean racial purity and admiration for Kim's personality cult.

This thinking has garnered attention from like-minded cliques: white supremacists and neo-Nazis, who yearn for the "nobler days" of supposed Aryan rule.

The regime found this sort of ally in John Paul Cupp, officially recognizing him as the Chairman of the Songun Politics Study Group USA more than ten years ago while he was homeless in Oregon, according to a report by investigative journalist Nate Thayer. With several regime-sanctioned visits under his belt, state media have portrayed Cupp as a "prominent U.S. public figure" who led a mass movement against American imperialism.

In 2011, Cupp was dropped as the leader following a power struggle with another pro-Pyongyang group, the Rural People's Party (RPP), Thayer reported. Its chief, Joshua Sutter, ran the RPP's North Korean study group out of a trailer home in South Carolina, displaying on his website a North Korean flag and portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

Spaniard 'spokesman'

Spaniard Alejandro Cao de Benos is the head of the "Korean Friendship Association," a more structured global club that claims on its website to have "full recognition from the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea." The organization claims close to 13,000 members, although it's unclear how many swear true loyalty, or just signed up for fun on the website.

On a mission to promote North Korea to the world, Benos arranges study visits for tourists interested in North Korea, in which he wears military garb, affably shakes hands with officials, and lends a hand to construction projects for what he calls a "worker's paradise."

His work has led to at least one tussle with the American press, which, of course, tends toward a critical stance on anything North Korea. Benos once ransacked an ABC News reporter's hotel room in Pyongyang, taking tapes and forcing the journalist to sign an apology letter before leaving the country. Benos admitted culpability in the 2006 documentary "Friends of Kim."

Benos has much to say about the regime's position on the U.N. human rights inquiry. "The United Nations is fully manipulated by the interests of the big powers," he told GlobalPost. "Since they cannot destroy our socialist system by the force of military pressure, they are trying to buy and bribe some people and organizations in order to fabricate a case against the DPRK."

The Palestinian 'foster daughter'
Jindallae Safarini is actually the daughter of a former Palestinian ambassador to Pyongyang. But she proudly finds an honorary father in Kim Jong Il, the now-deceased former dictator, staking truth in a story that the Dear Leader's blessings allowed her sterile mother to conceive following the death of an earlier child.

"I was given the name by aboji [father] Kim Jong Il," she claimed in a state television interview, explaining that her name is the Korean word for the bright-pink Azalea flower.

Jindallae, in her late twenties, last popped up in the media in 2012, traveling to Pyongyang for the first time in 20 years to set up a children's health charity. But since then, she's kept a low profile, and efforts by GlobalPost to reach her have failed. North Korea-connected sources in China and Vietnam say she has either relocated to Palestine after studying medicine in China, or continues to work at a hospital in Beijing.


Hong Kong philanthropist
Another international figure who's landed in North Korea is the Cambridge-educated psychiatrist Johnny Hon, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who runs a venture capital firm called the Global Group.

Seeing the potential for business in North Korea, Hon made inroads in Pyongyang in the mid-2000s, announcing a sudden takeover of the Daedong Credit Bank, a now heavily sanctioned institution that has since been acquired by a Chinese firm, the Nice Group. Hon's buyout never materialized, and he no longer has any ventures there.

Later, Hon emerged as the chairman of the "International Kim Il Sung Foundation" until 2012,according to his curriculum vitae. State media said the goal of the organization was to "contribute to the study and dissemination of the Juche idea worldwide," referring to North Korea's self-reliance ideology. That may sound like a propaganda gig, but Global Group vice chairman Keith Bennett claims the group had purely "humanitarian and philanthropic aims."

"Dr. Hon's position as Chairman did not make him a spokesman for the DPRK government," he said.

The post put him in the unusual position of promoting the "International Kim Il Sung Prize." In 2007, state media quoted Hon as saying, "No prize in the world is as prestigious as the 'International Kim Il Sung Prize.'"

Get ready for a power struggle, Nobel.
 

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