Japan Probe has a video and excellent summary of: “a TV news segment that aired yesterday about a 7-day train tour of North Korea. The special tour takes foreigners along the main train line from the Chinese border to Pyongyang, and then passengers get on a special car on a local train line to see the North Korean countryside.” (h/t Seoul Man)
In an article at the Asia Times, Riddles and enigmas from North Korea, Andrei Lankov speculates on how governments get intelligence from inside North Korea, and lists some of the other valuable sources of information from the country.
- #From Mainichi and via the Chosun Bimbo, "In his first reported appearance following news of his hospitalization, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lost his temper while watching a college soccer match, denouncing several players' long hair as "disgusting," according to a source close to the North Korean government. The outburst was followed by a nationwide ban on long hair for men." We'll all be watching the next soccer match to see if it's so.
- #Outward Bound, an international non-profit outdoor education program, is offering fully funded (including transportation to/from sites) outdoor adventure excursions to all OEF/OIF veterans. It doesn't matter what your current military status is (active, inactive, discharged, retired) - you're eligible to attend as long as you deployed in support of OEF/OIF combat operations while in the military.
- #Via AFP: “South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime. . . Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in 1997.” His travel restriction was due to 10 years of pro-North ROK leadership, now over.
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April 9th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I managed to record a new report, which aired on Japanese TV yesterday, about goods in China being loaded onto trucks bound for North Korea. I should be uploading it to YouTube today or tomorrow, if I have time.
April 9th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Sounds good, as soon as you post it, I’ll post something here about it.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:38 am
[…] Life As They Know It. We have two new candid views of life inside North Korea today. First, via Richardson, is a Japanese video of a rail journey in the North (here, at Japan Probe). It’s worth […]
April 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I finally got around to posting it:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1565
and an interview with Charles Robert Jenkins:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1567