The Chosun Ilbo has an article about a new book by Chang Jin-song (formerly affiliated with the North Korean Workers’ Party) that details Kim Jong-il private life, including the inside scoop on all his lady friends. According to Chang, one unfortunate young lady to get Kim’s attention was, “brutally executed after she spurned Kim’s [...]
Earlier this week former U.S. president Bill Clinton went to North Korea to obtain the release of two American journalists who foolishly strayed into that country five months earlier and became pawns in a larger – and largely futile – diplomatic game. Clinton’s visit was portrayed as unofficial and that of a private citizen, [...]
Gizmodo has an excellent array of Kim Jong-il photos; In Which We Provoke Kim Jong Il in 77 Offensive and Hilarious Ways. Some are sure to become often used classics.
The title assumes North Korea did test a nuclear device, which I think likely, and not an equivalent amount of TNT, initially thought a possibility in 2006 until radioactive isotopes of krypton and xenon were detected.
There are several reasons for a North Korea to conduct a nuclear test and it’s difficult if not impossible [...]
Kim Jong Il Announces Plan To Bring Moon To North Korea
The Taepo Dong 2 (TD-2) (대포동 2호) missile launch(es) North Korea likely is preparing for, and recent voiding of all political-military deals with South Korea, are part of Pyongyang’s long-term strategy of regime survival. While these actions also have less important near-terms goals – expressing displeasure with ROK President Lee Myung-bak’s relatively hard-line approach [...]
H/T MajK
“Kimjongilia” [김정일화] is a documentary the depicts why the defectors fled, describes their escapes, and recounts the dangers they faced in China, hunted by Chinese police as well as North Korean intelligence services.
The director, N.C. Heikin, felt she must do something to expose the human rights disaster that North Korea is after hearing of Kang [...]
In November I speculated that Kim Jong-il’s apparent stroke in August might prompt him to select a successor before he dies or becomes incapacitated. Reporting from Yonhap claims that Kim Jong-il’s third son, Kim Jong-un (김정운) (also Romanized as Jong-eun and Jong-woon, has been chosen as his successor:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has [...]
French doctors have been treating North Korean elite – to include Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il – since the early 1990s. Rumors of European physicians treating the Kim Jong-il have been around for years, but the bizarre details were bound to surface sooner or later; here are a few (h/t PS) [original text in French, [...]
After missile and nuclear tests and uranium enrichment, the U.S. sanctions North Korean firms while Pyongyang reverses, making overtures. It’s not an accident, it’s a pattern of strategic disengagement.
- #Vanity Fair, of all publications, has a lengthy article on North Korea’s counterfeiting operations, including Office 39. Well worth a read. (h/t NE Asia Matters)
- #The Chosun Ilbo has an article about a new book by Chang Jin-song (formerly affiliated with the North Korean Workers' Party) that details Kim Jong-il private life, including the inside scoop on all his lady friends. According to Chang, one unfortunate young lady to get Kim's attention was, "brutally executed after she spurned Kim's persistent advances and fell in love with another man."
- #Gizmodo has an excellent array of Kim Jong-il photos; In Which We Provoke Kim Jong Il in 77 Offensive and Hilarious Ways. Some are sure to become often used classics.
- #