The (London) Times reminds us that in a country which is alleged to rely on illegitimate foreign exchange earnings, the effectiveness of sanctions against legitimate trade is not going to hurt much. The North Korean military and ruling elite have held off political collapse in the years since the end of the Cold War thanks … [Read More]
Category: DPRK (page 22)
DPRK Nuclear test
Readers may wonder why on a day when the news breaks that DPRK has tested a nuclear device, I choose to do a post on animation outsourcing. Well, the main thing is that this site is not meant to be a news blog, or a political blog1. When there are hundreds of professional and amateur … [Read More]
North Korean animation
Radio 4’s weekly travel programme, Excess Baggage, had a slot on North Korea on Saturday morning (7 Oct). It was an interview with Guy Delisle, a French animator. Here’s the blurb on the programme from the BBC website North Korea is one of the most secretive countries in the world, with few visitors, especially westerners. … [Read More]
Aidan FC’s whirlwind week of media exposure
Here’s a link which I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but other things have always got in the way. It’s Aidan Foster-Carter’s entertaining account in the Asia Times of his whirlwind week of media exposure as DPRK rent-a-pundit following Kim Jong-Il’s fourth of July firework display. Enjoy. And read all of Aidan’s Asia … [Read More]
Priceless
A picture to gladden the heart. I assume, based on the swords being carried (presumably not standard contemporary battlefield issue) that this is a photo of a rehearsal for a public performance. Thanks as ever to Tom Coyner for this treasure. And another, unrelated, bizarre item from the North, from Der Spiegel: this coming weekend … [Read More]
DPRK – Portrait of a Patriot and other recent insight
Before I blockquote an excellent feature from the CanKor service, here’s a link to a recent article in Asia Media: The inevitable collapse of the old North Korea?, which is inspired by an important study by Andrei Lankov in the inaugural issue of Asia Policy, entitled The Natural Death of North Korean Stalinism. And here’s … [Read More]
Chatham House talk on DPRK
As part of Chatham House’s Asia Programme there will be a talk given by Jasper Becker on the topic of The Challenge of North Korea to Regional and Global Stability next Thursday afternoon, August 17th. Biographical information provided by Chatham House follows: Jasper Becker is one of the UK’s most respected writers and journalists on … [Read More]
DPRK propaganda films
As promised yesterday. Thanks to Tom Coyner for circulating this link. Enjoy. Left: another of those excellent Russian holiday snaps from yesterday’s post. Update 8 Sept 2019: The above link no longer works, as the website no longer exists. I have checked the page in the web archive for the URLs of the underlying YouTube … [Read More]
Holiday snaps from the DPRK
Tom Coyner has delivered another gem of an email to his readership: a link to a great collection of new photographs of North Korea, apparently taken by a young Russian tourist couple very recently. An example is shown left. Visit http://www.fishmonger.ru/06-07-27/index.htm for the full set. Aidan Foster-Carter provides additional commentary. Unfortunately the description of the … [Read More]
Kim Jong-il’s book on cinema
Filmbrain has spotted – and bought and, even more nobly, read – a translation of Kim Jong-il’s On the Art of Cinema. A snip at £22.50 from Amazon. I’ll add it to my wishlist, but I’m afraid it’s not top of the list! Thanks to atom over at koreanfilm.org for spotting this. Links: Buy at … [Read More]
Dear Leader’s Heir Apparent fills Independent News Void
The UK’s Independent is getting increasingly soft-focus. It’s more like a Sunday supplement than a newspaper. Yesterday’s page 1 and 2 (you don’t get much to a page in the new tabloid format, once you’ve sold all the advertising space) contained the shock horror news that 4x4s are bad and their drivers are stupid. On … [Read More]
Nobble your vicar
The organisation of the Global Week of Prayer for North Korea has been impressive. The website has been up for ages, allowing ample time for word-of-mouth. And then a week or so ago there was a bulk mailing. I happened to be around at the vicarage the other day for a meeting of the church … [Read More]
Two Koreas’ Top Brass Resort to Racist Mudslinging
A continuation of the ongoing theme on racial purity spurred by the visit of Korean-American Dan Hines to Korea. The more extreme position taken by the representative from the North chimes in well with this harrowing story in Time. The full story is in the Chosun Ilbo here. [Read More]
A day in the life of a Kim Jong-il impersonator
This article on the Yonhap website is worth a look describing the professional rivalry between two Kim Jong-il lookalikes Kim Young-sik and Bae Eun-sik. Of the two, Kim Young-sik appears to be the better known, at least outside of Korea. He has been featured in an Australian TV news item and also in an article … [Read More]
Andrew Holloway: A Year in Pyongyang
(Aidan FC’s website, 1988) Amid the pile of available reading material on the DPRK, is there room for an unpublished memoir, getting on for 20 years old, recording the experiences of a lowly “raiser” — someone who converts Konglish into English — in late 1980s Pyongyang? Definitely yes. Though obviously not state of the art, … [Read More]
DPRK’s need for hard currency
Sorry, I’m a bit behind with some of the news stories. The BBC ran an interesting one a couple of days ago on the US$ supernotes and other ways of generating hard currency. The theme is picked up on in today’s DPRK embassy e-bulletin. [Read More]