Tag Archives | North Korea

Dennis Rodman to Barack Obama: “I’m in charge now.”

By on May 13, 2013 in News 0

Declaring that President Obama “can’t do shit,” flamboyant former professional basketball player Dennis Rodman has told TMZ he will personally be taking over negotiations to free Kenneth Bae, the American imprisoned in North Korea.

“Obama? F**k him!” Rodman told a TMZ stringer before announcing he would be returning to the reclusive nation soon for another meeting with National Defense Commission chairman Kim Jong-un. (Rodman had earlier met with Chairman Kim during a February visit to Pyongyang with the Harlem Globetrotters. Kim is reportedly a fan of the Rodman-era Chicago Bulls.)

Rodman decided to take over negotiations for Bae’s release early last week following an open request to him from the Seattle Times. (For his part, Barack Obama has repeatedly told Rodman to back off.)

After Dennis Rodman as President, what would be your dream team administration of washed-up 1990s celebrities? Maybe Dustin Diamond as Secretary of Defense? Jason Priestly as Attorney-General?… Read the rest

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The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

By on April 20, 2013 in News 0

Google’s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, fresh from a visit to North Korea in January, on why the Internet is far from an unalloyed good to the citizens of dictatorships around the world, in the Wall Street Journal:

How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet? That’s a question we faced during our January visit to North Korea, when we attempted to engage with the Pyongyang traffic police. You may have seen videos on the Web of the capital city’s “traffic cops,” whose ballerina-like street rituals, featured in government propaganda videos, have made them famous online. The men and women themselves, however—like most North Koreans—have never seen a Web page, used a desktop computer, or held a tablet or smartphone. They have never even heard of Google (or Bing, for that matter).

Even the idea of the Internet has not yet permeated the public’s consciousness in North Korea.

… Read the rest

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The New ‘Argo’ – Evil North Koreans Trash the White House In Latest Hollywood Fear Vehicle

By on April 3, 2013 in News 0

The trend towards movies ripped from the news, or perhaps ripping off the news continues.

Olympus Has Fallen is the latest in the popular  “learn to fear thy enemy even more than you did before” category, as director Antoine Fuqua visualizes a story that can’t be more topical with the White House (Secret Service Code: “Olympus”) occupied by a North Korean terrorist fanatic and his barbaric followers.

The President is held hostage, the building is trashed, and its defenses shredded while our hero, a disgraced former Presidential guard, becomes the savior despite the mounting body count including a massacre of civilians and military responders as well as the near capture of top secret nuclear codes.

Of course, at the last moment, Mr. America fights off the incompetent Pentagon bureaucracy, repels the invaders and singlehandedly saves the President’s son, before rescuing the commander in chief and averting the war to end all wars.… Read the rest

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North Korea Declares War on the United States

By on March 30, 2013 in News 0

Golf Clap

To quote Futurama, “War were declared.”

Hopefully this is more posturing. Things could get messy quick, regionally speaking.

Snip:

It is the resolute answer of the DPRK and its steadfast stand to counter the nuclear blackmail of the U.S. imperialists with merciless nuclear attack and their war of aggression with just all-out war.

They should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past.

The hostile forces will clearly realize the iron will, matchless grit and extraordinary mettle of the brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu that the earth cannot exist without Songun Korea.

Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle.

Keep reading.… Read the rest

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Krampus and Kicking the Hornets’ Nest!

By on March 25, 2013 in News 0

From The Washington Post:

It sounds crazy, but there is good reason to suspect that this story, in the prominent South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, could be true. According to the story, North Korea ordered its diplomats in some number of foreign embassies, including at least one in Eastern Europe, to sell illegal drugs on the streets. The diplomats, according to a defector who spoke to South Korean intelligence, were each sent abroad with 20 kilograms (about 44 pounds) of drugs and were told to raise $300,000 from the sales.

In case that is not weird enough for you, the diplomats were told that they were being asked to forgo their ambassadorial responsibilities in favor of pushing illicit drugs in order “to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il Sung on April 15.”

From the  BBC News Three men charged over Norwich ‘Oompa Loompas’ attack:

Police investigating an assault involving people dressed as Oompa Loompas have charged three men.

… Read the rest

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The Pirate Bay To Team Up With North Korea

By on March 8, 2013 in News 10

Updated: The announcement of this insane-sounding collaboration turns out to be a hoax, sadly, but imagine what could have been.

An announcement of strange bedfellows by The Pirate Bay:

The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network.

This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.

We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country’s changing view of access to information.

… Read the rest

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North Korea: We Are The Weird

By on February 5, 2013 in News 13

Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post provides some amusing commentary to what has to be the ultimate in outsider music:

Oh, North Korea. You crazy peninsula of propaganda. Usually, when the isolated nation wants attention, it talks smack about or threatens destruction of the United States. The North Korean leadership is also fond of firing off missiles to scare the bejeezus out of its prosperous South Korean neighbors. Over the weekend, North Korean state-controlled media posted a comical video on YouTube of a man who dreams of blowing up Manhattan. The cheesy instrumental version of “We Are the World” is suitably surreal.

Here’s a translation of the story told by those screen captions…

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North Korea Claims To Have Discovered Ancient Unicorn Habitat

By on December 3, 2012 in News 9

The Guardian reports on North Korean cryptozoology:

The inimitable Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has now broken the incredible news that archaeologists in Pyongyang have discovered a unicorn’s lair.

Or rather, the report says that they have “recently reconfirmed” the lair of one of the unicorns ridden by the ancient Korean King Tongmyong, founder of a kingdom which ruled parts of China and the Korean peninsula from the the 3rd century BC to 7th century AD.

The KCNA goes on to state that the location happens to be 200 metres from a temple in the North Korean capital, adding: “A rectangular rock carved with words “Unicorn Lair” stands in front…The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392).” Archaeologists from the Academy of Social Sciences at North Korea’s History Institute were credited with making the discovery.

… Read the rest

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North Korea Rising: Rare Earth Mineral Reserves Rival China

By on August 10, 2012 in News 6

Picture: Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Via Russia Times:

The impoverished, isolationist nation of North Korea may be on the way to becoming even more of a geo-political hotspot than it already is with the discovery of enormous deposits of rare earth minerals. As demands rise and nations scramble to take their piece of the rare earth pie, Pyongyang might find itself in a position of unheralded economic strength. Or the next war-torn battlefield…

North Korea’s is set to have the world’s second-largest magnesite reserves, and its tungsten deposits are almost the world’s sixth-largest. The country also holds sizeable deposits of coal, iron ore, gold, zinc, copper, limestone, molybdenum, and graphite.

About 40% of the 138 Chinese companies registered as doing business in North Korea in 2010, are engaged in extracting minerals, according to the U.S. Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Rich rare earths deposits are considered the most lucrative piece of the North Korean resource pie.

… Read the rest

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