Anju, February 16, 2012

AP Watch: Today would have been Kim Jong Il’s birthday, and Jean H. Lee marks that occasion with another report from Pyongyang that is significant only for its complete lack of skepticism about the regime’s propaganda. Why is it that “engagement” with North Korea never changes North Korea, and always corrupts the institution that engages North Korea? Or perhaps the engagement is just an indication that those institutions were already corrupt.

Say, mister, that’s one creepy picture you’ve got there.

“North Korea’s capital faces its worst electricity shortages in years just as a new leadership takes power in the impoverished state and pushes ahead with lavish building projects to celebrate the centenary of its founder’s birth.”  [link]

For more on that, see my masthead. No doubt, some U.N. bureaucrat will soon arrive to take a guided tour and compliment North Korea for having an energy conservation program that is the envy of other third-world nations.

Speaking of creepy, how much do you really want to know about preserving Kim Jong Il’s body?  This is more than that.

In March 2010, North Korea’s conduit to the South, the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation handed a statement to the DailyNK warning “˜in the name of the Republic and the Korean people’ that Daily NK “stands at the front of the queue to receive the stern judgment and punishment of the people.   [link]

North Korea was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008.  Discuss among yourselves.

Umm, say what?

Kaesong Industrial District Foundation plans to issue cumulative demerits to more than 700 South Korean workers for such offenses as traffic accidents, fires, violence and murder, as well as sexual crimes in the complex, the official said.  The foundation can impose penalty points for the South Korean workers ranging from 2 to 10, the maximum demerit, depending on the offense.

If the total cumulative points exceeds 10, the offender will be permanently banned from visiting the complex while those who earn nine demerits will be suspended from visiting the complex for three months.

I keep meaning to read more about the White Tigers.  Here’s a report on an Army officer who was one of their advisors inside North Korea during the war.