Category: Inside NK

In North Korea such things are absolutely forbidden, so naturally the people learn to enjoy crude humor instead; not because of the optimistic and humorous nature of the people I must point out, but because of the nature of North Korean politics. In North Korea, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is at least one meeting every 24 hours. Every week contains studies, lectures, self-criticism and evaluation meetings in each work unit, and a further two or...

Open Radio reports new outbreaks of diseases — including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and hepatitis — throughout North Korea, save Pyongyang.  Meanwhile, in a country that somehow manages to to raise hard currency for the regime, ordinary people can’t afford basic pharmaceuticals like penicillin and aspirin.  As a result, a black market has arisen to supply those basic needs.  Unfortunately, the makers often add toxic impurities to the drugs. Sure, you say, just import them from Canada.  Unfortunately, the Inner Party...

Open Radio has a good primer on the system North Korea uses to keep people in their home provinces. The effect, intended I suppose, is to make North Korean society like an ice cube tray, where in theory, each area is isolated from the others, and from any news, rumors, grumbles, woes, and potential expressions of dissent that might emanate from there. It also serves to limit trade that could challenge the government’s control over the distribution of things the...

That “150-day battle” which had caused such discontent among the wrung-out North Korean proles has been extended for another hundred dreary days. Interestingly, some reports have associated this campaign with the planned succession of Kim Jong Eun. With campaign tactics like these, Jong Eun risks alienating such key swing voting blocs, such as displaced factory workers, starving widows, labor camp prisoners, and homeless orphans.

One day, I’d like to take that train trip along the Tabaek line.

From Open Radio’s description, it sounds as though the trains still do what wireless communications, long-distance phone service, and interstate commerce do everywhere else.

John McCreary made an interesting – and I think spot-on – observation about North Korea’s current publicity tactic in his most recent NightWatch email bulletin: Whatever internal instability might be going on inside North Korea with regard to succession issues or increased tensions with the outside world, the DPRK is taking a “business as usual” approach when it comes to how it presents itself to public eyes. For example, when announcing the sentence of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the...