Category Archives: Koreas

North Korea issues 28 official hairstyles for its citizens

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MSN.Com 

North Korea hairstyles: North Korea has issued 18 official hairstyles for women to choose from. IMAGE

MSN News  
Women get to choose from 18 cuts, while men have 10 official “socialist” hairstyles to choose from.

North Korea is getting a makeover.

Want China Times, a news website operated by The China Times, reported that North Korea has approved 28 official “socialist” hairstyles.

The hairstyles are “capable of warding off the corrupting effects of capitalism,” the Times quoted ifeng.com as saying.

The cuts are about more than fashion. They are a statement about North Korea’s values, which apparently don’t include spiky hair.

North Korea hairstyles: North Korea only provided 10 official hairstyles for men. IMAGE

According to the Times, there are separate approved styles for single and married women, with married women getting a bit more variety. Women have 18 styles to choose from overall, while men have 10.

The Times said the approved styles are seen on the walls of salons around the country. There was no mention of how the styles would be enforced.

The fashion restrictions run deeper, though.

The Times reported that the hair guidelines stipulate that men should get a haircut every 15 days and keep their hair no longer than two inches, as “longer hair apparently takes away nutrition from the brain.” Older men can have hair as long as 2.8 inches.

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Analysis: Pyongyang nuke test may also be Iranian

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J-Post:

Expert warns Tehran may be bypassing int’l inspections via North Korea, says Iranian scientists may have been present at test.

Kim Yong-Nam arrives at NAM conference in Tehran

Kim Yong-Nam arrives at NAM conference in Tehran Photo: REUTERS/Handout

In addition to provoking the West, North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday may have also been carried out on behalf of Iran, and in the presence of Iranian atomic scientists, a security expert warned on Tuesday.

North Korea is making progress both in its nuclear weapons capabilities and its ICBM missile research, Dr. Alon Levkowitz, coordinator of Bar-Ilan University’s Asian Studies Program and a member of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

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North Korea Is Suspected of Conducting 3rd Nuclear Test

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H/T Gates of Vienna:

New York Times:

Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press

A South Korean watched news reporting about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul on Tuesday.

By and
Published: February 11, 2013
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WASHINGTON — American and South Korean officials reported seismic activity in North Korea on Tuesday that appeared to be evidence of the country’s third, and long-threatened nuclear test and a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

Multimedia

“We believe that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test,” said Kim Min-seok, spokesman of the South Korean Defense Ministry.

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North Koreans Reportedly Turn to Cannibalism Due to ‘Hidden Famine’

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This story is too grim for the ‘short pig on the menu in North Korea’  joke I was contemplating for the headline. Someone needs to show this story to all the profs advocating communism at western universities.

H/T Bear

Yahoo news:

News out of North Korean in notorious unreliable, but food shortages in the country have gotten so bad and people so desperate that there are now reports of men murdering their own children for food. These startling reports were compiled by independent reporters commissioned by Asia Press, a independent press agency focusing on Asia, and were published by the Sunday Times. And here’s one of the most disturbing thing you’ll read this morning:

The source said: “While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: ‘We have meat.’

“But his wife, suspicious, notified the Ministry of Public Security, which led to the discovery of part of their children’s bodies under the eaves.”

And another from Gu Gwang-ho, one of the Asia Press’s citizen journalists said:

“There was an incident when a man was arrested for digging up the grave of his grandchild and eating the remains.”

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China conveys protest after Chinese fisherman shot dead by S. Korean Coast Guard

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Xinhuanet:

English.news.cn   2012-10-17 02:28:36              

SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) — The Chinese embassy in Seoul conveyed protest and strong dissatisfaction to South Korea after a Chinese fisherman was shot dead by a South Korean Coast Guard officer during a raid Tuesday.

The Chinese embassy asked the South Korean side to investigate into the case seriously and thoroughly, and to protect the legal rights of Chinese fishermen. It also urged civilized law enforcement to make sure this kind of incident never happens again.

The Chinese fisherman was shot with a rubber bullet by a South Korean officer who was trying to arrest him during a raid, he died from injuries after transported to a nearby hospital, according to South Korean authorities.

North Korea says a spark could set off nuclear war on Korean peninsula

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This is amusing. The DPNRK has a policy that is so hostile to the USA that it has actually become the basis for their entire culture.

From FOX:

A North Korean minister lashed out at the United States on Monday, warning that its “hostile” policy has left the Korean peninsula a spark away from a nuclear war.

Addressing the final session of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting, Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil Yon said the Koreas have become “the world’s most dangerous hotspot” and pledged to use the North’s “mighty” military deterrent against any “reckless provocations.”

“The only way to prevent war and ensure lasting peace on the Korean peninsula is to put an end to the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The U.S. State Department had no comment on the speech.

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North Korean hubris may finally push it over the cliff with it’s only real ‘ally’

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WAPO:

Kidnapped fishermen’s case angers Chinese public 

By , Updated: Wednesday, May 23, 10:16 AM

BEIJING — The plight of 28 Chinese fishermen who were kidnapped, robbed, stripped and held for 13 days by North Koreans has inflamed Chinese public opinion, with many Internet users taking to microblogging sites to question the Beijing government’s close relationship with its reclusive ally in Pyongyang.

But for the moment, experts and diplomats said, the episode seems unlikely either to shake the alliance or lead Beijing’s Communist authorities to heed Washington’s call to apply more pressure on North Korea.

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Photos show more work at N.Korea nuclear test site

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AFP:

(AFP) – 19 hours ago
SEOUL — New satellite images show more work under way at North Korea’s nuclear test site but give no indication of when a test may occur, a US-based specialist website reported Saturday.
There is widespread speculation that the North may carry out another atomic weapons test — its third — following international criticism of a failed rocket launch on April 13.
The 38 North website carried satellite photos of the Punggye-ri site near the east coast, saying they seem to indicate that “the North Koreans are proceeding as if the test go-ahead decision has already been made.
“The imagery does not, however, give any indication of when that detonation may take place,” said the website, a project of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
It said the pictures taken by a private company on April 18 are the latest in a series showing continuing preparations for a test.
Photos taken on March 8 showed soil and other material excavated from the test tunnel. Overall, it said, thousands of tons of rubble have been excavated at the site covering 4,000 square metres (around one acre).
The latest imagery shows a train of mining carts on top of the soil piles and random unidentified structures or objects on or near the piles, 38 North said.

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North Korea 5 day launch of what is 98% certainly an ICBM

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Many people I know ask, ‘Why not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons? After all, Israel, the US etc. have them, right?’ the answer of course is the ‘bully’ factor. Since N. Korea developed even crappy nukes, they have upped their level of geopolitical belligerence quite a bit, sinking a South Korean naval vessel killing over 40 sailors in peace time and firing artillery at a South Korean Island, both incidents without warning or causus-Belli, although arguably creating one.

Most recently NORK warned the world that any attempt to interfere with the launch of what is clearly an ICBM, and likely a catastrophically dangerous one as it’s chances of hitting nearly anyone other than its actual target is close to 100%, would result in horrific consequences, clearly implying the use of a multi-kiloton nuclear device.

This warning was extended to include ‘anyone attempting to recover parts of this multi-stage launch vehicle as well.

It stands to reason that Iran with it’s degree of ideological zealotry at least equal to North Korea’s would be as problematic for the world and given its proximity to what remains a top level strategic resource repository of the world, considerably more.

North Korea says interception of its satellite is ‘an act of war’

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Business Mirror:

SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ratcheted up his regime’s militaristic rhetoric as Pyongyang threatened to retaliate against any country that intercepts a North Korean rocket booster or collects the rocket debris.

This developed as The Associated Press (AP) reported that North Korea may have moved the first stage of a rocket to a launch stand, indicating it is on schedule for a controversial mid-April launch, according to a new analysis of satellite images.

The rocket isn’t visible at the Tongchang-ri site, but an analysis provided to the AP by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says evidence suggests the first stage may be in the launch stand’s closed gantry, a support frame, ahead of the launch planned for April 12 to 16.

The North has vowed to launch a rocket to put an earth observation satellite into orbit, a move widely seen as a pretext to disguise a banned test of its ballistic-missile technology.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in Pyongyang warned that interception of the satellite would be “an act of war” and would cause a tremendous catastrophe.

Whoever “intercepts the satellite or collects its debris will meet immediate, resolute and merciless punishment” from the North, the committee said in an English-language statement carried by its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) late Thursday.

The warning came days after South Korea said it was exploring measures to intercept the rocket booster in case it veers off its trajectory. Japan has also ordered its troops to shoot down the rocket if there is concern it or parts of it could land on Japan.

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Goodspeed Analysis: Iran may have tested nuclear arms in North Korea

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National Post:

  Mar 12, 2012 – 11:28 PM ET | Last Updated: Mar 12, 2012 11:40 PM ET

REUTERS/Herwig Prammer

REUTERS/Herwig Prammer

Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh briefs the media during a board of governors meeting at the United Nations headquarters in Vienna March 8. Six world powers demanded Thursday that Iran fulfill a promise to let international inspectors visit a military installation where the UN nuclear watchdog believes that explosives tests geared to developing atomic bombs may have taken place.

Has Iran already secretly tested a small nuclear warhead or dirty nuclear bomb in North Korea?

The question is the latest plot twist in a growing international debate between the United States and Israel over whether or not to launch preemptive military attacks on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

Last week, while U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting in the White House and disagreed over the threat posed by Iran, scientists and security officials around the world were debating whether North Korea may already have served as a secret nuclear testing ground for Iran.

 

A February report in the science magazine Nature opened the door to that possibility, when it reported on a soon-to-be-published Swedish scientific study that concludes North Korea conducted two secret, small-scale, nuclear tests in mid-April and mid-May 2010.

The magazine said Dr. Lars-Erik De Geer, an atmospheric scientist with the Swedish Defence Research Agency in Stockholm, began investigating bizarre claims North Korea made in May 2010 that it had successfully achieved nuclear fusion.

The North Korean claims were generally ridiculed and dismissed by experts, but South Korean scientists said they did detect a whiff of the radioactive gas xenon at the time.

Dr. De Geer decided to follow up the reports and spent a year studying radioisotope data gathered from monitoring stations in South Korea, Russia and Japan, as well as reviewing South Korean meteorological records.

Amos Ben Gershom/GPO via Getty Images

Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on March 5. The two leaders discussed peace in the Middle East and Israel’s growing concerns with Iran producing nuclear weapons.

In the end, he concluded that “North Korea carried out two small nuclear tests in April and May 2010 that caused explosions in the range of 50-200 tonnes of TNT.”

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The Ottawa Citizen has an article here on the same issue:

North Korea threatens to punish mobile-phone users as ‘war criminals’

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The Telegraph:

 North Korea has warned that any of its citizens caught trying to defect to China or using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il will be branded as “war criminals” and punished accordingly.

North Korea threatens to punish mobile-phone users as 'war criminals'

Kim Jong-il died on December 17 after suffering a heart attack that North Korean media has reported was brought on by overwork Photo: AP

By Julian Ryall, Tokyo

6:55AM GMT 26 Jan 2012

There are reports from within the isolated state that food supplies are again dwindling and that there has been an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border into China. Many of those that do manage to cross the frontier eventually manage to reach South Korea, where an estimated 23,000 defectors have now settled.

The Workers’ Party has issued the stern warning in an effort to deter more from attempting the already perilous journey, apparently in an effort to ensure the stability of the new regime of Kim Jong-un, who took over from his father, according to Good Friends, a South Korean relief group.

People who are caught attempting to flee the poverty and political oppression in the North, as well as those detained in China and sent back over the border, usually end up in the North’s network of hard labour camps, human rights groups have reported, while repeat offenders can expect to be executed.

Kim Jong-il died on December 17 after suffering a heart attack that North Korean media has reported was brought on by overwork. He was 69.

The regime has been weakened by years of economic mismanagement and stagnation and there are apparently fears in Pyongyang that the death of Kim could trigger public unrest.

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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wages defector crackdown

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Imagine if you can, living in a place so awful, you would risk death at high odds to sneak into China for a better life.

L.A. Times:

New North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered border guards to shoot down would-be defectors, media reports said.
REPORTING FROM SEOUL -– In North Korea, a new Kim may be in command but the same old human rights violations are still in play, including a renewed lethal crackdown on defectors, according to South Korean media reports.

Weeks after 20-something Kim Jong Un assumed power following his father Kim Jong Il’s sudden death by heart attack last month, border guards have begun shooting down would-be defectors who try to flee the impoverished nation, the reports said.

Three people who tried to flee the repressive regime were reportedly killed in recent days as they tried to cross the Yalu River along the Chinese border, part of a policy of tightened border controls that Pyongyang is enforcing after Kim Jong Il’s Dec. 17 death.

Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has pledged to hunt down and imprison, or even kill, three generations of family left behind by escapees, successful or not, according to Seoul’s Joongang Daily newspaper.

North Korea watchers say the younger Kim may fear that a rise in defections could destabilize his fledgling hold on power as officials across Pyongyang’s security apparatus jockey to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime’s new strongman.

“There was nothing like the eradication of three generations in the Kim Jong Il era, but now it’s happening under Kim Jong Un,” an unnamed official told the newspaper.

The crackdown is seen as part of Kim Jong Un’s attempt to consolidate his power and show backbone to the high-ranking generals of the nation’s 1.2-million-troops-strong military who once revered his father –- officers old enough to be the younger Kim’s grandfather.

“Obviously it is getting much harder to defect,” Do Hee-yoon, a member of the Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of Abductees, told the Korea Times newspaper.

The JoongAng Daily said Kim Jong Un ordered “immediate executions when people are caught trying to cross the borders.” There were also reports that Kim gave the order to a special security squad of the Korean People’s Army under his direct control, authorizing them to shoot defectors on the spot.

The reported killings are the first fatalities since Kim Jong Un, now hailed as North Korea’s “Supreme Leader,” ordered the borders closed after his father’s death.

There were other signs apparently designed to persuade North Koreans to take their new leader seriously despite his youth.

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