North Korea

North Korea’s first beer advert: a toast to capitalism?

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:24:02 +0200

Three minutes of sickeningly kitsch video is North Korea's way of advertising their home-brewed lager. In the land where advertising has been, until now, non-existent, is Kim Jong-il edging North Korea slowly towards capitalism?

Taedonggang beer is produced in an English brewery which North Korea bought in 2000 for £1.5 million (€1.7m). The 185-year-old plant, which had just fallen into disuse, was shipped piece by piece to North Korea and then carefully reconstructed and officially opened in 2002. A bottle of the beer costs the equivalent of around one euro and weighs in at 4.5% alcohol. It's sold mainly in bars for foreigners.

Propaganda posted in helium balloons sparks border closure from N Korea

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:16:28 +0100

South Korean NGOs have been floating propaganda and money in helium balloons across the border for years. No secret to the authorities, so why did Kim Jong-Il's regime announce this morning that it will throttle the border and flush out Southerners?

Each containing 10,000 printed leaflets and a wad of bank notes laminated in plastic, the packages are tied up with string and attached to 10-metre-long balloons filled with helium. Their destination? North Korea, where popping one of the floating donations and distributing its contents is banned.

Since 2003, human rights activists have been using the unusual postal method to contact their divided state's northern counterparts. The contents of their message: world news, freedom literature and information about the North Korean regime.

Until recently the balloons were tolerated by the authorities, but at the start of October, Kim Jong Il's regime starting labelling the deliveries "psychological warfare". After weeks of threats from the Unification Ministry, it was announced on Monday that they would "strictly restrict" border crossings, "selectively expel" South Koreans and suspend an historic cross-border train tour.

Coincidentally, the change of tune comes just after the leaflets started to include information about the state of Kim Jong-Il's health; specifying that their "Dear Leader" has suffered a stroke and is soon to prove himself immortal...

Were the latest images of Kim Jong-il Photoshopped?

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:36:55 +0100

The banner reads: "We give our lives for the revolution of the great Kim Jong-il'"

In order to hush rumours about Kim Jong-il's death, the North Korean authorities released photos of the "dear leader" inspecting his troops earlier this week. But a Chinese blogger says that the photos have been digitally manipulated.

Kim Jong-Il "dead since 2003"

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:21:51 +0200

Image taken from North Korea's official website, Uriminzokkiri.com.

A Japanese expert on North Korea is claiming that the country's dictatorial ruler has in fact been dead for years, and is simply played by same-sized doubles at public events.

Jong-Il makes few public appearances and when he does he's surrounded by soaring security guards. Japanese North Korea expert Toshimitsu Shigemura says that's because he died in 2003 and is played by doubles. He demonstrated this by testing the voices of these supposed doubles, which he says did not match the voice of the real head of state.

And his suspicions were thought to be confirmed on Tuesday when Kim Jong didn't turn up to the country's 60^th anniversary parade. The news was received warmly around the world, where Kim is largely considered a reclusive and hostile dictator. It has also been received somewhat unquestioningly. The 66-year-old is indeed a long-time sufferer of diabetes, whose conditions worsened in August. But that doesn't mean he's dead. Our Observer says he's simply sick, which is why he's been resting at home.

North Korea’s propaganda goes online: terrifyingly funny

Julien — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:49:00 +0100

Despite the acclaimed ‘IT revolution' in North Korea, there are still very few people with access to the Internet. So few, that studies gauging national percentages of Internet users, simply list North Korea as ‘not applicable'. Despite this, Pyongyang has created what can only be described as an online propaganda machine. Available in Korean, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and English, the site is an online compendium of a particularly North Korean form of cult worship centered on the ‘Dear Leader,' Kim Jong Il. It may be a serious cyber effort from Pyongyang, but for the rest of the world, it's downright hilarious. From horses and Chow Chows (little Chinese dogs) presented to the North Korean dictator, to paeans a new dam, it features everything on North Korea you always feared were true, but were too terrified to contemplate.