"Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il Dead (and other North Korea related news)

[Hubbs]

yeah, but I doubt the NK government (military, really) is going to collapse anytime soon. Who would replace them?

My guess is that when the NK collapse finally comes, nobody will see it coming. It'll probably take the form of an attempted coup that, "successful" or not, effectively splits the military into factions that prevent each other from gaining complete control. Everything will fall apart quickly from there. (Yes, I know that plenty of people have been making that prediction for years. I'm not claiming to be original here. I just agree with the line of reasoning that leads to that expectation.)

[KAOSkins]

Sometimes people really do get the right leader at the right time. A good "king" can do wonders for a country it's just not a system that works in the long term. I get the feeling that Dear Son is that leader. He's doing everything right, at least from my limited perception, to gently turn things around and effect change, while keeping control. Think about the difficulty in doing that and the slow, well thought out planning and scheming that would have to done in order to be successful at it.

Never hurts to be an optimist when you can.

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/AP

BREAKING: South Korean official: North Korean soldier defects to South Korea across heavily armed border
1:41 AM

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

NKorean soldier defects to SKorea across border

An official says a North Korean soldier has killed two of his officers and defected to South Korea across their heavily armed border.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official says the defection took place around noon Saturday across the western section of the Demilitarized Zone.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...89802X20121009

Isolated North Korea says its rockets can hit U.S. mainland

Isolated North Korea has rockets that can hit the U.S. mainland, it said on Tuesday, two days after South Korea struck a deal with the United States to extend the range of its ballistic missiles.

North and South Korea have been technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and regional powers have for years been trying to rein in the North's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea is believed to be developing a long-range missile with a range of 6,700 km (4,160) miles) or more aimed at hitting the United States, but two recent rocket tests both failed.

Its neighbors fear the North is using rocket launches to perfect technology to build a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the United States.

North Korea's National Defence Commission said in a statement that the North was prepared to counter any U.S. military threats, its KCNA news agency said.

"We do not hide (the fact) that the revolutionary armed forces ... including the strategic rocket forces are keeping within the scope of strike not only the bases of the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggression forces' bases in the inviolable land of Korea, but also Japan, Guam and the U.S. mainland," KCNA said.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Their missles couldn't hit the Pacific ocean if they aimed for it.

[DeaconBlue]

Their missles couldn't hit the Pacific ocean if they aimed for it.

Maybe they won't "aim" at us? ; )

[AsburySkinsFan]

Maybe they won't "aim" at us? ; )

Aim at France and they might just get us.

[visionary]

http://www.nknews.org/2012/10/kim-jo...revolutionary/

Kim Jong Il’s Grandson is Living With a Libyan Revolutionary

The teenage grandson of late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has revealed how he longed for the grandfather he never met ‘to come and find me’, and has spoken out against his uncle, current leader Kim Jong Un, referring to him as a ‘dictator’, in a rare interview that shines new light on familial relations and tensions within the secretive Kim dynasty.

In the surprising exchange with Elisabeth Rehn (via NK Econwatch), a former Finnish Defence Minister, filmed at the United World College in Bosnia where he is studying, Kim Han Sol reveals he is living with a young Libyan scholar who supported the Tripoli revolution and overthrow of Gaddafi; tacitly acknowledges North Korea’s awful hunger problems, and reflects on his own experiences as a member of the Kim dynasty living in exile.

Despite his close ties to North Korea and its regime, Han Sol’s appearance is more in line with the fashion and tastes of South Korea, and he expresses a liberal world outlook that directly contradicts those that were held by his autocratic grandfather. He admits growing up with American and South Korean students in Macau initially posed a problem for him, but that over time they “turned out to be really great friends”, which “sparked the curiosity for me to go further.”

[visionary]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49473184

North Korea says will fire on South if leaflets dropped

North Korea issued its most strident warning in months on Friday when it threatened to open fire on South Korean territory if anti-Pyongyang leaflets were sent over from South Korean territory.

It said that if leaflets were dropped on Monday a "merciless military strike by the Western Front will be put into practice without warning", according to state news agency KCNA.

It said it would target a tourist area in the border city of Paju a few miles from the demilitarised zone that separates the two countries if the launch went ahead.

A coalition of non-government groups said it would go ahead with plans to drop anti-North Korea leaflets on Monday at 11:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) as part of their campaign against Pyongyang.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8LJ25H20121019

UPDATE 2-North Korea threatens to fire on South if propaganda balloons launched

"We had similar threats last year and they did not stop us before and this is not going to stop us this time," said Pak Sang-hak, a North Korean exile who defected to the South 12 years ago.

He is the leader of a coalition of groups of North Korean exiles and human rights activists who plan to launch giant balloons containing 200,000 leaflets criticising North Korea's government for the second year running.

Some of the leaflets, printed on plastic bags, will contain $1 bills. As well as the dollars, the bags themselves are said to be prized by North Koreans, many of whom often lack daily necessities.

South Korea's defence minister told parliament that its military would retaliate in the event of any attack.

[China]

South Korean Activists Send Leaflets to NKorea

South Korean activists floated balloons carrying tens of thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets into North Korea on Monday, eluding police who had disrupted an earlier launch attempt due to threats from North Korea.

North Korea's military warned last week that it would strike if the South Korean activists carried through with their plan to fly balloons carrying the propaganda leaflets across the border. South Korea pledged to retaliate if it was attacked.

South Korean police, citing security concerns, had sent hundreds of officers Monday to seal off roads and prevent the activists and other people from gathering at an announced launch site near the border. Residents in the area were also asked to evacuate to underground facilities, according to local official Kim Jin-a.

Later in the day, some of the activists, mostly North Korean defectors, moved to another site near the border that was not guarded by police and carried out the launch of the balloons. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it was closely monitoring North Korea's military movements but there were no suspicious activities.

Before taking action Monday, the South Korean government had implored activists to stop their campaign, but had cited freedom of speech in not making further attempts to intervene.

South Korean activists have in the past sent leaflets across the border, and North Korea has issued similar threats to attack without following through. But Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported Monday that the ban on entering the border area was imposed as South Korea detected that North Korea had uncovered artillery muzzle covers and deployed troops to artillery positions in possible preparation for an attack. Yonhap cited no source for the information.

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._uns_baby_mama

Kim Jong Un's Baby Mama

In July, when North Korea's state media identified Ri Jol Su as the wife of the country's supreme leader Kim Jong Un, reporting the couple's visit to an amusement park, the contrast with his father, Kim Jong Il, could not have been starker. State media reports and official accounts of the elder Kim's activities and behavior never mentioned any of his four (or five) wives or seven children.

In fact, North Korea's new leader seems to be putting some distance between himself and his father. By allowing the country's state media to report on his marital status and identify Ri by name, Kim Jong Un has aligned himself more closely to his paternal grandfather, North Korean founding father and president Kim Il Sung, whose first wife Kim Jong Suk is a venerated figure in North Korea's political culture. State propaganda rarely, if ever, explicitly identifies Kim Jong Un as Kim Jong Il's son; documentary films, essays, and editorials refer instead only to "bloodline" and "revolutionary family."

That bloodline has become all the more significant in recent weeks, as it has emerged that North Korea's first lady might be pregnant. On Oct. 29, 2012, Madame Ri made her first reported public appearance with her husband in almost two months, attending a concert and a soccer match. (A source with personal ties to the Kim family ascribed Kim Jong Un's 20-day gap in public appearances in June to "wanting children.") In the images and video footage of the events published by North Korean state media, Ri wears a long, loose jumper and her face is swollen. Neither still images nor film footage reveals her full figure. All the imagery of her standing is taken from a distance (or without zoom), and there are no close shots of her standing next to her husband; she instead walks directly behind Kim to avoid the camera lenses.

If Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju hosted a baby shower, the two likeliest attendees would be Kim's older brother, Kim Jong Chol, and his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, both of whom work as their brother's aides. Many analysts expected Kim Jong Chol, a sensitive and creative man, to succeed Kim Jong Il. (Kim Jong Chol still seems to be in favor; but he was last seen in February 2011 at an Eric Clapton concert in Singapore and attended his father's funeral.) We know little about Kim Jong Un's sister other than that she went to a neighboring school in Switzerland; at one visit to Kim Jong Il's funerary bier in December 2011, North Korean state media twice showed Kim Yo Jong leading a group of senior officials in bowing to the leader's remains.

[Dan T.]

For her sake, given bloodlines and the gigantic size of her husband's head, I hope Ri Jol Su opts for a C-section.

[China]

Chinese Website Congratulates Kim Jong Un On Being Named Sexiest Man Alive By "The Onion"

China's Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, congratulates the North Korean leader on being named the sexiest man alive by the the satirical American publication. Seriously.

[China]

North Korea Has Found a Secret Unicorn Lair, Apparently

"Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom," reports the ...Korean Central News Agency, the state news agency of North Korea.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

[visionary]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...7#.ULnAdjMucqg

North Korea Vows to Test Long-Range Rocket Soon

North Korea said Saturday it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22, a move likely to heighten already strained tensions with Washington and Seoul ahead of a South Korean presidential election on Dec. 19.

This would be North Korea's second launch attempt under leader Kim Jong Un, who took power following his father Kim Jong Il's death nearly a year ago. The announcement comes several weeks after President Barack Obama was elected to a second term in the United States and ahead of his January inauguration.

Washington considers North Korea's rocket tests to be veiled covers for tests of long-range missile technology banned by the United Nations.