United States and South Korea being bullies?

Kim Jong Un decided to launch an aggressive media campaign on Wednesday Oct. 10 to try and gather the support of North Koreans.  In light of the United States and South Korea performing military exercises near North Korea, Kim Jong Un had articles published in local newspapers about his desire for peace.  He claims that he has no desire for nuclear war but that nuclear war seems to be all that his war crazed neighbors and the United States want.
         The problem with Kim Jong Un's plan is that an increasing amount of people in North Korea now have access to external media sources, something that until recently was nearly impossible to acquire.  This means that while Kim Jong Un uses propaganda to portray himself as the innocent victim, North Koreans are managing to get their hands on the other side of the story.  Could it be that the people of North Korea will actually be able to make their own opinions about matters that directly affect them?

Camp 14 Total Control Zone

The documentary tells the story about Shin Dong-Hyuk. He was born in a North Korean labor camp. Life is very rough and lots of human rights are not respected. He lived in the camp for 23 years until he manage to escape. This young adult is very traumatized. He explains that his first memory of when he was little is of watching a public execution with his mother at the age of only four. At the age of six, he began his life of force labor. He also explains that children could be beaten for five hours for stealing grain of corn. As everyone can see, the human rights are not much respected in these camps. Now, Shin travels around the world and gives human rights conference. He adds on that it’s a period of adaptation to live in the real world. He said that in camps he had his own routine, did not have any life problems, no money problems and no decisions problem. Something that is surprising is the fact that if the camp falls down, he is open to go back and live where he lived most of his life.

The North Koreans keep their nation secret and a case like this is for sure a reason why they keep everything secrets. Cases like this happen a lot in North Korea and I find it’s good that the world see how bad the situation is in North Korea. It might put pressure on them to maybe improve their human rights and stop the labor camps.

Here is the documentary! Enjoy

Too good to be true? Probably, yea.

On October 6th, North Korean propaganda ministry released a photo (pictured overhead) of Kim Jung-Un and his advisers at the site of a supposed medical facility. Now ordinarily this would be seen as reason to celebrate, however after one actually sees said photo, it is difficult to remain optimistic. The photo in question is obviously fake and a clear attempt by the government to make their people believe that they are improving the country and not simply allowing their people to starve without acting, which is exactly what they are doing by the way. So to add insult to injury, the propaganda directors over in North Korea were unable to hire anyone with Photoshop talents beyond that of a first year college student. This Photoshop job looks pretty horrid, all the actors are in the foreground looking like they are kind of floating and to make it worse, they cast no shadows! I mean, I suppose this will be good enough to fool the starving farmers and detainees in labor camps, but anyone who is aware as to what Photoshop is will be able to call the North Korean government out for what they are: frauds.

Kidnapped Movie Makers: Kim Jong-Il's Freaky Obsession

If anyone is interested in the creepy obsession Kim Jong-il has with film making, and is not sensitive to the  vulgar language of the shocked and appalled documenters, please enjoy this hilarious documentary about the weirdest "director" in the world. If you thought Kim Jong-un was questionable, you've seen nothing yet. NOTHING.

My opinion: It's really sad that things like this happen, but I'm fascinated in a bizarre and inexplicable kind of way.

Enjoy the Documentary Here:

Or Here, (From YouTube):

More Unnecessary Infrastructure...

North Korea's "latest mega project"  is the Masik Pass ski resort in the North Korean alpines. Here we go again, could it be? An unnecessarily large, and expensive tribute to their culture's cult-like god figure. I have to give them credit, they are very good at paying homage to their "loving father" the nation-state leader: Kim Jong-un. I don't think I'll ever get over the unreal reverence the North Korean civil society has for their dictator. In a documentary I saw, two men travelled to NK and were systematically indoctrinated for a period of days. I cannot imagine living there for WEEKS let alone my ENTIRE LIFE, not knowing what the rest of the world is like, and never being allowed to leave. (Pictures found here.)

The Masik Pass ski resort is not only for Kim though, it is also being designed for 5,500 of the countries athletes! That's dedication to a whopping 0.02% of the population! It's so sweet that he thinks of the inhabitants of his country. The resort is predominantly to show that the country is culturally and economically advanced, so as to give off the impression that there is NOTHING wrong. WHY would there be anything wrong? Do you think there's anything wrong? You do? Come with me, Mam. An officer will see you now. 

Anyway, the ski resort is a spectacular and beautiful monument that has been built for the gracious Kim Jong-un who has been reported to have "enjoyed it as a teenager" when he studied in Switzerland. So why is it being built? Aren't they hosting the 2018 Olympics? Yes, but Seoul turned down NK's offer to host the skiing section.So if it's not for the Olympics, what is it for?  For tourism! For the elites! "It is proof of the great love of the great leader".

Beautiful, isn't it?
Woops, don't look at the labourers, they're just irrelevant teenagers.
Here:

This is all supposedly meant to play a part in NK's newfound efforts to raise the standard of living in NK by offering more sporting events, supplies, and access to sports centres. It is said that sports will bring some sort of revival to the people of Korea. The slogan “the hot wind of sports blowing through Korea." has been used to propagate these new sporting centres.

Despite my distaste for the way it is being done, I am relieved to see the rest of the world pressuring NK to take baby steps toward treating the civil society of NK with care and respect, if you can call it that in it's early stages. 

Does NK have a chance at becoming a morally uncorrupted, developed state? Is it even possible?

Trouble in the Waters?

Tensions flare yet again with North Korea's latest outburst. The trigger? It appears that there were several joint US-South Korean search and rescue drills being performed off the coast of the Korean peninsula. This latest outburst could not have come a worse time for peace in the region as the US government, one of the most vocal players for peace in the region, remains out of commission and will likely remain so unless domestic budget issues are resolved soon. With this in mind it is surprising to see the US military flexing their muscle in that particular area of the world during a time where their major infrastructure is not up and running. North Korean officials have even been quoted as saying "The moment of explosion is coming fast" a pretty thinly veiled threat towards the American interests in the region. As an observer I have got to say that China's passive comments on reigning in North Korea is clearly not enough and China needs to show more action as a leader in the region and cannot allow North Korea to run amok in their backyard. I really hope to see China step up in the coming months.

North Korean female athletes doing well in East Asian Games

There is an impressive number of 2,400 athletes from many Asian countries. The athletes are from China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Guam. They are competing in 24 different sports. Two North Korean athletes has catch the attention. The two woman have set weightlifting records for these games. Rim Jong-Sim has lifted 117kg the ‘’snatch’’ competition and lifted 148 kg in another discipline. In this same discipline, her teammate Kim Un-Ju did set a record of 153kg. She won by 5 kg on her teammate from North Korea.

Not to the surprise of everyone, China has the lead at the games. Like at the Olympics, they dominate all other Asian countries. After the second day, they have the lead with three times more medals than their nearest competitor.

This article has inspired me to look at the results of North Korea at the summer games of 2012. North Korea did finish 20 with a total of 4 goals medals. I believe that it’s very hard to practice and perform a sport in North Korea comparing to South Korea. Sports is something that brings everyone together and maybe this could be one solution to make North Korea a more peaceful country.