Kim Jong Il dead @69

[Dr Mordrid]

Heart failure....that or China got tired of him & had an insider off the turkey.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_KOREA_KIM_JONG_IL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-12-18-22-08-46

[Elie]

Either this will spark civil unrest or peace.

[Brian Ellis]

And a Happy Christmas to you, too.

[Evildead666]

Just heard on the Radio that there exists a song by Run DMC called "Kim you is illin'"
Not got time to look if its true before work, it could be a joke. Would be serioously funny if it wasn't

Edit : Has Brian's account been hacked or has he just posted the same thing in 4+ posts ? I do understand the reasoning behind it, it just looks weird. Brian, if it was you, it just looks like a bot has posted in multiple places.

[Jammrock]

And a Happy Christmas to you, too.

And a Merry Christmas to you, too!

[Jammrock]

Edit : Has Brian's account been hacked or has he just posted the same thing in 4+ posts ? I do understand the reasoning behind it, it just looks weird. Brian, if it was you, it just looks like a bot has posted in multiple places.

It's probably Brian's attempt at keeping things less ... negative, during the holiday season.

[Dr Mordrid]

Very revealing: North Korea at night via the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System

[KRSESQ]

North Korea could completely reverse their economy simply by renting themselves out as locations to producers of post-apocalyptic-totalitarian-state 3-D action thrillers. Or sets for future Star Trek movies.

[KRSESQ]

Inside the regime.

[Evildead666]

It really is the 'Dark Ages' over there then

[Brian Ellis]

Inside the regime.

Interesting photo gallery but I have great difficulty in extracting the truth from the propaganda - and this from both sides. The DPRK is actually slowly pulling itself up by its bootlaces against all the odds. The authorities don't want the West to see the dark side, but the West doesn't even want to admit there is a light side.

Although I've never been there, I studied three desk projects for the UN a few years ago. I had every help and cooperation from the DPRK authorities. Yes, their engineering equipment was primitive by our standards but they were bending over backwards, not just to upgrade it at the UN's expense, but to make sure their personnel and the environment were reasonably well protected with all the necessary equipment and, to do this, they had to dig quite deeply into their own pockets. Where I did have problems was with a UNIDO consultant of E. European origin who was "the man on the site", working from Vienna. My audit of his work was far more negative than that of the Koreans with a strong suspicion of corruption. I had a number of meetings with him and with the SG of the funding agency, working closely with the World Bank and we often discussed his off-duty times in the DPRK. Remembering that the country was only just coming out of famine, he told me that he had never seen any real evidence of poverty or starvation and everyone seemed to have enough of the basics, obviously with no luxury. This was in contrast with some other countries where real poverty did exist.

OK, without first-hand observations, I cannot be too categorical, but it is probable that things are not always as bad as they are painted.

[TransformX]

Brian,
You bring back the age old (biblical if you consider the exodus) question of which is better (or worse): Hungry but free or imprisoned and sated.

[UtwigMU]

Looks like we will become country with oldest surviving communist party chief.

[Brian Ellis]

Looks like we will become country with oldest surviving communist party chief.

He may not be the oldest, but our current President is a Communist (and the Government), which irks the US, especially as we are also in the EU and eurozone, which the US cannot ignore. Of course, the rancour is mutual since Henry Kissinger told the Turks in 1974 they could invade the island, after the Turkish army became well equipped with American weaponry. To this day, a third of the island is still occupied and ruled by the Turks under heavy military rule, despite numerous UN resolutions telling them to bugger off. There is a UN-guarded "green line" separating the occupied zone from the rest of the Republic across the island; this goes through the middle of our capital city, Nicosia, like the Berlin wall.

Turkey is trying to get into the EU but it certainly will never succeed as long as part of Cyprus is occupied (France is also opposed and, to some extent, Germany, although the UK is supporting Turkey's bid in a two-faced attitude, as it is also a constitutional guarantor power of the Republic).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_Christofias