The North Korea Blog

Guest Post: The Current Round of North Korean Saber Rattling

jordan — Mon, 07 May 2012 05:15:56 +0000

Note: This post comes from our good friend Joseph Ferris III, blogger at An American in North Korea

North Korean troops ready to punish their enemies with “unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style“.

Pyongyang was lit [...]

7 Myths About North Korea

jordan — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:03:42 +0000

NOTE: This is a guest post from Cyrus Kirkpatrick, a freelance writer and videographer with an unending interest in North Korea and other exciting places. His site is www.cyruskirkpatrick.com.

We all know the media makes big bucks sensationalizing people, places and events. No location is probably sensationalized more than the Democratic People’s Republic of [...]

Social Media Comrades

gabriel — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 06:26:28 +0000

Happy belated Kim Il Sung’s 100th birthday, readers! (We assume you celebrated the Great Leader’s immortality in your own way.)

While half The North Korea Blog team was crashing weddings and attending Kim Il Sung’s centennial in Pyongyang this week, our friends at Social Media Chimps wrote a great piece on the [...]

North Korea prepares for rocket launch

gabriel — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:09:10 +0000

Nothing says “happy birthday” to an undead dictator than a good old fashioned military display.

Fox News reports on North Korea’s planned rocket launch:

Defiant North Korea fueled up a rocket Wednesday in preparation for what appeared to be an imminent liftoff while the country’s young leader strengthened his power with a new title [...]

We’re going going, back back, to NoKo NoKo

gabriel — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:58:19 +0000

Gan Bae, dear readers!

We at The North Korea Blog are heading back to the DPRK next week for round two of some world-class totalitarian theatre. Empty highways, wet shooting ranges and disturbingly intimate conversations with locals are calling us back to the hermit kingdom.

Besides, this is the year [...]

North Korean Counterfeiting

gabriel — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:17:02 +0000

From Time Magazine:

U.S. negotiators are heading into a second day of what have been dubbed “serious and substantial” talks with North Korean officials. Yet amid all the discussion of how the U.S. will attempt to work with Kim Jong Un, there has been little (open) speculation as to whether Dear Leader Junior might crank up [...]

The Associated Press in Pyongyang

gabriel — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:39:05 +0000

The Associated Press has opened a full news bureau in Pyongyang.

From the KCNA:

[AP CEO] Thomas said the opening of the bureau would bring hundreds of millions of people around the world the cultural understanding and access to stories of political and economic development of the DPRK.

From the AP itself:

The [...]

An American in North Korea

gabriel — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:54:34 +0000

Our dear friend Joseph A. Ferris, a world-class sailor and talented photographer, has been writing about North Korea since we returned from the country last year. His site, An American in North Korea, is one of the best collections of essays and photos on the web.

Here are some [...]

Laughing in North Korea

jordan — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:01:19 +0000

The North Korea Blog’s Gabriel Mizrahi has published a new piece about the DPRK in The Huffington Post. In the article, he explores the fascinating contradictions of the hermit kingdom. Here are some of our favorite moments:

On the local stand-up comedy scene:

In the Red-Confucianist spin on 1984 that is North Korea, even the [...]

Respected dictator, prolific author and fashion icon dies at 69

gabriel — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:17:01 +0000

Dearly Departed Leader

Kim Jong-il, affectionately known as “Kimchi” among close enemies, died on Saturday from “a great mental and physical strain” on a “field guidance tour” of the People’s Paradise of North Korea.

“We feel as if the sky were falling down and the land were sinking,” announced the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Like a [...]