Posted on 12/28/2014 2:50:46 AM PST by Up Yours Marxists
Russia appears striving to boost the demand for its language in North Korea, amid signs that the Cold War allies try to build up strong bilateral relations.
Russia's Maritime Province of Siberia donated as many as 1,400 Russian books to North Korea, the Russian news agency Interfax said Wednesday. The books vary on the subjects from Russian history, literature, culture, to language.
It reported that the state government delegated the donation project to "Russkiy Mir," an orthodox cultural foundation established by Russia's president Vladimir Putin in 2007 as a vehicle for exercising soft power abroad. The foundation delivered the books to Lim Chung-il, North Korea's consul general in Nakhodka, the eastern coast town.
The donation aims to draw more attention to Russian among North Koreans given the growing zeal toward learning foreign languages in North Korea, according to the report.
Lim expressed gratitude to the state government, saying North Korea has long been interested in Russian education. Interfax reported that when he met Alexei Staricykov, a director of international cooperation bureau at Maritime Province of Siberia at a donation ceremony, they discussed mainly about how to boost the interest in learning Russian among North Koreans.
A North Korea expert says it is understandable that Russian government bodies are eager to encourage the study of Russian.
"Right now, when there is a great deal of talk about cooperation with Russia in North Korean media, it is possible that many young North Koreans would start learning Russian," said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University. "But, if the expected 'Russian boom' fails to materialize, the interest in Russian will evaporate as well."
Among North Koreans, English is in the highest demand, followed by Chinese and Russian, according to the recent reports.
For decades, Russian was the language of international contacts for North Koreans. Learning Russian helped open way to prestigious and lucrative overseas jobs, Lankov said. However, now that the international interaction is conducted in English, Russian was put to the margins. Chinese, being the language of North Korea's sole trade partner, remains important as well.
The Russia-born scholar explained the major variable which determines the popularity of a particular language is its 'market value,' the potential to use this language for earning money and improving one's social standing.
"It might make a partial comeback if North Korea's trade with Russia really recovers and increases to the level comparable with its current trade with China, but this is a big ‘if'," he added.
Now he’s gotten cozy with Argentina too, with a big trade deal of fighter jets for food. A big poke in the eye to the U.K.
Given the way the Argies welsh on their debts, I wonder if Putin is merely sulking in a way that will cost Russia billions.
Some of the MSM speculation that North Korea is not the source of the Sony hack is that a Russian actually did it.
New theory emerges in Sony hacking suggesting Russian hackers
New York Daily News ^ | December 26, 2014 | Nicole Hensley
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3241346/posts
Linguists identified foreign phrasing in about 2,000 words from hacker emails and posts that may have been penned by a Russian native speaker. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Linguists identified foreign phrasing in about 2,000 words from hacker emails and posts that may have been penned by a Russian native speaker.
What if it wasn’t North Korea after all?
In the controversy over the Sony hacking, government officials have accused the sequestered communist country of hacking Sony, but security analysts argue Russian hackers may be the culprit.
Writing samples from hackers claiming responsibility for leaking finance reports and emails by Sony employees suggest the native language was Russian, according to Taia Global, a cyber security consulting group.
“Our preliminary results show that Sony’s attackers were most likely Russian, possibly but not likely Korean and definitely not Mandarin Chinese or German,” the Seattle-based company wrote in a Christmas Eve blog post.
Linguists analyzed about 1,600 words in strangely worded emails and posts by the “Guardians of Peace,” but the findings are not enough to conclude North Korea spawned the cyber attacks that started Nov. 24. EUO 3TP TPSOUT KOROUT KCNA/REUTERS Writing samples from the ‘Guardians of Peace’ hackers suggest a Russian speaker may be behind it all, but a Korean speaker is possible, too.
The emails are surprisingly plentiful, Taia Global president Jeffrey Carr, said.
“Normally hackers don’t leave so many texts,” Carr told the Daily News in a brief phone call...
a big trade deal of fighter jets for food<a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russia-says-oil-for-goods-deliveries-to-iran-to-start-this-year-despite-u-s-warnings/512584.html">Russia Says Oil-for-Goods Deliveries to Iran to Start This Year
North Korea compares Obama to a monkey
By Associated Press
December 26, 2014 | 11:48pm
“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s Policy Department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
http://nypost.com/2014/12/26/n-korea-calls-obama-a-monkey-blames-us-for-web-crash/
Clever Putin:
1. Teach them Russian.
2. Try to elect traitor to lead the country (to join Russia)
3. If it doesn’t work or rejected, send band of masked spetznats to pretend to be “separatists” wishing to rejoin the mother Russia.
4. If people don’t want it, quickly organize “referendum”, win it and then annex the territory.
5. Tell the world that Nazis were about to take over and Saint Putin saved it.
6. Establish screwball government and screw the territory, just like he did to mother Russia.
7. When bankrupt, repeat 1 - 6 on another territory until you “liberate” whole world and there will be World Peace ruled by Putinobama. And there will be glory in the media and statues everywhere.
Oh, and everything will be free on empty shelves.
Was tried before, called Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Happening now in Ukraine, but you wouldn’t know thanks to “reporting” in “media”.
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