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Kim Jong Un building 'mini world' with replica Big Ben and Eiffel Tower Chubby tyrant Kim Jong Un is building a “miniature world” in North Korea – with a replica of London's Big Ben at its heart. The dictator is set to open the theme park in capital Pyongyang – and has included the iconic clock tower. The new attraction, which opens this year, will also boast a copy of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The secretive state famously doesn’t allow its citizens to leave the country – so it appears Jong Un has decided to bring the world to his people....

North Korea has announced that an American tourist is to be tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. The case against Korean-American Kenneth Bae, who has been imprisoned in North Korea since early November, could further stoke tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. … Bae, 44, was arrested in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea’s far north-eastern region bordering China and Russia, according to official state media. The exact nature of his alleged crimes has not been disclosed, but North Korea accuses Bae, described as a tour operator, of...

IF KIM JONG UN thinks he can shake down Washington by threatening nuclear apocalypse, President Obama says, the belligerent North Korean dictator has another think coming. "Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was: We're not going to reward this provocative behavior," Obama told NBC's Savannah Guthrie in an interview last week. "You don't get to bang your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way." No rewards for Pyongyang's criminal regime or its bloody-minded young tyrant. Everyone clear on that? Well, maybe not everyone. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo the day before...

Pyongyang wants withdrawal of all UN sanctions and US pledge not to engage in 'nuclear war practice' with South North Korea has issued a detailed statement on its terms for dialogue with the United States, after weeks of tensions. The demands from the North's top military body include the withdrawal of all UN sanctions imposed due to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests, and a US pledge not to engage in "nuclear war practice" with the South. It said denuclearisation of the peninsula should begin with the withdrawal of US weapons. Seoul was swift to dismiss the North's conditions as incomprehensible...

Do we know what's happening? Probably not. But historical context may help.Topographic map of North Korea. Created with GMT from SRTM data. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] The following article from Stratfor, republished with permission, provides useful historical context for the current situations in Korea and its usual (apparent) ally, China. It spans many centuries. The Chinese ruling powers are new. Kim Jong-un and his regency are also relatively new. Nevertheless, we probably have better insights into what's happening at the top in China than we do into what's happening at the top in North Korea, an informational black hole from which very...

U.S. Treasury tracking N. Korea's overseas slush funds U.S. Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen says his department is tracking slush funds used by the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his family. In an interview with Voice of America released on Sunday, Cohen said Washington plans to introduce measures to ensure the slush funds can not be used. Media reports have been rife with suggestions Kim Jong-il left more than 3 billion U.S. dollars in Swiss bank accounts for his son and current successor, Kim Jong-un. When asked if North Korea continues to...

Since April 15th (Later on today United States Time) is Kim il Sung 101st birthday, we think today would be the day for the DPRK to launch if they intend to. New Secretary of State Kerry is in the region trying to come up with his first victory since taking office. But the DPRK is not backing down. NORTH KOREA UNBENDING Pyongyang, which was preparing to celebrate the birth date of state founder Kim Il-Sung on Monday, reiterated it had no intention of abandoning its atomic arms programs. "We will expand in quantity our nuclear weapons capability, which is the...

I was just read about life in North Korea. I found the Following interesting...do You? Parents who send their kids to schools are expected to provide desks, chairs, building materials and cash to pay for heating fuel. Some students are put to work producing goods for the government or gathering up discarded materials. Parents can bribe teachers to exempt their kids from labor or just keep them away from school And this is OBAMACare is action! North Korea has a "free" medical system, but hospital patients must pay for their own drugs, cover the cost of heat, and prepare all...

This concept isn't original, I took it from this cartoon (can't make out the cartoonist's signature, but I'll gladly link to them when I can find out).A drawn cartoon is one thing, but I wanted to see how it would turn out as a photoshop. I'm pretty happy with it.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says that if North Korea launches a test missile, he would “take it out” to show “clown” North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un that America has the capabilities to do so. “I would take it out,” McCain said Thursday on Fox News to host Greta Van Susteren when asked what he would do if North Korea fires a test missile. “We show young Kim Jong Un that we can take out his capabilities. We can show that to him.” McCain said that dealing with North Korea is “dangerous business” but also said that China can control...

If you can mentally put yourself in Kim Jong-un's shoes, once you are aware of the constraints he faces you will understand why the South Koreans aren't getting terribly worried about how the current round of threats will end. Far from being crazy, KJU is acting rationally for someone in his position, and he's likely to get what he wants without South Korea or the world erupting into a sea of fire. The first fact of life for young Kim is that he really isn't running things. He is unable to command and be obeyed on his own because he...

The idea of a nuclear Iran -- and of preventing a nuclear Iran -- terrifies security analysts. Those who argue for a preemptive strike against Iran cannot explain exactly how American planes and missiles would take out all the subterranean nuclear facilities without missing a stashed nuke or two -- or whether they might as well expand their target lists to Iranian military assets in general. None can predict the fallout on world oil prices, global terrorism and the politically fragile Persian Gulf, other than that it would be uniformly bad. In contrast, those who favor containment of a nuclear...

(CNN) – Republican leaders in Congress received a dire warning on Tuesday from former Vice President Dick Cheney on the ongoing crisis in North Korea.“We’re in deep doo doo,” Cheney told lawmakers, according to a GOP leadership aide.Cheney added the current North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, is unpredictable and doesn't share the United States worldview.One lawmaker present at the session, Rep. Steve Southerland of Florida, said Cheney wore a cowboy hat and "looked really good, spoke really clearly, lucidly.”

National Security: The administration moves an advanced missile defense system to Guam because it knows a single low-yield nuke detonated at high altitude could send America back in time a hundred years. The announcement Wednesday by the Defense Department that it would soon deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), a missile defense system inherited from the Bush administration, to Guam underscores the seriousness of the threat from North Korea, whose actions, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rightly said, "present a real and clear danger." This move comes after the Obama administration reversed its previous scuttling of Bush administration...

Looks like North Korea wasn’t bluffing about cutting off one of their only channels to hard currency and global trade. This morning, a high-ranking official of the DPRK announced that all 51,000 workers at the Kaesong industrial complex would leave, shutting down the last link of cooperation between North and South: North Korea said Monday it will recall 51,000 North Korean workers and suspend operations at a factory complex it has jointly run with South Korea, moving closer to severing its last economic link with its rival as tensions escalate.The statement from Kim Yang Gon, secretary of a key decision-making...

This video looks like a Saturday Night Live spoof. If only it were.

Japan's Defense Minister issued the official military order within the hour or so. It has been stated in news commentary that the North's Musudan intermediate ballistic missile which is an extreme threat to Japan and had been suddenly moved to North Korea's east coast just two days ago for possible launch without warning, without any kind of statement to international space or aviation bodies for a "test launch" of a missile, means that North Korea could launch a sneak missile launch without any warning to the world. So Japan's Defense Minister ordered Japan Self Defense Forces (SDF) into readiness with...

Exclusive: Joseph Farah warns of 'Red Dawn' scenario becoming real-life catastrophe Have you seen “Red Dawn”? I don’t mean the old movie starring the late Patrick Swayze. It was good. But I’m talking about the more recent version. I hesitated watching it for a long time, mainly because I thought the producers of the movie sold out when they opted to substitute a North Korean invasion of the U.S. for what was originally planned as a more likely Chinese invasion. Supposedly they did so because the Chinese movie market was too lucrative to pass up. But, having seen it recently,...

MOSCOW – North Korea has advised foreign diplomats to consider evacuating their embassies there, in light of increasing tensions in the area, Russian and British diplomats said Friday. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters traveling with him in Uzbekistan Friday afternoon that Moscow was seeking more details about the North Korean statement before making a decision about whether to evacuate. Lavrov said Russia was treating the statement from Pyongyang as a suggestion and not an order.

WASHINGTON — On Sunday, June 25, 1950, the Korean People's Army attacked across the 38th parallel, captured Seoul — capital of the Republic of Korea — and began driving south. The battered South Korean army and their U.S. military advisers quickly were pushed into the "Pusan Perimeter" on the southern tip of the peninsula — and U.S. President Harry Truman took the case to the United Nations Security Council. American leadership and the absence of the Soviet ambassador resulted in swift passage of Security Council Resolution 84. The measure — perhaps the last time in history that the U.N. acted...

Welcome to 2013. Maybe the Mayans couldn’t add correctly. A tiny totalitarian regime is threatening the United States with nuclear attack, and the president has barely spoken on the matter since the threats were made. It isn’t hard to imagine how other presidents would have reacted differently. First consider Bill Clinton. Forget the motivations, one thing is for sure — Clinton wasn’t afraid to speak with moral clarity in international affairs. He led NATO against a thug Serbian regime’s ethnic cleansing. Clinton labeled evil as evil. Imagine how Ronald Reagan would have reacted to threats of nuclear attack on the...

This isn't merely a failure of nerve, it's a failure of intelligence and a failure to keep operational secrets. The White House had a "playbook," agreed to by O, Hagel, and John Kerry, on how to rattle its saber at North Korea during the next crisis without rattling it so much that NK would get spooked and do something rash. E.g., first comes some B-52 flights over South Korea, then the B-2s make a cameo, then the F-22s, and so forth. Problem one: Kim's gone further in his bellicosity than U.S. analysts expected and now they’re unsure if they know...

President Obama has a situation on his hands where charisma and media support do him no good. He is dealing with a nuclear-armed regime with a history of military attacks, provocations as a means of extortion, and brutality. Now they have announced they are restarting a reactor that produces enough plutonium to make a bomb a year -- a reactor that had been shut down before as part of a previous deal in which the North Koreans got things of value in exchange for shuttering it. Worse yet, the dictatorship is now in the midst of a possible power struggle....

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, reiterating that it considered the Korean Peninsula back in “a state of war,” threatened Saturday to shut down a factory complex it jointly operates with South Korea that stands as the last significant symbol of cooperation. The industrial park, the eight-year-old Kaesong complex in the North Korean border town of the same name, is a crucial source of badly needed cash for the heavily sanctioned North. It funnels more than $92 million a year in wages for 53,400 North Koreans employed there, and its operation has survived despite years of military tensions. The latest...

In the event that the 'bellicose rhetoric' of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un turns into something more serious, the opening hours of conflict could be 'pretty ugly,' defense analysts warn. Veteran North Korea watchers, citing what they see as increasingly troubling signs coming from the dictatorial regime, are voicing concerns that its new young leader, Kim Jong-un, could do something ill-advised, even start a war. On Friday North Korea renewed what the U.S. has condemned as its “bellicose rhetoric,” saying Kim had ordered the nation’s missile forces to prepare to strike the United States and South Korea. In response to...

You know the rule by now: If the headline asks the question, the story most likely provides the less exciting/sensational/terrifying (in this case, definitely the third) answer. From the very Telegraph article that Drudge links to: Despite the increasingly belligerent rhetoric and new images emerging from the North Korean regime, analysts believe its missiles are not capable of striking targets as far away as the US mainland and are not, as yet, capable of delivering a nuclear payload. North Korea's state-media announced earlier today that Kim Jong-un has ordered his missile units on standby to strike the United States and...

North Korean Diplomats 'Sell Millions of Dollars Worth of Drugs' North Korea sent a large amount of illegal drugs to its embassy in an East European country last December and ordered diplomats there to sell it for cash by early April, a diplomatic source here claims. "South Korean intelligence obtained the information from a North Korean agent who defected recently," the source said. "Similar orders were delivered to other North Korean embassies." North Korea has ordered each diplomat to raise US $300,000 to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Each North...

North Korea is expanding its already extensive network of prison camps, eating up entire villages as it struggles to house hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, latest satellite images have revealed. The secretive communist regime has built a huge 'security perimeter' around an existing camp restricting movement in nearby villages as part of its 'general repression' of its people, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said today. The reclusive country's network of political prison camps is believed to hold at least 200,000 people and has been the scene of rapes, torture, executions and slave labour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights...

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman was kicked out of a New York hotel bar on Sunday night — for screaming about how much he loves his “friend” North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Capita list: North Korea approves 28 model socialist hairstyles It's not just nuclear weapons proliferating on the Korean peninsula these days. In a move that for once is not considered a threat to regional and global security, the North Korean government has recommended a relatively generous range of 28 hairstyles for its citizens, claiming that they are "the most comfortable" styles and capable of warding off the corrupting effects of capitalism, according to ifeng.com, a news website run by Hong Kong's Phoenix TV network. Pictures can be seen on the walls of hair salons around the country showing the approved...

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Ending his unexpected round of basketball diplomacy in North Korea on Friday, ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman called leader Kim Jong Un an "awesome guy" and said his father and grandfather were "great leaders." Rodman, the highest-profile American to meet Kim since he inherited power from father Kim Jong Il in 2011, watched a basketball game with the authoritarian leader Thursday and later drank and dined on sushi with him. At Pyongyang's Sunan airport on his way to Beijing, Rodman said it was "amazing" that the North Koreans were "so honest." He added that Kim Jong...

You won't see a North Korean woman sporting the Jennifer Aniston style blow-dry. That is because women are being encouraged to do their bit for the world's most conformist state - by getting a specially approved haircut. The bizarre campaign exhorts women to choose from one of 18 officially sanctioned hairstyles chosen by communist officials eager to clamp down on western influences. And judging by this display on the wall of a salon in the capital of Pyongyang, there are not many styles to choose from. With traditional Korean dress, women generally wear a straight style but with western clothes...

North Korea has just pulled off an impressive dual feat -- the successful test both of an intercontinental ballistic missile and an atom bomb in the 6-kiloton range. Pyongyang's ruler, 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, said the tests are aimed at the United States. So it would seem. One does not build an ICBM to hit Seoul, 30 miles away. Experts believe North Korea is still far from having the capability to marry a nuclear warhead to a missile that could hit the West Coast. But this seems to be Kim's goal. Why is he obsessed with a nation half...

With Christmas now in the rearview mirror, it is perplexing that some far-left bloggers are still bemoaning the fact that Newsweek magazine proclaimed that folks who respect the traditions of the Christmas holiday "won" the battle against secular progressives who want to diminish the birth of Jesus in the public square. Because of that ongoing angst, and because I am still in the Christmas spirit, I offer some travel tips to the anti-Christmas crew in preparation for this December. If you don't like Christmas, book your trip now. North Korea: According to reporting by ForeignPolicy.com, that feisty little country...

It should have been a loud wakeup call in December when North Korea successfully launched a three-stage rocket delivering a payload in orbit around the globe. This event was North Korea's boast that it now has basic intercontinental ballistic missile technology. North Korea's test was a surprise to Americans, to the Obama administration and to Congress because its last couple of tests had been failures. More alarming was the fact that the launch was a surprise to our intelligence community, which didn't know the North Koreans had perfected this technology, and didn't anticipate a launch. There should have been an...

Kim Jong Un is having a good year. After taking over the leadership of North Korea from his late father Kim Jong Il, at the end of 2011, he’s solidified his control over the country, appeared on TIME’s cover and he was even named ‘Sexiest Man Alive.’ (OK, that honor was actually bestowed as a spoof in the satirical newspaper, The Onion, but a Chinese news service mistook the Onion piece for real news and the story went global.) Now, he’s gotten the most votes in TIME’s completely unscientific reader Person of the Year Poll with 5.6 million votes. Not...

Pyongyang, November 29 (KCNA) -- 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 (B.C. 277-A.D. 668). The lair is located 200 meters from the Yongmyong Temple in Moran Hill in Pyongyang City. A rectangular rock carved with words "Unicorn Lair" stands in front of the lair. The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392). Jo Hui Sung, director of the Institute, told KCNA: "Korea's history books deal with the unicorn, considered to...

A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death. Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December. On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

A report indicates Kim Jong Un is taking the reins of North Korea's economy away from the military, reversing the direction in which his father took the country for decades. opportunities with leaders there. As a result, the government in Beijing promised to help North Korea develop two trades zones near the Chinese border.

A changing of the bodyguards for Kim Jong-un South official says North replaced military soldiers with party officials Sept 13,2012 North Korea has replaced the bodyguards of leader Kim Jong-un with ruling party officials, a South Korean government official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday, raising speculation that the power of the communist regime is apparently shifting to the party away from the military. So far, members of the military have worked in the so-called general guard bureau, which is responsible for protecting the leadership. In the past, these well-trained soldiers, indoctrinated with juche (self-reliance) propaganda and accompanying the dear leader...

Kim Jong Un takes charge. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/18/the_inspector_in_chief

Luckily, only citizens can vote and there is a system in place to enforce it. Part of a series of, similar pieces were done with Ahmadinejad (here) and Putin (here)

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh took the stage in North Korea during a concert for new leader Kim Jong Un, in an unusual performance featuring Disney characters. Performers dressed as Minnie Mouse, Tigger and others danced and pranced as footage from “Snow White,” “Dumbo,” “Beauty and the Beast” and other Disney movies played on a massive backdrop, according to still photos shown on state TV. The inclusion of characters popular in the West — particularly from the United States, North Korea’s wartime enemy — is a notable change in direction for performances in Pyongyang. Actors...

The anthem – catchily titled Onwards Toward the Final Victory is part of the propaganda drive to build up the image of the "great successor". Radio and television are airing it several times a day and the score has already been printed in the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

<p>NORTH Korea has publicly executed four refugees who were repatriated by China, a South Korean activist says. China has repatriated 44 people in recent months, said Kim Heung-Kwang, who heads NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based defectors' group.</p>

The news report is HERE:LINK.This is from Japanese TV news today, it reports that the sale occured in August last year (4 mobile transporters used in North Korea's massive military parade showcasing the mobile nature of their ICBM program, including modified Scud, Nodong, etc.). Japan caught wind of this dangerous, nefarious PRC-DPRK deal in October. The United States also came to know this material fact.The sale marks a complete violation of UN embargoes on such material and equipment for export to the DPRK for thier intermediate and long range missile program. Japanese news notes the US kept silent about...

For well more than a decade, Korea experts who specialize in international media have been examining the impact of foreign broadcasts and DVDs on users in North Korea. They have done so through a combination of in-country surveys and debriefings of defectors from North Korea, refugees and travelers abroad. In annual reports, Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders invariably have ranked that country as having the “least free” media in the world. Yet the curtain of near total silence appears to be opening as never before in North Korea. In a landmark study released May 11, “A Quiet Opening,” Nat...

N. Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un (28?) is reported to have hit the ceiling today when he took an "on the spot" guidance tour of the main North Korean amusement park in Pyongyang and saw it in a shoddy condition. It is probably his and his deceased father's ultimate blame, shifting all their cash reserves into meaningless, failed launches, but Mini-Me, Son of Chia Pet, had to have someone to bark at on national TV to rule the roost. The DPRK media is trying to create an image that this little fat so-and-so is somebody not to be messed...

Room 39 manages Kim's funds and directs businesses earning foreign currency through 17 overseas offices and 100 trade firms under its roof. During Kim Jong-il's reign, it made an average of $300-400 million a year. About $100 million came from workers' salaries, $100-200 million from export of weapons, trade in forged currency and drugs, and another $100 million from economic cooperation with South Korea.