Posted on 09/27/2008 9:42:39 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
North Korea in the midst of a mysterious building boom
Who's paying for the major face lift underway in Pyongyang? The impoverished nation says it is, but analysts are skeptical.
By Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 27, 2008
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — It has been so long since the sound has been heard in the North Korean capital that at first it seems an illusion, a buzzing in the ear perhaps. But no, that really is a power saw, and that pounding really is a hammer at work at a construction site.
By the dizzying standards of Asia's exploding mega-cities, the construction here is nothing you could call a real estate boom. But it is a remarkable -- and somewhat mysterious -- development in a city that looks like it was frozen in time, with its Stalinist slabs of concrete from the 1950s and '60s.
Except for the monuments glorifying leader Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, hardly anything new has gone up in decades. By night, the city is so quiet you can hear a baby crying from far across the Taedong River, which cuts through the center of town.
Yet these days, high-rise apartments in shades of pink are taking shape near the Pueblo, the American spy ship captured in 1968 and still anchored in the river. A tangle of construction cranes juts into the skyline near Pothong Gate, a re-creation of the old city wall. About 100,000 units are to be built over the next four years.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
/snip
Expatriate businesspeople in Pyongyang say Kim might also be investing some of his own stash with an eye toward maintaining the loyalty of his Workers' Party cadres. Apartments under construction look to be aimed at the elite.
Even though we do not exactly know who is paying the bill, his makes sense. Kim Jong-il would gladly spend hundreds of millions dollars to get the personality cult going and keep his power, while letting his people starve in millions.
Ping!
Any news on the Norks’ giant robot project?
I remember seeing satellite images of North and South Korea together. The South was party central whereas the North was totally lights out. Quite an endorsement of the free market.
Thanks for the ping.
this makes sense
It’s China or Iran.
They’ve been counterfeiting US money like mad. They’ve probably been counterfeiting everyone else’s cash too. FAPP, the whole “global village” pitched in without even knowing it.
North Korea is Chinas fault and problem.
On Chinas doorstep it is a client state that relies on the chi-coms for everything. Still N.Korea craps on china too.
South Korea doesn’t want reunification cause it would lower their lifestyle trying to bring the North to the souths level of life. Like East Germany only much worse.
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