All girls military band
Here’s a not-so-surprising item about differences in sexes between North and South.
In a bit of a cynical nutshell:
All I know is that NK girls look hot in their military skirts…
Concert Hall fountain overlooking the "Dear Leader"
The plan was to play beautiful music where marvelous football was played some 42 years ago. But, the bankers wouldn’t have it - spoilsports. The Straits Times is reporting that due to concerns about venues and financing, a tour by the North Korean state symphony, scheduled for this month, will be postponed until 2009.
The planned concert was to be held in Middlesbrough, UK. Middlesbrough is noteworthly to North Koreans as this small town of 140,000 residents bonded with and cheered on the underdog North Korean football team to a stunning victory over the highly favored team from Italy during the first round of the 1966 Word Cup.
Earlier in the year, after a wave of good feelings that followed the New York Philharmonic’s visit to Pyongyang in Februrary, there were hopes of a reciprocal tour by the Noth Korean state symphony to the United States. However, hopes faded fast as the political climate in the US cooled due to on-going difficulties during the 6-party nuclear disarmament talks.
Rural village in the country side
“A new agreement with the government now gives the WFP ‘the best access and working conditions’ it has ever enjoyed, (Tony) Banbury said, allowing the agency to deploy more foreign staff than ever before. For the first time, the WFP is using Korean speakers and more monitors outside the capital.”
According to a variety of our in-country sources and news reports, we can confirm that the World Food Program (WFP) is having unprecedented access in North Korea.
Although the WFP has to let the North Korean government know about the monitoring plan on a weekly basis, the organization seems confident that the daily monitoring spot checks are meaningful and accurate.
This type of monitoring is important as the proposed plan from WFP is extremely large (and expensive) as it tries to reach 6.3 million people and will cost more than $500 million over the next year.
“More than 4,500 people have been exposed as spies for the North since the peninsula was divided in 1948″, officials at the South Korean Defence Security Command said.
Whether warranted or not, there’s anxiety in South Korea of more possible North Korean spies in their midst. North Korean defectors already having a difficult time adjusting to life in the South have yet another headache to worry about as businesses, employers and friends become more cautious.
There are more than 14,000 North Koreans who have resettled in the South after the Korean War. Additionally, there are more than 2,500 North Korean refugees who have left for other host countries.
But, North Korean refugees that have already been granted legal residence in South Korea apparently are not allowed to seek asylum in other western countries.
As for the South Korean Military, they seem to be following up on 50 spy suspects and 170 leftist forces of their own. Times like this, you also have to beware of McCarthyism.
North Korea accused US and South Korea of engaging in “aggressive” spy flights.
We know US and SK perform routine spy flights, so there’s not much new news here.
But, what’s interesting to me is that they called out 110 were from the US and 70 were from South Korea. I wonder how they know? Trajectories? Aircraft types?
It seems to be the 10th anniversary of the test-firing of a Taepodong-1 which DPRK claims is a satellite rocket launch platform. Here’s the text of the official radio broadcast.
Despite claims of success in the broadcast text, on September 1, 1998, the rocket launch apparently failed and the satellite called Kwangmyŏngsŏng (”Bright Light Star”) has never been seen in orbit.
The satellite appears to have been a clone of a circa 1970 Chinese Dong Fang Hong 1 satellite. Which itself was a clone of a circa 1962 US Telstar satellite.
The launch platform was a Taepodong-1, which is a heavily modified three stage SCUD-based missile.
Oops. Did someone leave out the part about “verification” when they signed the agreements at the 6-party talks?
In hindsight, it turned out to be an important point missed. Or, more likely, it appears to have been optimistically glossed over with promises that it will be negotiated later. It seems to have been a hasty decision made to help keep the negotiations moving forward.
That wiggle room left the North Koreans with a spin that the US didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. The North Koreans angrily stating they will not allow a “house search” as in Iraq.
But, isn’t a house search part and parcel of a disarmament deal? Accountability and verification needs to be part of the process.
There’s blame on the US side as well. This deal was negotiated and signed, but when the hawks and conservatives thought the White House was giving away the farm, they reneged on their end of the deal.
