new blog
Here, for the time being.
formerly banned in Korea
In 2004, 6.5 million people in the DPR Korea - mainly women and children - will continue to need food assistance. At present they are targeting about 6.5 million beneficiaries: children, nursing mothers, and the elderly.Other humanitarian organisations are at work there, including the Red Cross, which claims a staggering 330,000 volunteers and 371,730 Red Cross Youth at the community level, and over a million members in the DPRK.
North Korea has ordered its people to be ready for a protracted war against the United States, issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong Il.In fact, it's the same story that Korea Times was carrying earlier in the day, the same story that is repeated endlessly and thoughtlessly in news services around the world. The headline suggests that N Korea is rattling its sabres, and that this is something new. The detail is entirely different. It's not news (except that somehow the top secret document was "recently obtained by a local daily, the Kyunghyang Shinmun", as Korea Herald points out. And there is hardly anything surprising in a country preparing for siege when it's already been declared as part of the "axis of evil", seeing what's happened in Iraq.
The 33 page Detailed Wartime Guidelines published in South Korea's Kyunghyang newspaper and verified by Seoul, was issued last April, at a time when the communist regime was claiming that it was Washington's next target following the Iraq war.
The manual -- the first such North Korean document made public in the outside world -- was signed by Kim Jong Il in his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Committee of the ruling Workers' Party. That ended speculation over whether Kim has assumed the top military post following the 1994 death of his father, President Kim Il Sung.
Analysts said the guidelines reflected Pyongyang's fear over a possible US military strike amid stalled talks on its nuclear weapons programmes, as well as its campaign to whip up a sense of crisis among its 22 million population, reportedly growing discontent amid economic hardship.
"The United States has cooked up suspicion over our nuclear programs and is escalating an offensive of international pressure to strangle and destroy our republic," the booklet said. "If this tactic doesn't work, it plots to use this nuclear problem as an excuse for armed invasion.
"Kyunghyang did not clarify where it acquired the document classified as "top secret".
Seoul's National Intelligence Service said in a one-sentence statement: "We believe the document reflects North Korea's wartime preparations.
"The manual urged the military to build restaurants, wells, toilets and air purifiers in underground bunkers where government offices and military units will move in if war breaks out.
When North Koreans evacuate to underground facilities, they should make sure that they take the portraits, plaster busts and bronze statues of Kim and his parents so that they can "protect" them in a special room.
The Kim family has ruled North Korea for more than a half century, creating a powerful personality cult. Portraits of Kim and his father hang side-by-side on the walls of every house.
She was so sunbakhada (simple, honest, unspoiled etc.) that she could even have a room prepared in their home if he got to know a nice girl. It actually happened once. At that time a woman couldn’t pack her things and leave (pottari ssaji ank’o), a woman couldn’t make even a sound.Antti's blog is worth reading regularly for the light he sheds on ordinary lives.