N. Korean leader reportedly pardons U.S. journalists

Source: CNN

North Korean President Kim Jong Il has pardoned and ordered the release of two U.S. journalists, state-run news agency KCNA said Wednesday.

The announcement came after former U.S. President Bill Clinton met with top North Korean officials in Pyongyang to appeal for the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had been arrested while reporting from the border between North Korea and China.

"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it," the news agency reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

.....more

What a strange place North Korea is. There is absolutely no laws there at all. Looking at this from a neutral point of view, the two journalists are either guilty or not guilty right? How is it that they can be guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison one minute and then because Bubba pays them a visit, they are now free! And that's all it took? Bill Clinton flys into the country, takes a few pictures and North Korea lets them go? I thought it would be much more difficult?

Two journalists = 1 photo-op :)


So strange. If I went and did something crazy, I'm not sure my Prime Minister could get me pardoned even though I live in his riding and I am his friend *wink wink wink*

As happy as I am that the journalists are free, this is not good precedence. Now North Korea can do anything they want (like arrest people) and the US will have make a deal each time!

So happens now? Does the US play nice to get a couple of journalists out and then go back to being tough? We'll see.

----

All the jokes are coming out now, like:

When Bill Clinton wants to bring home two women at the same time, not even North Korea can stop him! :D

N.Korea's 1st Fast-Food Restaurant Opens

Source: Chosun Ilbo

North Korea's first fast-food restaurant selling hamburgers and waffles has opened in the center of Pyongyang. Although there are hamburger joints in North Korea, this is the first full-fledged franchise-style fast-food restaurant there.

The Choson Sinbo, a Pyongyang mouthpiece in Japan, last Saturday reported the fast-food restaurant opened at the Kumsong Intersection in Pyongyang early last month and plans to open a branch in downtown Pyongyang in the near future.

According to the newspaper, the restaurant has an "affiliation with a Singaporean company specializing in waffle joints." The Singaporean company supplies only the facilities, while the local operation hires staff and supplies raw materials.

"Before the restaurant opened, staff were trained on cooking and service techniques by a staffer dispatched from the Singaporean company, but it developed food with new flavors after repeated tasting and sampling," the newspaper wrote.

The menu lists chiefly hamburger and waffles plus various carbonated drinks and Kumgang draft beer.

Food prices were fixed "at an affordable level," it said. A hamburger and bun is 190 North Korean won and a mug of Kumgang draft beer 76 won. The average monthly pay of ordinary North Korean workers is reportedly about 3,000 won. The price of each hamburger is similar to that of 100 g of rice (about 200 won) in North Korea and much cheaper than a piece of illegally imported South Korean choco pie (500 won).

Sounds good. I'd like to try it. If they ever let me into North Korea! The more business in North Korea the better :)

The North Korean Beer Commercial

Source: BBC

Communist North Korea has embraced an eminently capitalist concept by airing on state TV what is likely to be its first beer commercial.

The advert, aired on Thursday, said that Taedonggang beer, with a unique scent and fresh taste, will help them ease stress and lead healthy lives because it is has been made with the finest ingredients under strict scientific conditions.

A 3 minute commercial! Do you want North Korean Beer Now?


Youtube Link

North Korea Qualify for 2010 World Cup

Source: FIFA

Korea DPR will return to the FIFA World Cup™ next year for the first time since 1966. Kim Jong Hun's side sealed their second trip to the global finals with a goalless draw in Saudi Arabia, who finished third in Group 2 and will now go into an Asian Zone play-off from which the winners will face New Zealand for a place at South Africa 2010.

The Saudis' opponents will be Bahrain, who beat Uzbekistan 1-0 at home to claim third place in Group 1. However, there was agony for Iran, whose hopes of a fourth FIFA World Cup appearance ended in a 1-1 draw with the already-qualified Korea Republic.

.....more

North Koreans are back in the World Cup! The last and only time they were in the World Cup in 1996 in England they shocked the world by knocking out Italy in the gorup stages and took a 3-0 lead in 20 minutes against Portugal in the quarterfinals only to lose 5-3.

North Korea joins neighbours South Korea, Australia and Japan as the four automatics Asian qualifiers.

Here's are the highlights of today's match. North Korea survived wave after wave of attacks and held on for the draw they needed to qualify.


Youtube Link

There was a documentary called The Game of Their Lives about that 1966 team.


Youtube Link

Reporters 'admit' N Korea entry

Source: BBC

Two US journalists who were jailed last week in North Korea have admitted entering the country illegally, according to state news agency KCNA.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee "admitted and accepted" their sentences, KCNA said.

The two women were given jail terms of 12 years' hard labour, after being found guilty of crossing into North Korea from the Chinese border in March.

KCNA also said they had admitted getting footage for a "smear campaign" about North Korea's human rights.

The women's families have always claimed that Lee, 36, and Ling, 32, had no intention of crossing into North Korea.

They fear the two reporters may become political pawns in negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, amid growing tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme and recent missile tests.

.....more

Not much argument anymore now is there? Two people illegally going into a country where everything in censored in order to run a smear campaign? What was this TV station trying to prove putting two reporters lives in jeopardy for a story that no one really cares about. Did they think this was ground-breaking journalism that would win some award? Countless South Korea, Chinese and Japanese citizens have been kidnapped without a trace. Nothing their governments could do about it. Those families just suffer.

If you or I run into North Korea, would the Canadian government save our ass? Just because they're reporters doesn't make them anymore important and the US is going to compromise their entire North Korea stretegy to save them.

Enough with the cries that they were kidnapped. They were not. They were arrested under the law, however asinine that law is. They're as good as dead. I do feel for them and their families. They just happened to be working for a moron, such is life. It about time the media got a wake up call and figure out they have to be very careful and can't be sticking there nose where it's not wanted.

North Korean Women Who Flee to China Suffer

Source: Washington Post

For North Korean women who run off to China, rules are rigged on both sides of the border.

North Korea regards them as criminals for leaving. China refuses to recognize them as refugees, sending many back to face interrogation, hard labor and sometimes torture. Others stay on in stateless limbo, sold by brokers to Chinese men in need of fertile women and live-in labor.

Bang Mi Sun, a former actress in North Korea, lived the worst of both worlds. After crossing into China in 2002, she was separated from her two children and sold into marriage to three men. She managed to get away from all three. When she ran for the third time, Chinese police arrested her and sent her back to North Korea, where a police beating mangled her left leg. Permanently maimed, she was sent to a labor camp for reeducation.

"I had to live the life of an animal," said Bang, who fled the North for a second time in 2004 and found her way to South Korea. "If I had a chance to meet with President Obama, I would first like to tell him how North Korean women are being sold like livestock in China and, second, to know that North Korean labor camps are hell on earth."

.....more

OMG! That's an actress. You see how actresses are treated here? Actresses there are starved to death and must flee.

How worse can it get then to run from one communist country, where you go hungry, to another communist country, where they sell you to the bazillion men that they have.

I can't think of a worse scenario. Communism continues to show it's evil. What other ideology would send people climbing over walls, sailing on oceans and running across borders. Flee to China? I think I'd rather get on a little raft and float into the ocean off the North Korean border. I've got a better chance of getting picked up by a Western fleet than surviving China! And if I get shot or torpedoed, all the better.

Journalists sentenced to twelve years of hard labor camps

Source: Reuters

North Korea, facing U.N. sanctions for last month's nuclear test, on Monday raised the stakes in its growing confrontation with Washington by jailing two U.S. journalists to 12 years hard labor for "grave crime."

The sentence follows U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's warning on Sunday the United States was considering putting the North back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism, which would further isolate the impoverished country.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV, were arrested in March working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. The trial for the two, working for the media outlet founded by former Vice President Al Gore, opened on Thursday.

"The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor," the official KCNA news agency said in a brief dispatch.

The harsh sentence is certain to deepen the chill in relations with the United States which has been trying for years, with scant success, to convince North Korea to give up its dreams of becoming a nuclear weapons power.

I was expecting death. The government of North Korea is no joking matter and people who wanted to play nice with them and be their friends and support their policies, this is what their policies are. For those of you who feel this is an injustice, it isn't. It's an injustice to us because we are fortunate to be able to live in a free society. I've escaped communism, this is their normal way of dealing with things. I know there's an immediate outcry that this is wrong. But let's step back and look at the facts.

I'm curious why journalists feel the need to go onsite when doing their reporting when the report is not at all relevant to Current TV. What was this report about? Especially when the journalists are American and the country is North Korea. Why did they feel the need to go to the North Korean border? If it was investigative journalism, maybe they should have realized it wasn't the safest place to be, especially without official military backing. Major new organizations always need passes and credentials to enter any country. Different countries have difference laws, what are you going to do? Argue with them?

Not saying they deserve what happened to them but it was very poor decision-making on their producer's part. Hell, if they did cross into North Korean territory, you can't even claim North Korea is doing anything wrong. There are journalists legally entering North Korea all the time, and secretly snooping around a bit. I've seen the documentaries that gets sneaked out. CBC has reporters there all the time. That's the proper way to do it. In this case, you more or less forfeit your rights to freedom by waltzing in, like these two did. It was a huge mistake.

I feel for them but there isn't much the US can do. They can't be protecting every Tom, Dick and Harry who goes running into all these different countries without permits. And to be frank, these are two small-time unknown reports. It's not like they caught Katie Couric which would really get America all riled up. Of course CBS would never do something this stupid.

Hopefully the North Korea will use the women as a bargaining chip and the government can get them out with just a little food and supplies. Otherwise, there's no way to save them :(

UN Security Council condemns NKorea nuke test

Source: Yahoo!

The U.N. Security Council swiftly condemned North Korea's nuclear test on Monday as "a clear violation" of a 2006 resolution and said it will start work immediately on another one that could result in new sanctions against the reclusive nation.

Hours after North Korea defiantly conducted its second test, its closest allies China and Russia joined Western powers and representatives from the rest of the world on the council to voice strong opposition to the underground explosion.

After a brief emergency meeting held at Japan's request, the council demanded that North Korea abide by two previous resolutions, which among other things called for Pyongyang to abandon all nuclear weapons and return to six-party talks aimed at eliminating its nuclear program.

It also called on all other U.N. member states to abide by sanctions imposed on the North, including embargoes on arms and material that could be used in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and ship searches for banned weapons.

.....more

I think the UN is serious this time. Instead of just empty-gestures and blanket statements, the UN will produce a very strong-worded letter to Kim Yong-Il telling him what will happen if he continues to defy the UN over and over again.