CINA

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The incoming S.K. president Lee Myung-bak said last week he will be glad to meet Kim Jong-il, but with preconditions that might make another summit with Kim all but impossible. Because he said also that the next summit has to take place in Seoul... Considering that Kim Jong-il ignored repeated pleas by Kim Dae-jung for a return summit in Seoul, Lee's insistence on a Seoul summit in effect rules out another inter-Korean summit, at least as long as he's president. Well, indeed good prospects for the "new chapter" in the South-North relations, promised by Lee and his gang!! And to make the whole shit worse, the incoming S.K. administration is talking almost daily - for example - about the necessity for a strengthened armament of the S.K. army to fight against the enemy in the north..

For more about the "new era of peace and development" on the Korean Peninsula please read following article, published in Asia Times (HK, 16.1):

Sundown for Seoul's Korean policy?

The imminent takeover of the South Korean government by conservative leadership has resurrected heated debate between neo-conservative and moderates here over whether the decade-long Sunshine policy of reconciliation with North Korea can survive.

 
A corollary question is whether President George W Bush is as anxious now as he was last year in a show of North Korean compliance with its agreement to give up its nuclear weapons - or has he lost interest in North Korea as a chance to burnish a legacy already tarnished in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Much of the debate focuses on the extent to which South Korea's conservative president-elect, Lee Myung-bak, will want to build on the agreements reached in October between outgoing President Roh Moo-Hyun and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il. Conservatives see Lee's pledge of aid for North Korea only after the North has given up its nukes and his promise to raise the previously banned topic of human rights in North Korea as a clear reversal of the Sunshine policy initiated by Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae-jung.

Lee's outlook may become more clear in March, when he considers how to respond to North Korea's annual request for several hundred thousand tons of food and fertilizer. He may waffle on a decision until meeting President George W Bush to coordinate on what to do as long as North Korea balks at revealing details of its nuclear program.

US analysts predict Lee in the end will want to soften his position while pursuing economic projects with North Korea, but tensions may escalate in a time of transition and uncertainty in Korea as well as in the US. Although Korea is hardly mentioned by any candidates for the Republican or Democratic US presidential nominations, North Korea may prefer to wait until the next US president takes office a year from now before going ahead with serious talks.

Lee himself has somewhat confused matters by talking a far tougher game than either former president Kim Dae-jung or Roh, while extending what looks like his own personal olive branch of friendship.

Thus he has promised to strengthen South Korea's defenses, possibly canceling a plan to reduce the size of South Korea's armed forces, while telling South Korean defense officials that such moves "do not mean we will neglect reconciliation between South and North Korea" but "can secure peace and deter a war on the Korean Peninsula when we reinforce our defense".

And he said on Monday he, like his two reconciliation-minded predecessors, will be glad to meet Kim Jong-il, but with preconditions that might make another summit with Kim all but impossible.

For one thing, he said the next summit has to take place in Seoul, rather than Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-il hosted his summits with Kim Dae-jung in June 2000 and again with Roh in October. Considering that Kim Jong-il ignored repeated pleas by Kim Dae-jung for a return summit in Seoul, Lee's insistence on a Seoul summit in effect rules out another inter-Korean summit, at least as long as he's president.

Lee has also added another qualification that's not likely to please Pyongyang, namely that his government will have to review the agreements made between Roh and Kim at the October summit for economic and other forms of cooperation. That whole deal, he said on Monday, was "sealed in principle" but "lacking in details".

Lee's ambivalence is just about as confusing to the US nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, as is that of the Bush administration in Washington. Hill, on a fence-mending mission to the region, said he and Lee had had "a very good discussion", but Hill wants North Korea to come through with an inventory of all its nuclear facilities, as promised in six-party talks, before Lee's inauguration on February 25.

Hill's explanation is that negotiators can then move on to the much more complicated phase of getting North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear programs, including highly enriched uranium, which the North steadfastly denies developing while disabling the Yongbyon facilities for fabricating plutonium for warheads.

Hill himself leaves plenty of room for analysts to interpret his remarks as hardline, even though he has exerted substantial influence over the past two years in getting Bush to soften his policy toward North Korea. As he put it before leaving Washington for Beijing, host of the six-party talks, "We can't have a situation where we pretend programs didn't exist," or "a process that goes forward on the basis of not being honest with each other".

Critics of the Bush administration believe Hill, though given considerable latitude in negotiations, still has to deal with opposing views in his own government. Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, told me at a recent book-signing for her newly published Memo to the President Elect, a compendium of advice for whoever succeeds Bush, that she approved of Hill's efforts to get the North Koreans to live up to their word but believed he was held back by the policies of his government.

That remark reflects the view of Bush's many critics, including Albright, that his "hardline" policy was responsible for the failure of the 1994 Geneva framework agreement and North Korea's revival of its nuclear program at Yongbyon. Critics note, however, that Albright's book overlooks the highly enriched uranium program that led to the breakdown of the Geneva agreement and remains the critical sticking point.

Albright's newly published tome, moreover, betrays doubts about the whole issue of human rights in North Korea that Lee promises to confront. "Your administration should push for progress on human rights," she advises the next US president, but "if we refuse on moral grounds to negotiate with the North Koreans on security matters, we may end up with no improvement on either security or human rights - hardly the outcome you will desire."

Stripped to bare bones, that remark provides the rationale used by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun for ignoring the unpleasant topic of human rights in hopes of bringing North Korea to terms on weapons of mass destruction. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has adopted Albright's philosophy, persuading Bush and others to wait patiently for the North to come around.

Conservatives in both Seoul and Washington worry, however, that moderates will be taken in by the negotiating skills of Kim Jong-il and his underlings. As an example, they cite Albright's own mission to Pyongyang in October 2000 in the waning months of the Clinton administration.

Albright's biggest blunder, they say, was to consent to let Kim Jong-il escort her into May First Stadium for a mass propaganda show. On this occasion, she had to watch as a section of poster holders in the packed stands flipped the cards to portray the test-launch of a long-range Taepodong missile two years earlier.

"In our meetings, Kim and I mixed tough talk about human rights and military intentions with more reflective discussions about the reasons for our lack of mutual trust," she wrote in her memoir. "It became evident to me," she concluded, "that Kim was prepared to trade military concessions for a combination of economic help and security guarantees."

Imagine, then, Albright's disappointment when North Korea, after agreeing in early October, a year after conducting an underground nuclear test, to a timetable for disabling its nuclear complex and itemizing its entire nuclear inventory, failed to come up with the list.

"Frankly, I was surprised," she told me as she signed copies of her books. When I asked her whether she had really believed Kim Jong-il would reveal his nuclear program, she said, "Yes, I did."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JA16Dg01.html

Related articles:

☞ S.K. to equip Aegis destroyer with long-range missiles.. (Yonhap, 20.1) 

☞ S. Korea May Join US-Led Missile Defense Network (K. Times, 20.1)

☞ Lee to spur North Korean reform with incentives (K. Herald, 18.1)

☞ Lee Wants to Meet N. Korean Leader in Seoul (K Times, 14.1)

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For more informations:

☞ 이주탄압분쇄 비대위

☞ 이주노동자 노동조합

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Today People's Media newscham, the - almost only - alternative/independent voice of the S.K. radical left, published following analysis about the current situation (although the original Korean article was published for the first time about two weeks ago)  in the Democratic Labor Party (DLP):

DLP ON THE VERGE OF SPLIT

Dark clouds are cast over the Democratic Labor Party. After the party’s crushing defeat in the presidential election, old strife has grown more intense and is now about to explode. Some members are openly speaking about split of the party, others, however, are insisting on a cooperative spirit, saying that the split will only bring about self-destructive result.

On December 29th, in a central committee meeting the party called to settle the situation, lawmaker Shim Sang-jung had emerged as a relief pitcher to save the party. But the meeting ended to confirm that it is not easy to save the situation. So-called Equality faction (considered as DLP left) demanded right of nominating in the 2008 general election, an entire authority of the party, and purging the party of pro-North Korean hardliners. National liberation front faction, a majority group within the DLP that is not free from the suspicion of pro-North Korean influences, had not the least idea to accept the demand.

The party’s wavering situation has reached its peak and many members have attributed the crushing defeat to the NL faction. So some leftist party members expected them to make a retreat. But the NL faction didn’t move at all.

It is supposed to be hard for them to shed off the acquired rights and negate their own identity. Instead the NL faction has denied the existence of pro-North Korean hardliners and retorted sharply that the Equality faction had also managed the party peremptorily when they got the majority.

DLP’s Regressive, but not Unexpected Steps

Long before the ‘split of the party’ is discussed openly, there have been lots of signs. Some members of the Equality faction have sporadically insisted that they get the whole authority of the party or secede from it. To make matters worse, increasing numbers who feel regret about the party begin to secede. For the first time since the party was created, last November saw net decrease in the number of party members, which means numbers of those who join it have been outrun by who defect.

Some of leftist group accuse the NL faction of following pro-North Korea line and despotism. They argue that the party has basically been hijacked by pro-North Korean members and failed to hold its stance as a true progressive, left-wing party in issues like North Korea’s nuclear test.

To put it concretely, when North Korean nuclear crisis cast a shadow over Korean peninsula last October, several members of the NL faction showed their naked hope that the bombs would be a strong force once unification comes. In 2005, when dispute over possession of a neighboring sea island, Dok-do, between Korea and Japan severely aggravated, the party issued official statementthat insisted development of the island and stationing troops. The statement clearly revealed the faction’s chauvinistic propertyin the name of national liberation front.

In addition to those muddles, there were many other disputes that have shed suspicion over the party’s identity. For example, the party’s chief policymaker, who are under influence of the faction, commented that homosexuality was an indicator of the capitalist corruption. Besides, the party once apologized to the Federation of Korea Trade Union (FKTU) for criticizing it for being sycophant to the government.

DLP’s former lawmaker Cho Sung-su said “The faction has had college students move in districts in which they do not live to make them delegates in order to get a majority.”

Is it really because of pro-North Korea line?

Disgruntled leftist members are bursting their angers into the party’s current regressive steps, but it is uncertain that the party will go through a split immediately.

Pundits point the fact out that pro-North Korea line and despotism as a ground for split just cannot make political sense. While the debate is emerging recently, conflict between the two factions, one focuses on unification of Korea and another on labor movement, however, has a long history that dates back to the creation of the party.

In the first place the party is based on the combine of the two factions, which cannot easily be merged into one party. The shared goal to create the party could mitigate tension between the two.

So the NL faction might contend that they cannot comply with the demand because the opposite faction must have known that the faction had taken such a political platform. This is what makes the Equality faction reluctant to insist on splitting without self-reflection.

Some Equality faction members point out that they have to reproach themselves for lack of capability to keep the NL faction under control. Besides problems related to North Korea, they should have done well in livelihood issues like irregular workers’ problem, which can be easily justified.

The Equality faction cannot blame others but themselves for an attempt to conclude a cooperation agreement on labor policy with the FKTU, which is said to inflict great mischief on labor movement, and joining hands with the Grand National Party in reform of national pension system, only to be betrayed, last spring.

So it is uncertain that the Equality faction can be free from criticism that they are directing all the censures of inability to the despotism of the NL faction.

“It’s not the proper time to spilt”

While voices of splitting get louder, some members refute the argument and insist a reform from the inside. Shim Sang-jung, who is expected to save the party, says “It’s not proper time to say splitting. We should make every effort we can before saying the extreme solution.” negating the claim of split.

For those who want to maintain the party, realistic view works as well as difficulty in justification. Even though the party is in difficult situation, it is the only leftist party that has made it to the parliament. And the Equality faction that is now far from the hegemony of the party has its own supporters, up to half of it. Moreover the faction has popular politicians like Shim Sang-jung and Noh Hoi-chan.

In this situation, it seems hard to break off the party and begin from the outset. Moreover, such ‘star’ politicians as Shim would be careful of shifting her ground.

Some pundits say split cannot be achieved without outside groups that the Equality faction can get help from and share vision with. As long as a vision of building a new party of leftists’ own doesn’t prevail throughout so-called pan-leftists, the leftist faction would not dare to start 'March of Hardship.'

Outside the party there are many leftist political groups, which are in general rarely known to the public, including political party such as the Korea Socialist Party and many political groups like the Power of Working Class. They are dispersed and work individually. They share a lot of values but are in some sense different to each other. Differences in views over building a party especially stand out.

Can the Equality Faction Go Hand in Hand with

It would be harder, pundits say, for the Equality faction to cooperate with pan-leftist groups like the Power of Working Class rather than with pro-North Korea force, but some might see another opportunities.

Choi Kwang-eun, a former spokesperson of the Korea Socialist Party, revealed his personal opinion that he wants(the Equality faction) to show a scheme of reforming the progressive political factions in a clearer form and said “the faction seems to be caught in a split itself, lacking a larger vision of reform.”

And he saw chance of so-called leftist coalition, saying “we are open to an offer of coalition, only if it has meaningful substances of reform, not just for meeting and parting.”

He commented on the subject of pan-leftist coalition, “We are not yet ready to officially discuss it immediately,” and said “a meeting is starting to discuss basic conditions of coalition January.”

He added “We are intended to meet Cho Sung-su, the head of DLP's progressive political think-tank, and Kim Hyung-tak, a former spokesperson as soon as possible.”

If the pan-leftist groups come together, the debate will enter upon a new phase.

“You may feel like in Siberia inside, but it’s much colder outside.”

Last March the President-elect Lee Myung-bak made a wit remark. “You may feel like in Siberia inside, but it’s much colder outside,” said Lee to former Governor of Gyeonggi Province, Sohn Hak-kyu, who was then trying to defect the Grand National Party.

So are the conditions to the Equality faction. A member of the faction said “Splitting the party is not an easy problem, so much as cooperating with outside groups. Even though the debate is growing hot, nothing’s yet been determined.”

Wooing Sohn to go together, the broader ruling camp welcomed the defector. It is obvious that the existence of supporters outside helped Son to decide to defect. Sohn then stated that he was going to make his own way into Siberia in the sphere of politics.

Of course, which way the Equality faction will take is basically on their hands. But the strife over split might be dependent on an external factor, progress of discussion about building a new party, as did Mr. Sohn.

Gang Fight Is Heated. For What the Fight Is?

Not only to DLP but also to many progressives, hegemony has had significant meaning. Everyone says it should be stopped, but nobody’s free from it. Politics, without sophisticated words of ornament, is a ‘gang fight.’ A fight without sword and gun. Despotism clearly shows the darker side of it.

What matters is for what the fight is. Issues the party now adheres on are somewhat like those of conservative parties. One of them is strife for party hegemony and another is political attack of following North Korean line. In words of conservatives, right of nominating and pro-North Korea. It’s up to party members at large to make judgment whether these issues can justify splitting.

It is sure that the fight should become more intensive and the subject of it reconstituted to be more radical. The debate should go on not for winning party hegemony and talking scandal of following North Korean line, which the Chosun Ilbo, a far-rightist daily paper, has acknowledged..

The party is embroiled in the biggest crisis, the public, ironically enough, however, is paying more attention than ever. The party should take the crisis as opportunity of presenting a clear identity of the progressive party to the public.

http://www.newscham.net/news/view.php?board=news_E&nid=45962

Related contributions:

☞ DLP.. #3

☞ DLP.. #2

☞ DLP.. #1

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About the latest developments in the DLP today's Korea Times is reporting following:

Progressive(*) Labor Party Seeks Image Makeup

The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) will seek to break its Pyongyang-friendly image as part of efforts to end an internal feud, the head of the party's emergency committee said Monday.

Rep. Sim Sang-jeung, who temporarily leads the party after its leaders resigned en masse to take responsibility for the party's defeat in December's presidential election, stressed that she will also try to revamp the DLP.

``I will reform obsolete factors in the party without any exception and accept criticisms from the public to renew the DLP,'' Sim told a press conference at the National Assembly. ``The party will also stand as a responsible, peace-seeking party breaking the image of being pro-North Korea.''

Sim added that the party will become a progressive one for all the people as well as workers while keeping its distance from the unions on which the party used to depend.

The left-leaning party has suffered an internal feud following its defeat in the Dec. 19 presidential election.

Its candidate Kwon Young-ghil got only three percent of the vote, even lower than his standing in the 2002 election, and also that of independent runner Lee Hoi-chang and underdog Moon Kook-hyun.

Taking responsibility for the defeat, party leaders stepped down on Dec. 29 and the party launched the emergency committee to lead the party until new leaders are picked.

However, two major factions in the party are still blaming each other for the election result.

A faction called the equalitarian group which is more concentrated on labor issues criticized the larger faction, called the independence group, for its biased political leaning cornering the party into crisis.

The mainstream group, which takes a more critical stance toward the United States and is favorable toward North Korea, on the other hand, slammed the opponents, saying its groundless claim is disrupting the party.

As the feud gets deeper, rumors have it that either of the two groups may leave the DLP.

Sim, on whom party members lay hope for party unity, said she will seek to adjust the party platform on the North Korea issue and unification as well as end the factional feud...

 
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/01/113_17269.html

* "progressive.."??? hmmm~ very doubtful!!

Related stuff:

☞ DLP.. #1

☞ DLP.. #2

☞ ‘진보신당’ 논의 수면 위로

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Today, 40 days ago, MTU's current leading collective and their Korean supporters - the Emergency Committee Against the Suppression of MTU - started the ongoing sit-in (strike).

Until last Thursday (1.10) the sit-in place was located in the headquarter of the Korean Council of Churches (KNCC), but one day later (Friday/D.38 of the sit-in) they moved to KCTU's (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) headquarter in Yoengdeungpo (well, I hope that we'll see as soon as possible something officially about it from MTU in English..!!!).

For more informations in Korean, please read:

☞ 민주노총 1층으로 농성장으로 옮겼습니다

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Today K. Times published in its latest edition following article:

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CAPITALISM KILLS!!

Last Monday (1.07) 40 construction workers were killed and at least 17 injured during a devastating  fire in a warehouse owned by the logistics company "Korea 2000" in Icheon, an industrial city south of Seoul (Gyeonggi-do/province).

The fire was caused, according the daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo (1.09), by the lack of security precautions. An investigator assumed that the workers were forced to work in a "in a room filled with volatile gases."

 
So it seems that - once again - workers in S.K. were sacrificed for the capitalists' efforts to minimize (necessary) expenditures, particularly for the safety of their employees/workers - just to maximize the profit.

And today - 'only'(!!) three days after the Icheon Fire Inferno - the S.K. (bourgeois) media realized and reported about the fact that at least 13 of the killed people were migrant workers, mainly from China...

Related articles:

☞ Korean Dream Dies in Blaze (Korea Herald)

☞ Warehouse Fire Highlights Plight of Foreign Workers (K. Times)

☞ Icheon Blaze Warehouse ‘Ignored Safety Rules’ (Chosun Ilbo)

☞ 이천 화재참사와 이명박식 자본만능주의 (KCTU)

☞ 이천 냉동창고 화재참사.. (민주노총/경기본부, 1.08)

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First of all: It seems that MTU and our supporters changed the day of the weekly Candle Light Rally in front of Kyobo Book Store (near Gwanghwa-mun) from Friday to Thursday:

For more informations (incl. almost daily news about the Sit-in) please check out:

☞ 이주탄압분쇄 비대위

Secondly: MTU published two days ago following..

.."Letter from Suwash, Hwaseong Detention Center":

To all my MTU Comrades...

..and all of those comrades are struggling in solidarity with MTU, I greet you with an expression of struggle and warm comradeship...

Korea is very advanced in terms of science and technology, but it is very backwards in terms of humanity and the rights of people. Because I have come from a poor country I have been met with violence and abuse, arrested by the police and treated like an animal. Injured while working and then forced to leave the country without compensation- where is the human rights in this situation?

Brokers make various excuses in order to bring women from the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries to South Korea. 25-year-old women are forced to marry men who are their fathers' ages. These days, there are many television programs about some of these women who meet their families after two or three years of being married in Korea. These programs tell the story as if South Korea is treating these women very well. However, they don't tell how difficult those two or three years are. Of course, the women on the programs are grateful to the t.v. station for giving them the chance to meet their parents and relatives again; however because they do not show the reality of the suffering and tears that these women live with, this programs have to take some responsibility for the increase in the number of marriage-immigrants. If the television programs showed the hardship and difficulties of these women it would become an international disgrace. Therefore the shows hide the reality and are only self-congratulatory.

I think you all know what it is like here in Hwaseong Detention Center and what kind of place this is. However, just to tell you, about 95% of the comrades here have been imprisoned for 7-8 months because they have not been paid their wages. The other 5% are here for different reasons. To use a Nepalese saying, the human rights in this country are like a fox wearing a tiger mask: the surface is entirely different from what is inside.

The South Korean government says it is good to migrant workers in terms of human rights, but in reality the only think left to us is the name 'migrant worker'. Finally, I would like to ask for the many allies in other countries, please show a lot of attention and solidarity to the migrant workers movement and the movement for workers' human rights here in South Korea.

I think it is my misfortune that I became a migrant worker. However you look at it, I have experience a great deal of suffering and sadness as a migrant. Even though I have suffered a lot, I have now been struggling for close to 6 or 7 months inside this detention center so that other migrant workers will not experience the same thing. I do not see this as my individual struggle, but rather as something necessary so that others will not suffer in the future; thus I will continue to fight. I believe that if there were some 1000 others who felt just like us and were struggling along side us we would be able to win our demands.

Struggle is the only choice for our victory.

One more time I would like to greet you, my beloved MTU comrades with a message of struggle and tell you not to loose hope. I resolve before you to struggle until my very last movement and very last breath.

We are labor! We are labor!

Labor rights! Labor rights!

Toojeng! Toojeng!

With great love and affection from inside Hwaseong Detention Center

Suwash Budathoki
December 11, 2007

http://migrant.nodong.net/bbs/view.php?id=news_notice&no=303

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"DPR"K's media, such as Rodong Shinmun, Joseon Inmin-gun etc, exactly one week ago released the joint editorial called "Glorify This Year of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the DPRK as a Year of Historical Turn Which Will Go Down in the History of the Country" on the occasion of the New Year, Juche 97 (aka "2008").

Following just some of the "most important" contents of the editorial:

Our cause of building a great, prosperous and powerful country which made a vigorous advance under the leadership of the great Workers' Party of Korea has entered a new historical stage. At present, when a bright morning is breaking in this land dignified for Songun to promise prosperity, our soldiers and people are full of pride in being victors and of militant mettle, and the whole country is seething with an unprecedented spirit of creation and advance...

Last year Juche 96 (2007), a year of proud victories, the great vitality of our Party's Songun-based revolutionary line was fully testified and a great advance was made in building a thriving country...

By commemorating the 95th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army in a grand way, we demonstrated to the full the unshakable faith of our Party and people to complete the revolutionary cause of Juche pioneered on Mt. Paektu and the might of the army which has been prepared as an invincible, elite force. The road we are taking is the road of Juche, the road of Songun, opened by Kim Il Sung; the objective of our advance is a great, prosperous and powerful socialist country; and our might is the single-minded unity of the soldiers and people rallied around the Party...

The proud victories and successes we achieved last year in the political, military, economic, cultural, diplomatic and all other realms are brilliant fruition of Kim Jong Il's outstanding strategy and tactics, his iron will and his tireless leadership...

The New Year Juche 97 is a year of gigantic struggle, a year of jubilation in the national history, when a great change will be brought about in the history of our country and our revolution...

Under the slogan of "Defend the leadership of the revolution headed by the great Comrade Kim Jong Il at the cost of our lives!" the KPA should intensify the campaign to win the title of O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment so as to demonstrate the might of the strong revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu fully prepared as the ranks of human bullets and bombs guarding the leader at the risk of their lives...

The basic way to win victory in the general offensive for the building of a great, prosperous and powerful country is to regard the exploits of our Party in the Songun leadership as guidelines and do everything the way Kim Jong Il does...

Young people are the reliable successors to our Party's Songun revolutionary cause and the most vital combat unit in socialist construction. Youth league organizations should put primary effort to ideological education to thoroughly prepare young people as youth heroes and human bullets and bombs in the Songun era who will defend the headquarters of the revolution at the cost of their lives...

And last but not least:
In 2012 we will greet the 100th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung. It was his lifetime wish and cause to build a great, prosperous and powerful socialist country on this land, a country in which the national power is strong, everything thrives and the people live envying nothing in the world...

But despite of "DPR"K's prospect(^^) of a "great, prosperous and powerful country" - at least until 2012 - already today the int'l media, here for example Asia Times (HK), must ask for "A chance for change in North Korea". It seems that never they can/will learn the truth/accept the reality(^^)!!??

Related stuff:

☞ New Year Editorial of Leading Newspapers in DPRK

☞ 공화국창건 60돐을 맞는 올해를 조국청사에 아로새겨질 력사적전환의 해로 빛내이자

☞ Pyongyang City Mass Rally Held (KCNA, 01.05)

☞ Revolutionary Slogan for Present General Offensive (KCNA, 01.08)