409개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Well, I already wrote almost one month ago about 'Noko'(Made in DPRK) - a f*cking great idea to make some easy money by exploiting N. Korean female workers...
Now, a few days ago (1.08) the bourgeois German magazine Der Spiegel published the...
The Real Story Behind North Korean Jeans
(Dictatorship Denim)
It was an idea born out of a late night of drinking, but it quickly became reality. Three Swedish men have established a line of jeans made in North Korea and sold in Stockholm. But they weren't prepared for the criticism their pants have produced.
They were three young, hung-over Swedish men who had been out drinking the night before to drown their sorrows -- and they had an idea. They sent an e-mail to North Korea. The subject line read: "Investing in the Democratic People's Republic." More than two years later, a shipment of 1,100 designer jeans arrived in Stockholm. There were two models -- "Kara," a slim fit, and "Oke," a loose fit -- and they were made in Pyongyang.
This is the story of an experiment. How does one gain access to one of the most sealed-off countries in the world? In the digital age, North Korea is the last remaining bit of terra incognita in the Worldwide Web. Whereas Jakob Ohlsson, 23, Tor Rauden Källstigen, 24 and Jacob Aström, 25, spend a lot of time online, and they are never without their laptops.
On that July 20, 2007, the three Swedes were skimming North Korea's "official Web page" and discovered a new button, titled "Business." After only two mouse clicks, they found themselves looking at a list of possible North Korean export goods: cosmetics, trucks, marble, weapons, mineral water, fire extinguishers and -- jeans. They wrote to the contact address, claiming that they were import-export managers for a fictitious company, and they waited. Less than 24 hours later, a friendly Mr. Sapmak wrote back and thanked them for their interest. It was the beginning of "Noko Jeans."
Aura of Credibility
In November 2007, the three Swedes made their first telephone call to the North Korean Embassy in Stockholm. Ohlsson said: "I'm calling from Stockholm." The embassy spokesperson replied: "That's nearby. We also live in Stockholm." Ohlsson: "We have started this company…" Embassy spokesperson: "It'll be Christmas soon." Otherwise, the North Koreans promised the Swedes whatever support they could provide. The three Swedes brought along Ohlsson's father, a suit-wearing dentist, to their first meeting to add an aura of credibility.
In December 2007, they gave a North Korean delegation two sample pairs of jeans, including a used pair owned by one of the three Swedes, for inspection at a textile factory in Pyongyang. In the spring of 2008, they sent the North Korean Embassy a wish list for their upcoming trip to the North Korean capital: a visit to a computer center, meetings with ordinary young people in Pyongyang and "mass games," a North Korean specialty which sees huge numbers of performers take part in highly choreographed spectacles.
The embassy replied with its own agenda, which included visits to the mausoleum of the "Great Leader," former President Kim Il-sung, a statue of the Great Leader and the Great Leader's collection of gifts from foreign dignitaries, including a bear's head from former Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, a crocodile leather suitcase from former Cuban President Fidel Castro, and a bulletproof limousine from former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
'Night in Pyongyang'
On July 27, 2008, when the Swedes arrived in Pyongyang on a train from Beijing, their minders met them at the station: Mr. Dong, Ms. Lee and a man who was introduced as "Mr. Driver." They spent their first evening together in the karaoke bar at the Koryo Hotel, which would later serve as the inspiration for the names they gave their two models (Kara and Oke).
At the bar, the Swedes and their hosts alternated between singing North Korean marching songs and Beatles songs, and the evening ended with a joint version of "Night in Pyongyang," a ballad often played on the state-owned radio network. The Swedes were familiar with the song from the Internet.
They spent the next 10 days visiting textile factories, but without success. They did manage to fit in a trip to the terrarium at the Pyongyang zoo, to which a Swedish TV star had once donated used equipment and a few wild animals. The three Swedes thought that even the crocodiles looked sad.
On their last day in North Korea, they finally met the director of a mining operation that included both a zinc processing and a textile division. The deal was sealed with a handshake, a group photo and Swedish vodka. They decided on black jeans. The Swedes had discovered that the North Koreans were hesitant to produce blue jeans, apparently because they were perceived as an American symbol. On the other hand, the director was very interested in the possibility of the young foreigners perhaps creating a Web page for his business.
A year later, in the summer of 2009, the Swedes, who worked for a marketing company, returned to North Korea to ensure that the North Korean women who worked in the factory, wearing red work coats and red caps, were sewing correctly. They were, but unfortunately they were missing the buttons, which had become stuck somewhere en route from Pakistan to Pyongyang.
So Tremendously Complex
On Nov. 11, 2009, the jeans finally arrived in Stockholm, but then the experiment turned into a problem. The department store where the Swedes had planned to sell their Noko Jeans from North Korea refused to cooperate, claiming that it didn't want to become involved in politics.
A public debate erupted in Sweden over whether it was ethically permissible to produce jeans in a dictatorship that confines its own people to labor camps and threatens the world with nuclear weapons.
The three Swedes have since become more cautious about the things they say. "We don't believe in isolation," they say. "We believe that any outside influence can only be a good thing for such a country." And they say: "We aren't a fan club for North Korean policy." They say that they saw the human beings behind the mass games, and that they made friends in North Korea, including Ms. Lee. They say that everything is so tremendously complex.
But this is also a story of self promotion. The Swedish trio has just opened their own shop in Stockholm -- which includes both jeans and a museum of North Korea. They seem to have learned all about propaganda in Pyongyang.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,670826,00.html
From yesterday's KCNA:
DPRK Proposes to Start of Peace Talks
The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued Monday the following statement:
A year has gone by while the process for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is standing at the crossroads due to serious challenges to it.
The denuclearization of the Peninsula is the goal of the policy consistently pursued by the Government of the Republic with a view to contributing to peace and security in Northeast Asia and the denuclearization of the world.
It was thanks to the sincere and exhaustive efforts of the Government of the Republic that dialogues had taken place for the denuclearization of the Peninsula since the 1990s and, in this course, such important bilateral and multilateral agreements as the "DPRK-US Agreed Framework" and the September 19 Joint Statement were adopted.
The implementation of all the agreements, however, stopped half way or was overturned. Since then the nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula has not been decreased, but on the contrary it has further increased and, consequently, even nuclear deterrent came into being.
The course of the six-party talks which witnessed repeated frustrations and failures proves that the issue can never be settled without confidence among the parties concerned. Still today the talks remain blocked by the barrier of distrust called sanctions against the DPRK.
It is our conclusion that it is necessary to pay primary attention to building confidence between the DPRK and the United States, the parties chiefly responsible for the nuclear issue, in order to bring back the process for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula on track.
If confidence is to be built between the DPRK and the US, it is essential to conclude a peace treaty for terminating the state of war, a root cause of the hostile relations, to begin with.
When the parties are in the state of war where they level guns at each other, distrust in the other party can never be wiped out and the talks themselves can never make smooth progress, much less realizing the denuclearization. Without settling such essential and fundamental issue as war and peace no agreement can escape from frustration and failure as now.
The peace treaty by nature should have been already concluded in the light of its intrinsic necessity, regardless of the nuclear issue. Had durable peace regime been established on the Korean Peninsula long ago, the nuclear issue would have not surfaced.
Now that the issue of concluding the peace treaty is mentioned in the September 19 Joint Statement, too, it is good to move up the order of action as required by practice in the light of the lesson drawn from the failure of the six-party talks.
The conclusion of the peace treaty will help terminate the hostile relations between the DPRK and the US and positively promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula at a rapid tempo.
Upon authorization, the DPRK Foreign Ministry courteously proposes to the parties to the Armistice Agreement an early start of the talks for replacing the AA by the peace treaty this year which marks the lapse of 60 years since the outbreak of the Korean War.
The above-said talks may be held either at a separate forum as laid down in the September 19 Joint Statement or in the framework of the six-party talks for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula like the DPRK-US talks now under way in view of their nature and significance.
The removal of the barrier of such discrimination and distrust as sanctions may soon lead to the opening of the six-party talks.
If the parties to the AA sincerely hope for peace and security and the denuclearization of the Peninsula, they should no longer prioritize their interests but make a bold decision to deal with the fundamental issue without delay.
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201001/news11/20100111-03ee.html
Related articles:
☞ US rebuffs N Korea peace pact call (al-Jazeera, 1.12)
☞ No Peace Treaty Before Nuclear Disarmament for N.K. (Chosun Ilbo, 1.12)
☞ Military keeping close tabs on N.K. movement (K. Herald, 1.13)
☞ Pyongyang gets a piece of US's mind (A. Times, 1.13)
'강성대국 그날이 눈앞에 다가온다'
While the entire D.P.R.K. descends into icy winter chaos and the "ordinary" people are suffering right now more than ever(*) KWP's propaganda dept. has released new posters - related to the 2010 New Year’s Statement / 주체99년 새해공동사설(**) - promulgating the "good news":
Translation:
1. 'A decisive change in the people’s lives!'
2. 'The day of the strong and prosperous state is just around the corner,' with, at the bottom, 'Everyone going forward to accomplish the New Year’s Statement’s tasks!'
3. 'The 65th anniversary of the founding of the Party,' with, along the bottom, 'Let’s create a noteworthy year in the history of the construction of the strong and prosperous state!'
* Yesterday's temperatures, e.g. in Hyesan: below -30 °C!
And there is no winter road clearance, heating fuel is rare, but power blackouts are common, (since late Nov., the beginning of the "currency reform") the price of rice is increasing almost daily...
** Related articles:
☞ N.K.’s New Year’s editorial on peace and the economy (Hankyoreh)
☞ New Year's Statement Just Words (Daily NK)
A 28-year-old American Christian missionary (yeah, we already know that they're f*cking stupid...!!), claiming God showed him a vision of North Korea's liberation and redemption, has entered on Christmas Day the D.P.R.K. to urge Kim Jong-il to repent, int'l and S.K. media reported y'day.
R. Park, a U.S. citizen of Korean ancestry, crossed the frozen Tumen River from China, shouting "I am an American citizen! I brought God's love..." and walked into the North without permission(of course!!), they said.
And the dumbass carried a 'personal letter' for the "Dear Leader":
To Mr. Kim Jong Il
I proclaim Christ’s love and forgiveness towards you today. God promises mercy and clemency for those who repent. He promises forgiveness for every sin and re-birth through the Holy Spirit for those who believe Christ died for the atonement of all their sins, as a sacrifice from God, given in love. HE is the true and living God(*). He loves you and wants to save you and all of North Korea today. Please open your borders so that we may bring food, provisions, medicine, necessities, and assistance to those who are struggling to survive.. Please close down all concentration camps and release all political prisoners today, and allow care teams to enter to minister healing to those who have been tortured and traumatized.
All we are asking is for all North Koreans to be free, safe and have life.
With Love, Respect and Goodwill Towards All People,
Robert Park
12/25/2009
Well, all in all it's a f*cking great idea!! At least it's - especially the letter to the "Dear Leader" - a perfect way to ensure a long, long, (very likely!!) uncomfortable stay in Kim Jong-il's "Paradise on Earth"...
* in contradistinction to the "Dear Leader"... ^^
Related reports:
☞ Korean-American Activist Crosses Into North Korea (OFK, 12.25)
☞ U.S. Activist Crosses Frozen River Into North Korea (HuffPost, 12.26)
☞ US human activist crosses Chinese border into North Korea (Observer, 12.27)
A Great Idea, But Possibly Moribund...
Once upon a time there was a bunch of Swedish yuppie/"entrepreneurs" and they had the f*cking great idea how to make some easy money combined with "a touch of adventure".
And they found a simple and "brilliant" way:
"(Female) slave laborers in Pyongyang will produce for us jeans (our brand name: NOKO Jeans) and we will sell the first-ever jeans 'Made in D.P.R.K.' (where the 'Dear Leader' strictly forbids the wearing of jeans, i.e. the U.S. imperialist shit... But that's not our problem!!^^) in the luxery and trendy PUB department store in central Stockholm for at least 150 euro ($220, equivalent to several annual income of an ordinary N.K. worker... But that's also not our problem!!^^)"
While until y'day all went well... quite suddenly - last night - PUB department store found out that NOKO Jeans were/are produced in the world's last "Gulag"...
And so, today in the morning PUB department store cancels sale of Swedish jeans made in N.Korea...
For more backgrounds and recent developments about that idiotic story please check out:
☞ N. Korea's first designer jeans on sale in Sweden (Reuters, 12.01)
☞ Swedish firm launches jeans 'made in North Korea' (The Independent, 12.04)
☞ From a Land Without Jeans, Denim Diplomacy (NYT, 12.05)
☞ Swedish store cancels sale of N.Korea-made jeans (Global Times, 12.07)
☞ Dep't store cancels sale of jeans made in N.K. (Independent, 12.07)
☞ Warenhaus stoppt Verkauf nordkoreanischer Jeans (Spiegel, 12.07)
Pyongyang's doctrine constantly repeats following sermon: "The reactionary bourgeois, imperialist so-called culture is killing our revolutionary Korean socialist society!" (OWTTE)...
Well, while in N.K. you'll find (of course) definitely NO socialist society (only a kind of red-painted feudalism/monarchy) you can find some really yukky examples of bourgeois, extreme reactionary "cultural" entertainment (for the ruling class and the nouveaux riches) as K. Herald reported a short while ago:
Female dancer video circulating in N.K.
A video clip showing female dancers in skimpy costumes...
...performing to American music is being secretly circulated in North Korea via CD-ROMs, a North Korean defector said...
Yonhap News reported that the video, obtained by Yonhap News Agency from the defector, who requested anonymity, would not be considered obscene elsewhere in the world. But revealing outfits and American music are both considered taboo in the conservative North.
In the clip, several groups of four women in crop-tops and thigh-length shorts or skirts dance to fast disco music on a brightly-lit stage. Their outfits are made of shiny gold, red and blue fabrics, and the dancers perform in a way that would be considered lewd in North Korea -- raising their bare leg and shaking their chests and hips. The video has captions giving the title of each song as it is played, and includes "Aloha Oe," a Hawaiian folk song.
The defector said the dancers are members of the Wangjaesan Light Music Band, a group that mostly performs for the upper class.
The video provides no clue about where, when or for whom the show was held. Applause is heard after each performance, suggesting there is an audience in front of the decorated stage.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/11/02/200911020077.asp
Here (YonhapTV report) you can "enjoy" some examples of the f*cking nasty "performances"!
"For decades, North Korea has chosen a path of confrontation and provocation, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons," U.S. president Obama said, according to Yonhap, last Friday in a speech during his visit in Tokyo.
"We will not be cowed by threats," he said, "and we will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words: North Korea's refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security - not more."
Hmm.. "our actions" "will lead only to less security"!? WTF is Obama insinuating???? Whatever! It sounds thrilling!!
Related article/analysis (MUST READ!!):
☞ US finally wise to Pyongyang's ways (Asia Times, 11.12)
Imperialist Pigswill, Made in DPRK...
...you can get here:
In "Samtaeseong" (Three Big Stars), Pyongyang's first public pig trough - err.. fast food "restaurant" - where you can "enjoy", together with N.K.'s nouveaux riches..
.."Meat and Bread", resp. the "Burgers"
Bon appétit!^^
Related contributions you can check out here:
☞ Fast food becomes popular in Pyongyang (Korea Vision, 10.14)
☞ Samtaesong fast food restaurant in P'yang (NK Economy Watch, 10.13)
Denuclearization with A-bombs
When the "Dear Leader" (aka Kim Jong-il, NK's "Supreme Leader") met on Monday Wen Jiabao in Pyeongyang he pointed out, according to KCNA(10.5), as regards the issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula:
"The denuclearization of the peninsula was the behest of President Kim Il Sung.
Our efforts to attain the goal of denuclearizing the peninsula remain unchanged."
Well, so far, so good...
But only one day later Bloomberg reported that North Korea said dismantling the regime’s nuclear weapons is “unthinkable even in a dream”...
You got it??
Related article:
☞ Give and take on North Korea (Asia Times, 10.7)
WSJ had last Thursday(10.1) an excellent article/analysis on...
The Constitution of Kim Jong Il
North Korea codifies its extreme, nationalist regime.
The average North Korean doesn't know the country's national constitution well, but at least he has a solid excuse: Kim Jong Il keeps the working masses ignorant of the rights that are formally granted them, which include freedom of speech and demonstration. But just because Pyongyang's constitution is hardly worth the paper it is written on does not mean that alterations to it are beneath notice. For the ruling elite, its preamble and first few articles serve as a broad indication of the regime's ideological direction.
Which is why the latest version of the North Korean constitution, made public on Monday(9.28) by the South Korean government, is worth paying attention to. Unlike earlier versions, it omits all mention of communism(*), while referring here and there to the "military-first" brand of socialism that has guided the regime since the mid-1990s. It also designates the National Defense Council Chairman—Kim Jong Il, of course—as "supreme leader" of the country. Last weekend a North Korean press representative explained to South Korean officials that Kim did not consider communism to be viable "as long as U.S. imperialism exists."
These changes do not reflect a sudden shift in policy. Despite the world media's tradition of referring to North Korea as a "hardline communist" or "Stalinist" state, it has never been anything of the sort. From its beginnings in 1945 the regime has espoused—to its subjects if not to its Soviet and Chinese aid-providers—a race-based, paranoid nationalism that has nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism. (This latter term was tellingly dropped from the constitution after the collapse of the East Bloc.) North Korea has always had less in common with the former Soviet Union than with the Japan of the 1930s, another "national defense state" in which a command economy was pursued not as an end in itself, but as a prerequisite for rapid armament.
North Korea is, in other words, a national-socialist(**) country—one lacking imperialist ambitions, to be sure, but one that must still be seen on the far right and not the far left of the political spectrum. The only thing that has changed over the past 15 years is the country's readiness to show its true colors to the world. Despite this, some foreigners continue to misinterpret the regime's sporadic efforts to regain total control over the economy in terms of an attempted "re-Stalinization." In fact it has made no serious effort to resocialize the enormous amount of property, including real estate, that has been amassed by traders and officials in the past 15 years. Nor has it stamped out open-air markets. Instead it tries to control and monitor these markets better, with a view to preventing the diversion of able-bodied workers from farms and factories, and stopping the trade in items stolen from state industry. In short, Kim wants to call the economic shots to maintain internal security and to pump as much money as possible into the army; Stalin doesn't enter into the equation, let alone Marx.
So far, the United States government has never been interested enough in North Korean ideology to look beyond Pyongyang's lip service to communism. An element of wishful thinking is involved, given that Washington wants the current nuclear stand-off to end as peacefully as the Cold War did. Perhaps this new constitution will finally make America realize who it is dealing with: a leader who derives his entire legitimacy from a pledge to maximize his country's military might. Kim is aware that he cannot disarm without committing political suicide. This unfortunately means that negotiations with Pyongyang, whether bilateral or multilateral, can never bear the sort of fruit that détente with the Soviet Union did.
Some in Washington have suggested that negotiations can nonetheless be an effective adjunct to sanctions, the hope being that the U.S. can chatter away with the Kim regime until it finally collapses from a lack of funds. But if North Korea is not a communist country, there is no reason to expect it to fold like one. Party propaganda derides the old Soviet Union for nothing so much as the way it went down "without a shot." With the Dear Leader's uranium centrifuges spinning every hour, running out the clock seems a very dangerous strategy indeed
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574445980801810944.html
* NK's constitution as revised in 1998 contained three references to socialism and communism, but the latest (April) revision did away with the word "communism" altogether. Already in 1992, North Korea promoted only the Juche 'ideology' by deleting "Marxism/Leninism" from the document.
The 'Dear Leader' apparently explained the deletion of the word "communism" from the country's constitution. "It is difficult to comprehend communism. I will try to get socialism right," Kim was reported as saying by a spokesman for the state-run Minju Chosun magazine.
The spokesman was talking to S.K. reporters on the sidelines of inter-Korean family reunions in Geumgang-san. "This is the reason behind the deletion of 'communism' from the constitution," he said. "Communism is meant to be a one-class society where there is no distinction between exploiter and exploited(***), but that system cannot exist while American imperialism lasts(****)."
** 국가 "사회주의"/나치주의..
*** North Korean f...... BS!!! Communism, according to the M/L: the classless society without exploiters and exploited, whithout oppressors and oppressed...
**** But that system cannot exist while Kim Jong-il's national-"socialist" monarchy lasts!!!
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