Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Socks]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5489149.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

THE brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il has taken over the running of North Korea, stamping on dissent while the dictator recovers from a stroke.

A stream of reports has reached exiles about the man wielding an iron fist to keep the country under tight control as its 23m people endure a hungry winter.

He is Jang Song-thaek, a 62-year-old lifetime party functionary with pomaded hair, gold-rimmed glasses and a taste for dark suits, who was nominated on December 6 as director of the Korean Workers� party, a title that conceals his role as head of internal security. His chief qualification for the job is his the fact that he is married to Kim�s younger sister, Kyung-hee.

His mandate is to guarantee control as the regime waves farewell to George W Bush and waits to see what Barack Obama will do about its nuclear weapons.

Accounts filtering out to exiles in the cities of northern China indicate that he is enforcing conformity with such determination that even servants of the system nickname him �the most villainous follower� of Kim.

The ruling party has issued a succession of reports and photographs to bolster its claim that Kim, the 67-year-old Dear Leader, who reportedly suffered a stroke last year, is well. But it is Jang whose day-to-day executive decisions have been reported by state media.

Party loyalists may clutch empty bellies but Jang has forbidden them to buy or sell goods in the country�s few private markets, saying that one cannot trade ideology for survival.

He has stifled commerce with China in the name of doctrinal purity, fearing the influence of cross-border traders. Regulations have been tightened to restrict travel between the two countries, supposedly close allies.

Jang appears to be obsessed by spies and sabotage. A wave of executions followed his progress through the troubled northern provinces as he sniffed out backsliding, corruption and dissent. He himself has survived at least one purge, when his supporters vanished, but returned to favour two years later, appearing alongside Kim on a trip to China in January 2006.

People in Pyongyang, the capital, whisper of an impending show trial of agents sent from the south to assassinate the Dear Leader, a claim South Korean officials dismiss as fantastic.

Rumors have it that the North is changing - but its perhaps for the worse..

[brento1138]

Interesting. I predict that since there is no clear "heir" to the "throne" in this Despotism of insanity, once Kim Jong Il dies, there will be a power grab by a guy like the one described above. But not everyone will be loyal to him, and there will be more instances of attempted assassinations (which the North will blame the South on, but which are clearly orchestrated by elements in the North).

It's funny. North Korea's ideology claims some funny things:

Money/Profit/Capitalism is bad. However, in the DPRK, money is KING. If you have money, you can bribe anyone... foreign currency is sought after badly there since it is the only currency used to buy items from outside North Korea.

Everyone is equal. Yeah right! There must be the greatest divide ever between rich and poor. There is no middle class. Only the poor, starving wretches, and the rich party members who live very well. Guess who gets the rice and the meat? The military.

We must be self-reliant! However, do the people know how much rice and oil they are importing at Nuclear-tipped-weapon-gun-point? All the money they've gotten from Korean-Japanese remittances, USA/South Korea blackmail money. Hah!

Socialism is the way! Really? Where are the social systems designed to help the people? Oh, right! There are none! You count schools and hospitals? Every nation has those! And the kids can study because they are fed food!

We must work hard! Yeah right! Nobody is really working due to poor infrastructure, no demand for exported items. The system has literally fallen apart. Factories have broken windows and are in disarray. Maybe people work, but there is no real "work which profits the country" going on.

We LIBERATED the people! The "vile" Japanese enslaved Koreans, and put anyone who dissented their rule in concentration camps to be worked to death. Oh, guess what? The Korean rulers do the same thing now, but to their own people! North Koreans are the least free in the world!

What a joke this country is. They're building the biggest hotel in a country where no tourists are allowed to go.