North Korea

[The Saturday Boy]

Pakistan, India and Israel are three countries who pose a much greater threat and they are our allies.

 

[North West Wanderer]

I am surprised Kashmir hasn't sparked a bigger conflict.

North Korea worry me from the aspect of them getting China involved. They are at the moment the perfect buffer state.

As for Israel, their Samson option is the most worrying thing in existence.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Some interesting pictures of the Socialist State.

http://www.m1key.me/photography/ostensibly_ordinary_pyongyang/

 

[North West Wanderer]

Hugely interesting and concerning too, cheers for sharing.

 

[Keef]

Those North Korea pictures are making me want to go,I'm just off to google visas and flights

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Hugely interesting and concerning too, cheers for sharing.

I looked at those photos and couldn't stop thinking about 1984 and Winston Smith.

Its an extreme of extreme state control and propaganda, a terrifying vision that is reality for so many people.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

Those North Korea pictures are making me want to go,I'm just off to google visas and flights

Myself and my g-friend have a weird obsession with North Korea, after we watched a load of documentaries like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuFaEy4jzE

The best way to get in and get a good tour around areas that most wouldn't get to, is to sign up to this thing called the Korean Re-Unification Project (sic). They get to attend dinners with the Great Leader himself, and are welcomed more than your average package tour.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

I couldn't imagine anything worse than visiting there. I can't see any appeal in being a macabre tourist visiting an oppressed state.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

I wonder what life is like for your average North Korean?

 

[EdgeOfTheAlps]

I couldn't imagine anything worse than visiting there. I can't see any appeal in being a macabre tourist visiting an oppressed state.

I don't get it either. There's a decent chance of you getting locked up for a very long time as that American student has just found out. I suppose it's a bit like the nutters who climb in the lion pen at the zoo, just to see what it's like. Or those who watch ISIS snuff videos.

Why?

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

I wonder what life is like for your average North Korean?

Harsh I should imagine and thats the limit we can gain from of our own experiences of living in an affluent liberal nation.

Theres clearly nothing much to go around, when your forced to collect your own feaces to use in fertiliser production it clearly indicates the abject poverty that exists. All the time the overriding Paranoia that exists in totalitarian states is with you, who can you really trust?

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

I don't get it either. There's a decent chance of you getting locked up for a very long time as that American student has just found out. I suppose it's a bit like the nutters who climb in the lion pen at the zoo, just to see what it's like. Or those who watch ISIS snuff videos.

Why?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...in-prison-for-stealing-a-poster-a6933756.html

 

[FrankMunro-371]

Not so long ago there was a programme on BBC I think about life for ordinary North Koreans. Unfortunately, I missed it. I imagine that was eye opening.

 

[The Bear]

I wonder what life is like for your average North Korean?

Absolutely fantastic. Just ask them.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

Absolutely fantastic. Just ask them.

I don't know any.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/12195472/North-Korea-is-a-prison-camp-and-torture-chamber.-Why-not-go-there-on-holiday-and-take-some-hilarious-selfies.html

An interesting article on N Korea and the odd minority looking to go there as tourists, some highlights below

p"A 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry found that abuses in North Korea were without parallel in the contemporary world. They include extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, and other sexual violence. North Korea operates secretive prison camps where perceived opponents of the government are sent to face torture and abuse, starvation rations, and forced labor. Fear of collective punishment is used to silence dissent. There is no independent media, functioning civil society, or religious freedom. "

Under the current regime, as many as 3 million North Koreans have starved to death since 1994 (the year of Otto Warmbier's birth, incidentally.)

Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners. In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported that prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs

 

[Keef]

I couldn't imagine anything worse than visiting there. I can't see any appeal in being a macabre tourist visiting an oppressed state.

Weird places off the tourist trail are great,this from a bloke who's been on the Chernobyl tour,where they get you to within 200 yds of the actual reactor,it's still quite radioactive and you can only stay for 10 minutes,then it's an afternoon in Pripyat the abandoned town

 

[Johnny75]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/12195472/North-Korea-is-a-prison-camp-and-torture-chamber.-Why-not-go-there-on-holiday-and-take-some-hilarious-selfies.html

An interesting article on N Korea and the odd minority looking to go there as tourists, some highlights below

I think those prison guards have committed the most inhumane and disgusting act I've ever heard of. A truly reprehensible and despicable set of people who should be dealt with swiftly.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Myself and my g-friend have a weird obsession with North Korea, after we watched a load of documentaries like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuFaEy4jzE

The best way to get in and get a good tour around areas that most wouldn't get to, is to sign up to this thing called the Korean Re-Unification Project (sic). They get to attend dinners with the Great Leader himself, and are welcomed more than your average package tour.

Thanks for that Rob - interesting programme.

If that was what he (& by default we) was allowed to see & that that was the best of what they have then you have to fear for the rest of the country & its people

 

[Langers]

Looks like Kim Jong Un has had his half brother bumped off.

Strange family.