Bordering on the absurd

Sometimes you read something about Kim Jong-il that makes you wonder if it's parody. Consider this example of his capriciousness and utter control over his people, from the Daily NK:

You idiots!” said Kim Jong Il swearing at his attendants while looking at a potato field through the car window during his visit to Daehongdan on August 9th, 1999.

A large banner with the slogan saying “Potato is white rice!” was hanging at the entrance to every potato field.

In fact, the local cadres and officials from Propaganda and Agitation Department under the Workers’ Party ordered to put up the banner in every potato field because when Kim Jong Il visited the county a year ago, he said to them, “Potato is the same as white rice.”

Of course, the potato cultivation is important. However, it is basically nonsense that growing potato is as important as growing white rice, which is the staple food of the Korean diet. Kim Jong Il forgot that it was him who said the nonsense.

Pulling up his car in front of the banner at the potato field in Daehongdan County, Kim Jong Il said yelling, “Who the heck said those words? Does it make any sense that potato is white rice?”

On that day, as his first schedule of the day’s program, he visited a field where a new kind of potato starts to be reaped.

When Kim Jong Il was getting out of his car, Kim Sung Jin, a chief secretary of the county came running toward him, only to be brought to a halt by Kim Jong Il who raised his hand gesturing him to stop.

“Does it make any sense to you that potato is the same as white rice?”

Having sensed something went wrong, Kim Sung Jin’s face turned pale. He had no idea when Kim Jong Il would start pouring out his anger on him. He just stood still frozen with fear. (He said later to his colleagues, “It was like the whole world turned upside down.”)

Kim Jong Il putting his hands under his armpits was gazing at something for quite some time. It was a large message board engraved with Kim Jong Il’s own words, “Potato is the same as white rice.” Looking at the board quite a while, Kim Jong Il burst into a laughter.

Pointing at the board, Kim Jong Il asked of Kim Sung Jin who was standing vacantly “Hey, did I really say that?” Kim Sung Jin answered in a position of attention, “Yes, General. You said those words when you visited Daehongdan on October 1st last year.”

Kim Jong Il, looking dumbfounded and awkward, looked at the board again and said, “Oh, my! You fools took my words too far. How could potato ever be the same as the rice? Pull it down right away!”

“Yes, Sir!,” Kim Sung Jin answered out loud. Then, he ran off to his men and ordered them to get rid of the banner immediately.

More speculation on famine this year

This is from the BBC:

North Korea needs at least 5.3 million tonnes of food until autumn 2008, but it will only be able to supply 3.9 million, leaving a gap of 1.4 million tonnes, the KREI study said.

It said the communist state's farming sector was damaged to the tune of $275m (£134m) in the flooding.

"The North's food inventory has almost hit the bottom, so unless there's an extraordinary measure to stabilise supply, there may be a situation next year similar to the late 1990s," it said.

North Korea has described this year's floods as amongst the worst the country has seen. They affected one million people, killing at least 600 and wiping out more than 10% of farmland.

But Unicef's deputy representative in North Korea, Michel Le Pechoux, said that while the situation was "still fragile", it was not likely to lead to famine.

He said circumstances were very different to the devastation seen in the 1990s.

The 1990s, of course, saw anywhere between 200,000 and 3.5 million people die from famine in North Korea. The very fact that North Korea is admitting they've suffered severe flood damage is a sign that things could get very bad here.

Surprise, surprise

North Korea is the second worst country in the world in terms of press freedom, according to a recent report by Reporters Without Borders.

Notable this year is the increasing government crackdown on Internet media, the group said.

"Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information," it said.

"The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media."

The cost of illegal filming

Daily NK has a pretty horrifying report out about a man who was caught filming in a North Korean market. Those of you who have watched Seoul Train will probably remember that people caught filming are subject to execution. In this case, the cameraman escaped with his life, but suffered pretty badly for his actions.

A North Korean citizen who tried to capture the North Korean jangmadang (market) on a video camera was arrested by the National Security Agency and received the cruel punishment of having his achilles heel severed, reported Free North Korea Broadcasting (Free NK) on the 28th.

Free NK relayed that Mr. Shim, who was investigated for a month in closed confinement at the National Safety Agency for a cell-phone usage in August, heard the news about the NSA's torture of Huh Sang Chul (35), whom he had met at the same detention house.

According to Mr. Shim, Huh was arrested while filming at the Hoiryeong Jangmadang in mid July. While being investigated for over a month, the broadcast reported that he confessed to filming the lives of average civilians and the market and to selling the images.

According to the article (the rest of which is available here) he was charged with "handing over national secrets."