How the media circus reported North Korea’s pro-wrestling throwdown
Sep 6th
When the isolated country hosted dozens of reporters, athletes and minor celebrities at its International Pro-Wrestling Contest in Pyongyang at the weekend, opinions on the experience were mixed to say the least. We took a look at the coverage.
By Maeve Shearlaw, The Guardian
Pyongyang is recovering from its International Pro-Wrestling Contest which saw North Koreans line up next to international wrestlers, including three Americans, over two days.
The event was organised by Antonio Inoki, a former a Japanese wrestler-turned-politician, best known for going up against Muhammad Ali in 1979.
Before the event last weekend, Inoki spoke of his hope that the conference would help More >
Koryolink moves to plug censorship loophole
Sep 2nd
North Korea’s sole 3G mobile network operator has moved to plug a potential gap in the country’s considerable national censorship regime.
The loophole could have provided North Koreans with unrestricted access to international phone calls and Internet access and relied on the prepaid SIM cards that have been available to tourists since February 2013.
The cards, purchased upon arrival in Pyongyang, provide visitors with access to a part of the 3G network reserved for foreigners and those in powerful positions.
Typically, North Koreans that can afford a mobile phone can only make domestic phone calls and have no international Internet access from their More >
South Korea’s Daum launches North Korean mapping service
Aug 30th
Daum has launched a North Korean mapping service, becoming the first South Korean portal to offer maps of the country’s northern neighbor.
The maps are based on data from South Korea’s National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) and, according to local media, provide greater coverage of North Korea than Google Maps.
You can check the maps out for yourself on Daum’s mapping site.
The NGII’s data was previously available to South Korean government agencies and went on sale to the public in mid 2013. NGII offered the map, produced at a 1:25,000 scale, for 17,500 won (US$17).
It covers all of North Korea, detailing towns, roads, railways More >
South Korea’s Supreme Court confirms acquittal of Pyongyang retweeter
Aug 29th
South Korea’s top court has upheld the acquittal of a free-speech activist for retweeting North Korean tweets, according to several local media reports.
Park Jung-geun, a Seoul-based photographer, was arrested under the country’s anti-communist National Security Law for a series of tweets posted in late 2010 and early 2011. They included retweets from Uriminzokkiri, a China-based website with close links to the regime in Pyongyang, and some in which Park had substituted his own face in revolutionary imagery (see below).
One of a number of Internet postings by Park Jung-geun for which he was arrested under Seoul’s National Security Law
At his first trial, a district court accepted the More >
A new look at newspapers on KCTV
Aug 27th
Earlier this month, Korean Central Television rolled out updated opening graphics for its 5pm and 8pm evening newscasts.
A closer look at the programming reveals it wasn’t the only part of the newscast that was given a new look.
The newspaper review, which is a staple of the early evening 5pm bulletin, also has a new graphics package and a much lighter musical intro.
The new graphics also give more prominent placement to the names of the country’s four main newspapers:
Rodong Sinmun (로동신문)
Minju Joson (민주조선)
Youth Vanguard (청년전위)
Pyongyang Sinmun (평양신문)
The content of the newspaper is however, not changed. It’s still a rundown of the More >
China detecting illegal border crossings with satellite
Aug 26th
China is using a high-resolution earth observation satellite to detect illegal border crossings from the DPRK, Chinese state media reported on Monday.
The Gaofen-1 satellite has been used to discover “about 10″ such crossings both on the China-DPRK border and in the Xinjiang Uygur region of northwest China, said China Daily reported, quoting the China National Space Administration.
The satellite has also been used to spot poppy plantations in Heilongjiang and Hebei provinces, marijuana growing in Jilin province and suspected oil smuggling off the coast of Fujian province.
Gaofen-1 was launched in April 2013 and is capable of taking images with 2-meter resolution, according to published specifications. More >
DPRK takes Ulchi war games protest to UN
Aug 23rd
North Korea has taken its protest of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian war games to the United Nations.
Ja Song Nam, the DPRK’s ambassador to the U.N. sent a letter earlier this week to the president of the Security Council protesting the exercise, which is due to begin this weekend and involves thousands of troops in a large-scale computer simulation of a military action on the Korean peninsula.
Calling them “dangerous joint military exercises,” Ja wrote, “The United States-south [sic] Korea joint military exercises, including the ‘Ulji Freedom Guardian’, are by no means annual or routine exercises of a “defensive nature” but are More >
Ulchi Freedom Guardian means lots of computers
Aug 22nd
As a computer-based war-game, the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise that begins this week in South Korea requires lots and lots of computers.
In pictures released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Defense, some of those computers and the complexity of the set-up can be seen. The images and a video show the inside of the Joint Operations Center for the exercise. It was built by the U.S. I Corps and Third Army of South Korea.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, I Corps Commanding General, is briefed by his staff in the I Corps joint operations center in Camp Yongin, South Korea, during a More >
North Korea proposes expanding work with Russian IT companies
Aug 21st
A North Korean state IT company has approached Russia’s Information and Computer Technologies Industry Association (APKIT) proposing a greater working relationship with Russian IT companies.
The country apparently wants to win business from Russian companies and the Pyongyang Kwangmyong IT Corp. held talks with APKIT in July and August, according to the APKIT.
As part of those talks, the North Korean company proposed a number of areas of collaboration and provided details of the skills possessed by its staff in Pyongyang. Those documents were seen by North Korea Tech.
A portion of a proposal from the Pyongyang Kwangmyong IT Corp. presented to Russia’s APKIT. (Photo: More >
First photos from Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2014
Aug 21st
The U.S. Department of Defense has released the first photos from the 10-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2014 joint military exercise that has just begun in South Korea.
The computer-based exercise simulates South Korean defense of a North Korean attack and, not surprisingly, have North Korea angry.
The daily Rodong Sinmun wrote, “It is foolish and ridiculous if the U.S. and south Korean puppet forces calculate that they will get something through provocative Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises against the DPRK,” and said they won’t achieve anything. The editorial came a couple of weeks after the newspaper said North Korea’s own military exercises More >
