North Korea: "Measures by DPRK Will Make the US Suffer the Greatest Pain It Has Ever Experienced"

North Korea Warns Australia of Possible Nuclear Strike If It 'Blindly Toes US Line'

THE GUARDIAN: Foreign ministry spokesman quoted as saying Julie Bishop’s comments can never be pardoned and Pyongyang is acting only in self-defence

North Korea has bluntly warned Australia of a possible nuclear strike if Canberra persists in “blindly and zealously toeing the US line”.

North Korea’s state new agency (KCNA) quoted a foreign ministry spokesman castigating Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, after she said the rogue nation would be subject to further Australian sanctions and for “spouting a string of rubbish against the DPRK over its entirely just steps for self-defence”.

“If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK,” the report said.

“The Australian foreign minister had better think twice about the consequences to be entailed by her reckless tongue-lashing before flattering the US.” » | Australian Associated Press | Sunday, April 23, 2017

The Son Rises: Kim Jong-un Anointed Amid Missile Fears
South Korean protesters shout slogans beside pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (left) and a boy believed to be the leader's third son Jong-Un, during a rally denouncing North Korea's missile threat, in Seoul on 19 February 2009. Photo courtesy of The Independent
THE INDEPENDENT: He may like drinking, he may like basketball and he probably went to school in Switzerland. What appears increasingly certain, however, is that Kim Jong-un, the youngest of Kim Jong-il's three sons, has been anointed as the North Korean leader's successor.

Reports from South Korea said that North Korea's military chiefs, Communist Party officials and state employees were told to put their support behind the 26-year-old who had been chosen by his father to take the world's only communist dynasty into its third generation. Several South Korean politicians said they had been briefed on the developments by their intelligence services. One, Park Jie-won, said the regime in the north was already "pledging its allegiance to Jong-un".

It was once assumed that Kim Jong-il's eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, 38, was being groomed to take over from his father. However in 2001 he was discovered trying to enter Japan on a fake passport and reportedly told officials he wanted to visit Tokyo's Disney resort. According to claims by the North Korean leader's former sushi chef, Kim Jong-il considered his middle son, Kim Jong-chol, too effeminate for the role.

And so attention has turned to Kim Jong-un. Indeed, back in January a flurry of reports appeared, saying that the youngest son had been chosen as the successor but that the decision had not at that stage been widely circulated. In contrast, the latest reports suggest he is now being hailed as "Commander Kim," and people are learning the lyrics to a new song praising him as the next leader. >>> By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent | Tuesday, June 02, 2009

L’HEBDO: L’apprenti dictateur parle le berntütsch

Corée du Nord. Kim Jong-il a choisi son fils cadet pour lui succéder à la tête de l’Etat stalinien. On ignore presque tout de lui. Révélations sur le séjour en Suisse de Kim Jong-un.

Tous les vendredis, Kim Jong-un enfilait ses skis et partait dévaler les pistes de Zweisimmen ou de Grindelwald avec ses camarades de classe bernois. Dix ans plus tard, le cadet de Kim Jong-il, qui a eu 26 ans le 8 janvier, est pressenti pour devenir le prochain leader de la Corée du Nord. Celui qui régnera sans partage sur un pays de 24 millions d’habitants, un doigt sur le bouton nucléaire. Les élections qui se dérouleront le 8 mars dans l’Etat stalinien seront décisives: si Kim Jong-un accède au Parlement et est nommé à la puissante Commission de la défense, ce sera la preuve qu’il est devenu le dauphin officiel du «cher leader».

Le passage du témoin pourrait d’ailleurs se dérouler plus vite que prévu: Kim Jong-il souffrirait de graves problèmes de santé. Il aurait subi une attaque cérébrale en août. Kim Jong-un – dont le jeune âge et le statut de cadet ne le prédestinaient pas à remplacer son père, selon la tradition confucéenne – semble avoir été un second choix. Longtemps destiné à ce poste, l’aîné Kim Jong-nam (37 ans) a perdu toute crédibilité aux yeux de son père lorsqu’il s’est fait pincer en 2001 au Japon en possession d’un faux passeport de la République dominicaine. Il voulait se rendre à Disneyland Tokyo incognito. Quant au second fils, Kim Jong-chol (27 ans), il souffrirait d’une maladie qui le fait produire trop d’hormones féminines. Célèbre transfuge, l’ex-cuisinier de Kim Jong-il, le Japonais Kenji Fujimoto, raconte que son père le trouve «trop efféminé», alors que son jeune frère – amateur de voitures allemandes et de sushis – a «une grande force intérieure, une condition physique superbe, est capable de boire beaucoup et ne s’avoue jamais vaincu». Il serait clairement le favori. >>> Par Julie Zaugg, Titus Plattner | Jeudi 05 Mars 2009

North Korea, the Dead Land
THE TELEGRAPH: Hyok Kang, who escaped from his oppressive homeland in 1998, provides a unique and harrowing insight into Kim Jong-il's dictatorship, which can build nuclear weapons - but not feed its people

I was nine when I saw my first execution. The man had been condemned to death for stealing copper wire to sell in China, crossing the border under the cover of darkness. He was dragged to the foot of the mountain near a railway track. A train that happened to pass stopped to let passengers watch the scene.

Executions were a frequent occurrence in our small city, but the inhabitants never tired of them. Primary and secondary school pupils skipped classes to join the audience, which always consisted of hundreds, even thousands, of people. Posters went up in the city several days before. When the time came, the condemned man was displayed in the streets before being led to the place of execution, where he was made to sit on the ground, head bowed, so everyone could get a good look at him. He was dressed in a garment designed by army scientists for public executions, a greyish one-piece suit made of very thick, fleece-lined cotton. That way, when the bullets are fired, the blood doesn't spurt out but is absorbed by this fabric, which turns red. The body is thrown on a cart and then abandoned in the mountains for the dogs to eat.

was born on April 20 1986 in a village not far from Onsong, a city of 300,000 inhabitants in the north-east of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, close to the Chinese border and Siberia. The city is divided into ku (districts) and ban (classifications) of 20 families. My parents lived in ban number three, in a semi-rural zone. The house was like dozens of others built on the same model and lined up in rows. There was a door, a single window, and a roof of curved orange tiles. The walls were white, but they had been painted blue to a height that I must have passed about the age of eight or nine. Each time the district officials came to check the hygiene of the houses, as they regularly did, they ordered us to change the colour of this lower part: to green, now blue, now light brown, but all the houses in our ban had to be the same colour; perhaps because dwellings, like everything else in North Korea, are the property of the people. That means that nothing belongs to anyone.

Inside were two rooms separated by a sliding door. The floors were covered with pale brown varnished floor-paper, and in the main room hung portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. That was compulsory. You had to call the father: "Dear respected comrade head of state Great Leader Kim Il-sung", or, more simply, "Comrade Great Leader". For his son, the formula was "Dear Leader Kim Jong-il", until Kim Il-sung's death in 1994; then we had to call him "Great Leader Kim Jong-il". >>> By Hyok Kang | Sunday, May 31, 2009

*This Is Paradise!: My North Korean Childhood by Hyok Kang, is available from Telegraph Books from £7.99 + 99p P&P. To order, call 0844 871 1516 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

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