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Elephant Drawings
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Doors fans aren’t made, they’re born!
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hE WAS TOTALLY GONNA SNEAK UP ON THE OTHER ONE OMFG
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Funny Obama and Kim Jong Un gif
North and South Korea have technically been at war since the 1950s, but tensions on the peninsula regularly flare up.
This time the temperature has been rising since the North tested a missile in late 2012.
But is this round of North Korean provocation really any different from the last?
Kim Jong-un, who called for an end to the “confrontation” with South Korea, also laid out broad policy guidelines for the new year.
(The interview is in English and begins at 1:35.)
Kim Han-sol interviewed by Elisabeth Rehn for Finnish television.
Kim Han-sol is the grandson of Kim Jong-il. He never met his grandfather. At the time of this interview in 2012, he was studying at an UN sponsored college in Mostar, Bosnia and Hertzegovina.
Elisabeth Rehn (b. 1935) was a UN Under-Secretary General and the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina beginning in 1995. Before that, she was a member of the Finnish parliament (1979-1995) and Minister of Defence (1990-1995).
A KRT news reader shows the first footage of Kim Jong-un and his new wife Ri Sol-ju since their marriage was revealed, on a visit to a pre-school
North Korean state media have confirmed for the first time that the country’s leader Kim Jong-un is married.
Reports referred to him attending the opening of an amusement park with his wife, “Comrade Ri Sol-ju”.
There had been much speculation about Mr Kim’s private life in recent weeks when an unidentified woman was pictured attending events with him.
Kim Jong-un took over as leader of the country after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in December last year.
The eight-minute report on North Korean radio which mentioned Ms Ri was broadcast at 20:00 local time on Wednesday (11:00 GMT).
Analysts have been watching Mr Kim and his inner circle for clues as to the direction in which they will take the isolated state.
Last week authorities performed a military reshuffle widely interpreted by analysts as an attempt to stamp the authority of the new leader on North Korea’s powerful army.
The United States wished Mr Kim well, but said that its concern was ”first and foremost” for the North Korean people and hopes that ”conditions for them will improve”.
”We would always wish any kind of newlyweds well,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
‘Mystery woman’
There is a North Korean singer by the name of Ri Sol-ju but it has not been confirmed whether Mr Kim’s wife is the same woman.
Analysis
It seems to have been a rather elliptical announcement - a news item on North Korea’s 8pm state TV bulletin showing the country’s young leader at the opening of a new amusement park.
The female companion pictured with him, said the newsreader, was “his wife, Ri Sol-ju”.
Little is known about North Korea’s first lady - it’s not even clear when the couple married - though some reports say she is a singer.
Speculation over Kim Jong-un’s private life has been feverish here in South Korea since he appeared with a stylishly-dressed female companion earlier this month at several public events.
Two things about these sightings were noteworthy: her western-style clothes and haircut, which prompted many here in the South to speculate on the Kim Jong-un’s attitude and influences.
The other was the fact that the leader’s consort appeared in public like this at all - not standard practice for either of North Korea’s two previous rulers.
It fits with the marked change of style under Kim Jong-un. The young leader has projected a much more relaxed, chummy, open approach since taking power, at least in public. How much that change is reflected in his plans for the country’s economic and political future is still unclear.
Nor did state media mention when the couple got married.
Ms Ri is thought to be the same “mystery woman” who accompanied Mr Kim to several events in recent weeks and whose Western dress and hairstyle led some to speculate on the influence of Mr Kim’s brief European education.
The woman was spotted with him at a concert featuring Disney characters and at a ceremony to mark the 18th anniversary of the death of Kim Il-sung, Mr Kim’s grandfather.
South Korean media had previously speculated that the woman was another North Korean singer, Hyon Song-wol.
Appearing with his wife may be part of a more informal style that Mr Kim is trying to cultivate to contrast with the austere manner of his father.
The announcement also appears to have caught North Korean media off guard: while state TV and radio named Ms Ri as Mr Kim’s wife, the initial English-language reports on the news agency KCNA made no mention of her at all.
The focus on Mr Kim’s personal life has been intense in recent weeks - within minutes of the news breaking, Ms Ri’s name was trending on micro-blogging site Twitter.
Ms Ri is believed to have married Mr Kim in 2009 and given birth to a child the following year, analyst Cheong Seong-chang told the South Korean Korea Times newspaper.
“The late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il arranged his youngest son’s marriage in a hurry after suffering a stroke in 2008,” Mr Cheong said.
Ms Ri studied science and is from an upper-class family, her father being a professor and her mother an obstetrician, he added.
Kenji Fujimoto has cordial visit, says Kim Jong-un has “grown tremendously as a person”
By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent
Kenji Fujimoto, former chef to Kim Jong-il, returned to Beijing on August 4 from a two-week trip to North Korea.
Fujimoto (not his real name) worked as personal cook for the family of the North Korean leader from the 1980s until his escape from the country in 2001. He returned to North Korea on July 21 at the invitation of current leader Kim Jong-un and stayed for two weeks.
Meeting with Japanese reporters in Beijing, Fujimoto said the younger Kim had “grown tremendously as a person” and told him he was “always welcome whenever I visited North Korea.”
The cook said his welcome reception in Pyongyang was attended by around twenty people, including Kim and wife Ri Sol-ju. During the festivities, Kim embraced him and called him by his real name, he reported.
Fujimoto said Ri was “pretty and very charming.” He added that he saw Kim’s younger sister Yo-jong at the reception, but not older brother Jong-chol.
When asked whether they had discussed issues of North Korea-Japan relations, including the matter of abductions of Japanese nationals, Fujimoto said, “We didn’t go into political things.”
He also said he brought tuna with him on the North Korea trip to prepare a special dish for Kim and the others. Tuna is a “luxury item” that Japan prohibits for North Korean export, but the cook passed customs without any special item inspection because the officials did not recognize his real name, he explained.
Fujimoto was also reunited with family members in North Korea. He married a folk singer while there in the past, and is known to have a son and daughter living in the country.
The Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, interpreted the goal of the invitation and reception as twofold: communicating the new Kim regime’s openness to the international community, and encouraging Fujimoto to keep quiet on the things he knows about the family.
Pyongyang sent the invitation in mid-June via a pro-North Korean Korean-Japanese businessperson, sources reported. Fujimoto is said to have welcomed the invitation, but expressed concern he might be punished if he returned to the country.
After escaping North Korea, Fujimoto published a book called “Kim Jong-il’s Chef.” In it, he praised Kim Jong-un as having “leadership.”
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
North Korea has strongly denied reports from South Korea that it is planning policy changes that will lead to the reform and opening of the country.
A government body dismissed reports that the present leadership was breaking with the past as “ridiculous”.
Some commentators have speculated that the recent removal of North Korea’s top general pointed to a possible power struggle over economic reform.
Kim Jong-un succeeded his late father, Kim Jong-il, in December.
Mr Kim, believed to be in his late 20s, has since adopted a warm public persona, being photographed at fun fairs and pop concerts with his young wife.
That - together with the recent removal of army chief General Ri Yong-ho - has fuelled hopes in the South that he could be planning to open up North Korea’s closed state-run economy.
However, a spokesman for North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which deals with cross-border affairs, dismissed the speculation in an interview with state-run KCNA news agency on Sunday.
He said that Kim Jong-un would pursue the “military first” policy brought in by his father and would build a “civilised and comfortable life for the people under socialism”.
‘Silly dream’
“The puppet group (South Korea)… tried to give (the) impression that the present leadership of the DPRK (North Korea) broke with the past. This is the height of ignorance,” the spokesman said.
“To expect policy change and reform and opening from the DPRK is nothing but a foolish and silly dream, just like wanting the sun to rise in the west.”
He accused Seoul of trying to impose capitalism on Pyongyang by “trumpeting reform and opening”, adding: “There cannot be any slightest change in all policies.”
BBC Asia analyst Charles Scanlon says the statement probably shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Kim Jong-un has adopted a warmer persona than his father, fuelling speculation about reform
Any reference to reform has always been anathema for North Korean officials, he says, and it is a word they associate with victory for their capitalist enemies in the South.
There is also substantial external pressure for change, not least from China, which appears close to Kim Jong-un and his inner circle and which has pressed for reform in North Korea for more than a decade, our correspondent adds.
Mr Kim and those around him are being keenly watched for the direction in which they will take the communist state.
Singer or sister? Speculation is rife over who this woman is. Photo: AFP/KCNA via KNS
A mystery woman pictured accompanying North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong-un to recent events has prompted speculation in Seoul about whether she is his partner or his younger sister.
The North’s state television on Sunday aired footage of the woman joining Kim Jong-un as he paid tribute to his late grandfather Kim Il-sung on the anniversary of his death in 1994.
Some South Korea media reports suggested she was Kim’s younger sister Yo-Jong. Others suggested she may be Kim’s wife or lover.
Top officials including ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam and army chief Ri Yong-ho accompanied the leader to Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Palace, where the embalmed body of the nation’s first president lies in state.
Who is she? Kim Jong-un is pictured during a visit to Kumsusan Palace with an unidentified woman. Photo: AFP/North Korean TV
The TV footage showed the woman, apparently in her twenties or thirties, walking next to the leader. She bowed with him before a portrait of Kim Il-sung.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/mystery-woman-with-north-koreas-new-leader-kim-jongun-stirs-speculation-20120710-21sa7.html#ixzz20AlPWdgM
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un gets new official theme song
Onwards Toward the Final Victory airs on state media as part of propaganda drive to build up image of ‘great successor’
In the past decade, the bubblegum pop and kitsch dance routines of South Korea’s K-pop bands have taken the charts by storm in Asia and Latin America. But north across the Korean border, broadcasters are promoting a track less likely to become an international success: a new signature song for youthful leader Kim Jong-un.
The anthem, titled Onwards Toward the Final Victory, is part of a propaganda drive to build up the image of the “great successor”. Radio and television are airing it several times a day and the score has been printed in the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun.
“The song hardens the will of the Korean army and people to devote their all to the prosperity of the country with high national pride,” said the state run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Unlike the songs associated with his father and grandfather, it does not specifically mention Kim. It takes its title from the closing words of his address marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, the country’s founder, Kim II-sung.
“It’s like remixing his speech. It’s not really a paean to him,” said John Delury, an expert on North Korea at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Hong Kwang Sun, vice-minister of culture, told KCNA: “The song is just a powerful trumpet call of the revolution encouraging the army and people in the drive to build a thriving nation as well as a stirring drumbeat of victory.”
Professor Keith Howard of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies said music, song and dance performances were important at events such as the mass games and this spring’s celebrations of Kim II-sung’s centenary. The spectacles are so important that tap-dancing shoes have been among the clandestine cargos intercepted en route to North Korea. UN sanctions ban the export of luxury goods to the state.
Howard noted that songs have become directly linked to ideological developments in recent years. “If a newsreader tells you something five or six times you get bored. If you like the song you don’t get quite so bored,” he said.
The tune previously associated with Kim Jong-un, Footsteps, did not include a specific reference either, but was issued while his father was alive and before he had a formal position.
“It’s a bit odd [not to mention him] now that he’s leader … Some people are beginning to suggest we are seeing a situation where the father and son are being more or less deified and the grandson is just the current leader,” Howard said.
Delury added: “There’s still, definitely, a massive campaign to pump up his image and credentials … [Omitting his name] is probably related to the fact that he’s so young they have to phase in the larger-than-life elements of his public persona.”
He was intrigued that the song referred to the North as a “country” – rather than the more commonly used “great power”.
KCNA claimed in 2009 that Song of General Kim II-sung and No Motherland Without You, Kim Jong-il’s signature tune, were being beamed through space following the North’s satellite launch. Other countries said the device had never made it into orbit.
