There are only midget soldiers in North Korea

[bluesky79]

So far, North Korean soldiers stationed near the border are reportedly selected from families known to be most loyal to the communist regime to try to prevent military defections that may embarrass North Korea. Moreover, in order to look stronger, soldiers who are at least 170cm tall are stationed. However, nowadays, soldiers who are tall enough and from a loyal family are very difficult to find. Due to the chronic food shortages, many soldiers are malnourished and very short. They now place just tall soldiers even if they are not from a loyal family. From this we can infer the gravity of the food shortage in North Korea.

(http://www.voakorea.com/content/article/1545328.html)v

 

[waltky]

Bonzai!...

Wave of nationalism sweeps through Northeast Asia
December 26, 2012 - Both Koreas soon will be governed by the progeny of Cold War strongmen. China is in the hands of the son of one of Mao Zedong's revolutionary comrades. The incoming prime minister of Japan is a long-standing hawk and the grandson of one of Japan's war cabinet leaders.

The future is looking uninspiringly like the past in Northeast Asia. And although few (other than doomsday theorists) are predicting another war, the alignment of new leaders seems likely to cause some bumps in the year ahead. "In the short term, I take a pessimistic view. Some kind of new Cold War-type confrontation could happen," said Han Yong-sup of the Korea National Defense University, speaking at a conference this month in Seoul on China's transition. Any transition is a sensitive period, as new leaders try to establish their nationalist bona fides with their own public, and Northeast Asia is going through three simultaneously.

The Chinese Communist Party last month installed Xi Jinping as general secretary amid an unexpectedly robust campaign to assert Chinese sovereignty in the South China and East China seas. He is to become president in March. Japan and South Korea held elections three days apart last week, selecting new, conservative governments. North Korea's leader, 29-year-old Kim Jong Un, has been in power only a year and directed a Dec. 12 and satellite launch in what many believe was an effort to assert his legitimacy as the heir to his late father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung. Foreign policy analysts say that as the leaderships go through transitions, the countries are also jockeying for position in a changing world order in which China plays a newly dominant role.

China's rapid growth has it on course to become the world's largest economy by the end of this decade, and its projection of newfound power is putting pressure on all the other countries in the region. "There is potential for rising tensions and mishandling of important relationships from every direction," said Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. Though family legacy may not be destiny, it is at least an interesting coincidence that all four of the new Asian leaders have significant nationalist bloodlines.

MORE

See also:

Japanese man becomes oldest in recorded history
Sat, Dec 29, 2012 - STAMINA: Jiroemon Kimura broke the record for male longevity when he turned 115 years and 253 days old yesterday, and is also the world’s oldest living person

Jiroemon Kimura, a 115-year-old Japanese man born when Queen Victoria still reigned over the British Empire, became the oldest man in recorded history yesterday, according to record keepers. Kimura, of Kyotango, in western Japan, was born on April 19, 1897, in the 30th year of the Meiji era, according to Guinness World Records. That made him 115 years and 253 days as of yesterday, breaking the longevity record for men held by Christian Mortensen of California, who died in 1998 at the age of 115 years and 252 days.

The oldest woman in recorded history, Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, died in 1997 at the age of 122. “He has an amazingly strong will to live,” Kimura’s nephew Tamotsu Miyake, 80, said in an interview. “He is strongly confident that he lives right and well.” Kimura is among 22 Japanese people on a list of the world’s 64 oldest people compiled by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, highlighting the challenges facing Japan as its population ages.

A combination of the world’s highest life expectancy, the world’s second-largest public debt and a below-replacement birthrate is straining the nation’s pension system, prompting the government to curb payouts, raise contributions and delay the age of eligibility. Japan’s average life expectancy at birth is 83 years, a figure projected to exceed 90 for women by 2050. The number of Japanese centenarians rose 7.6 percent from a year earlier to 51,376 as of September and there are 40 centenarians per 100,000 people in the country, which has the world’s highest proportion of elderly, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health.

Kimura became the world’s oldest currently living person on Dec. 17, when 115-year-old Dina Manfredini of Iowa died, according to London-based Guinness and the Gerontology Research Group. Manfredini was born 15 days before Kimura. Kimura was in a hospital yesterday morning, Yasuhiro Kawato, head of the section for elderly welfare at Kyotango’s city hall, said by telephone. “His condition has improved and we’re not worried, but the doctors said it would be best if he stayed in the hospital into the new year,” Kawato said. The world’s second-oldest living person, Japanese woman Koto Okubo, turned 115 on Dec. 24.

More http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/12/29/2003551277

 

[Mad Scientist]

My son recently went on a business trip to Korea and visited the DMZ. He said that within 2 hours of his visit some North Korean shot two officers and defected to the South, in the exact same area he was just at!

I've been stationed in Korea and been there 9 times but I never went to the DMZ, one of my only regrets in life.

When I was stationed there a North Korean was captured on Base, right in front of the Theater. And if you believe the story, a North Korean jet buzzed our runway. This was all back in 1988.

 

[waltky]

His new wifey must be givin' him some Pyongyang to soften him up...

Kim calls for ‘radical’ economic shift
Wed, Jan 02, 2013 - SHIFT: Although the nation would turn its efforts toward building the economy, Kim made it clear it would not completely shift away from his father’s ‘military first policy

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un yesterday called for a “radical turnabout” in the impoverished country’s economy in a rare New Year’s address that also appeared to offer an olive branch to South Korea. Kim’s speech was the first of its kind for 19 years, since the death of his grandfather and the North’s founding president, Kim Il-sung. Kim’s father and the country’s previous ruler, Kim Jong-il, never made a major address to his people. This year will be one of “great creations and changes in which a radical turnabout will be effected,” Kim Jong-un said, adding that “the building of an economic giant is the most important task” facing the country.

Praising the success of the country’s scientists in launching a long-range rocket last month, he said a similar national effort was now needed on the economic front. “The entire party, the whole country and all the people should wage an all-out struggle this year to effect a turnaround in building an economic giant and improving the people’s standard of living,” he said. However, he offered no specifics for how this might be achieved by the isolated state, which is already under multiple sanctions and relies on its sole major ally China for 70 percent of its foreign trade.

When Kim Jong-il died in 2011 he left a country in dire economic straits — the result of a “military first” policy that fed an ambitious missile and nuclear program at the expense of a malnourished population. Despite a rise in staple food output, daily life for millions is an ongoing struggle with under-nutrition, according to a recent World Food Programme report. The address will be closely scrutinized in South Korea, which has just elected its first female president, the conservative Park Geun-hye, who has signaled a desire for greater engagement with Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-un’s tone was conciliatory as he urged a scaling down of tensions between the two Koreas, who remain technically at war. “An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the North and the South,” he said. “The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war.” The South’s president-elect, Park, has distanced herself from outgoing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s hardline policy towards Pyongyang.

MORE