Results tagged “dprk”

Uh oh! Something is afoot - two navy patrol boats from our peninsula-ed friends to the East began shooting at each other near Daecheong-do, an island about 125 miles west of Seoul earlier today. According to South Korean news service Yonhap, fighting erupted when a DPRK navy boat crossed the Northern Limit Line. South Korea issued warning broadcasts, and then fired some warning shots when the broadcasts were ignored. “It was then that the North Korean patrol boat attacked our high-speed patrol boat... Our ship returned the fire," according to the military statement. We wonder what this will do for next weeks bilateral nuclear weapons talks, of which China has a great part.

• Changsha sculptors are carving a giant 100-foot-tall statue of Mao ZeDong out of granite, but many are complaining it doesn't look like Mao. Netizens say it reminds them of the Sphinx while one British paper has drawn a comparison to Lord Byron. [Telegraph]
• Even more than wanting to see the pictures from Taiwan's largest gay parade ever, you probably want to hear what Chinese netizen reactions were on it. Lucky we have Chinasmack, eh? [Chinasmack]
• Get to know a little more about the "Father of Chinese Aerospace" (aka "Rocket King") Qian xuesen, who helped launch the P.R.C.'s missile program after, ironically, leaving the U.S. over accusations of having Communist ties. He passed away this weekend. [Wall Street Journal]

• Prepare to fight China, Qaeda figure tells Uighurs [Washington Post] "A prominent al Qaeda militant urged Uighurs in Xianjiang to make serious preparations for a holy war against "oppressive" China and called on fellow Muslims to offer support. Abu Yahya al-Libi, in a video posted on an Islamist website on Wednesday, warned China of a fate similar to that of former communist superpower, the Soviet Union, which disintegrated some two decades ago."
• Inside the Ring [Washington Times] "China's most senior military intelligence official, a veteran of spy operations in Europe and cyberspace, recently made a secret visit to the United States and complained to the Pentagon about the press leak on the Chinese submarine that secretly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in 2006. Maj. Gen. Yang Hui said senior Chinese leaders suspected the Pentagon deliberately disclosed the encounter as part of a U.S. effort to send a political message of displeasure to China's military."
• A Beautiful Life: Mean Streets and Meaner People [NYTimes] "It takes nerve to award Bai Ling a singing role in a serious drama, but nerve may be the one thing “A Beautiful Life” does not lack. Set among the mean streets and meaner people of downtown Los Angeles, this laughably clichéd dive into sexual masochism and hardscrabble survival replaces story with outline and characters with place holders. No wonder Ms. Ling’s breasts are the most animated objects on screen."

• Exec: China's anniversary film set to break record [Associated Press] "China's star-studded propaganda blockbuster that marks 60 years of communist rule is on track to match the country's box office record set by the Hollywood film "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" in July, a senior movie executive said Monday. "The Founding of a Republic" has so far made nearly 330 million yuan ($48 million) as of Sunday since it was released on Sept. 16, China Film Group Corp. Assistant President Zhao Haicheng told The Associated Press."
• Can China Lead a Recovery? [Washington Post] "Chen Zizheng wheeled his shopping cart down one of the aisles at the Carrefour store near his house and paused in front of the bottles of Remy Martin, Johnnie Walker and Hennessy, each selling for an amount about equal to the annual salary he earned when he was a young government employee. But those days were about 30 years ago, around the time Deng Xiaoping launched China on a path of economic reform and opening up. Now China's thriving economy has made it possible for people like Chen, a 67-year-old semi-retired aerospace industry official, to plop down 1,168 yuan, or $170, for a bottle of liquor at a branch of a French "hypermarket" chain."
• Kim Jong Il Hosts Dinner for Wen Jiabao [KCNA] "General Secretary Kim Jong Il hosted a dinner in honor of Wen Jiabao, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, on an official goodwill visit to the DPRK at the Paekhwawon State Guest House in the evening of Monday."

• DPRK tells Wen it open to nuke talks [China Daily] "Premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Yong-il told his visiting Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao Sunday that the country was open to bilateral and multilateral talks on its nuclear programmes, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. "DPRK has never abandoned the goal (of denuclearising the Korean peninsula). We are willing to seek to realize this goal through bilateral and multilateral dialogue," Kim was quoted as saying by the CCTV."
• China Hopes to Create Its Own Media Empires [NYTimes] ""China plans to spend billions of dollars in the next few years to develop media and entertainment companies that it hopes can compete with global giants like the News Corporation and Time Warner, and will in the process loosen some of its tight control of these industries. An ambitious plan, set forth in guidelines last week by China’s State Council, envisions the creation of entertainment, news and culture companies with a market orientation and with less government backing. China, in short, would like to consolidate its industry into companies resembling Bloomberg, Time Warner and Viacom, analysts say."
• Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed [Washington Post] "In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks."

• Oop! Que Jingde, a high-level town government official who was a major shareholder in the Minhang building that collapsed, has now been arrested for corruption. [Shanghai Daily]
• The United Nations Environment Programme has taken stock of Shanghai's environmental efforts and said that the city has actually made strides in "greening" itself. [UN News]
• Morgan Stanley has sold The Exchange, a 52-story office and retail tower in Jing'an, to SOHO China Ltd. for $358.5 million. For those of you who are interested, only 30% of the building's space is currently rented. [AP

Bill Clinton worked his magic and now Kim Jong-il has granted "special pardon" to Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two jailed U.S. journalists. According to the official KCNA news agency, "Kim Jong-il issued an order of the chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission on granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor in accordance with Article 103 of the Socialist Constitution and releasing them." So five months after they were first trapped in the Northern peninsula, Ling and Lee are finally able to return home to see their families. The Washington Post has a teary feature on that... and just for controversy's sake, they also have an editorial by former U.N. ambassador John Bolton arguing why Clinton shouldn't have gone.

Thankfully, it looks like the story of Euna Lee and Laura Ling is not yet set to end with 12 years in a North Korean prison. Ex-Prez Bill Clinton is now reportedly on his way to Pyongyang to negotiate the release of the two American journalists. "As soon as he arrives, he will be entering negotiations with the North for the release of the female journalists," a Yonhap source was quoted as saying. Lee and Ling were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp after being found guilty of illegal entry, espionage and hostility towards North Koreans. They had been filming along the border, allegedly shooting a documentary for Current TV on the human trafficking of North Korean women into China.

North Korea had some strong words for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she referred to the country's leaders as "unruly children" and pointed out that even their most steadfast friends, China and Russia, were no longer willing to support their hijinks. The Foreign Ministry issued the following statement, "We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady, as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," adding that "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." Low blow, North Korea! We're not sure those words are going to convince the world you're not acting juvenile. Source: NY Times

Dear Leader, our close if crazy friend over on the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, apparently is dying of pancreatic cancer, according to Korean news source Yonhap Television News. The information was attributed to unidentified Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources, and was backed up by a report by a Japanese paper that Kim Jong-Il had a "serious pancreatic disorder." So what will North Korea do if their one God-like leader falls? It seems that Kim may be paving the way for his youngest son, 25-year-old Kim Jong Un to succeed him. The Times UK said that Jong Un had been in Beijing this past week meeting the leaders of the only country still willing (and perhaps not for long) to call the DPRK its ally.

After nearly two months of being detained in North Korea, Asian-American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling will allegedly be put to trial on June 4, according to the AP. The DPRK's Korean Central News Agency did not reveal any other details, including what charges the two face. If they are accused of illegal entry, they could spend up to three years in a labor camp. If they are found to have engaged in “espionage” or “hostility towards North Koreans,” they could add five to 10 years in prison onto their sentence. Lee and Ling were caught filming along the China-DPRK border in March. Both were working for Current TV.

• China, Japan, S Korea agree to push forward Six-Party talks [China Daily] "China, Japan and South Korea agreed here Saturday to continue pushing forward the Six-Party talks aimed at realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
• Tiananmen 20 years later: A survivor's story [AP] Twenty years after China's military crushed dissent around Tiananmen Square, the details are still fresh in Qi Zhiyong's mind. The acrid smell of tear gas. The people run down by tanks. The dizzying pain when a bullet tore through his left leg.
• Graft in China Covers Up Toll of Coal Mines [NYTimes] "Under China’s authoritarian system, superiors reward subordinates for strict compliance with targets set from above, like reducing mine disasters... Work-safety officials in Beijing complain that even more than in other industries, death tolls from accidents at coal mines are often ratcheted down or not reported at all. That is because of the risky profits to be made — by businessmen and corrupt local officials — exploiting dangerous coal seams with temporary, unskilled workers in thousands of illegal mines."

• Mandarin Chinese profanity [Wikipedia] "While many offensive words and expletives involve insulting someone's mother, it is also common to show contempt by scorning another person's ancestors. Other Mandarin insults accuse people of not being human. Unlike English, Mandarin words for excrement or feces are less commonly used in slang and insults. Also, there are few parallels to English's blasphemous phrases, such as 'God damn it'."
• NKorea premier ends China visit [AFP] North Korean Premier Kim Yong-Il Saturday wrapped up his first visit to China, which came two weeks before Pyongyang's planned launch of a satellite, the Xinhua news agency reported. Kim's visit, which began Tuesday, was his first since taking office in 2007 and was officially to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
• Earthquake Pandas Go Home (with video!) [BBC] "Eight young pandas have returned to their native Sichuan province, after being relocated to Beijing, following last year's earthquake. Large crowds turned out to visit the pandas on their last weekend in Beijing before they are flown back to Sichuan province. The pandas will have a new home in Sichuan province with indoor air conditioning and outdoor swimming pools."

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Kim II Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Monday holding up banners with slogans including "Long live the Great Leader Kim Jong Il". Shanghaiist was amused to hear we're observing only a "Year of Friendship" with this country in 2009. We've always thought they were our BFF.

China and North Korea will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations in 2009 in a 'Year of Friendship', reports AP. Yesterday, Chinese President Hu Jintao praised 'deep and traditional friendship' between the two nations and said, "The development of bilateral relations not only conforms to the fundamental interests and common will of the two peoples, but also contributes to the peace and stability of the region." What will the two good friends do in this new 'Year of Friendship', you ask? For a crystal-clear answer, let's turn to Xinhua:

During the year of friendship, China is willing to work together with the DPRK to further enhance friendship, promote exchanges and deepen cooperation through a variety of activities, in order to have a better future of China-DPRK friendly and cooperative relations.

In other interesting DPRK news, North Korea may use parliamentary elections in 2009 to lay the groundwork for the post Kim Jong-Il era. Meanwhile, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), North Korea's first foreign-funded university is finally expected to open this year after several delays. The initiative to build this school came from a Korean American man by the name of Kim Chin-Kyung who was detained for six weeks in North Korea in 1998 for allegedly spying for the US, and who also helped found the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in northeast China. He raised about US$31.5 million from Christian churches and individual donors in South Korea and abroad to build this new school.

President Kim Jong-Il may not have been there personally for yesterday's Olympic torch relay in Pyongyang, but that did not stop hundreds of thousands of ecstatic North Koreans from turning out in full force and waving the Kim Jong Ilia (flower named after the "Dear Leader") as the flame went across their city for the first time in the history of the Olympics. Earlier this week, DPRK officials promised the Chinese a smooth and trouble-free event (no doubt the greatest challenge of their lives), and my my, just take a look at this exuberant and spontaneous display of enthusiasm from the people. Sure made us shed a single tear.

It's the best that we have, though we have to admit this video doesn't do justice to the incredible spectacle that was made up of North and South Korean fan contingents at Hongkou Stadium for the two Koreas World Cup qualifier play-off on Wednesday. The action on the stands was just as, if not more, amazing to watch as the action on the field.

Ok, we know that China are taking on Australia in a crucial World Cup qualifier this afternoon at 2pm, but that's all the way down in Kunming and, frankly, we're not too optimistic about China's chances in this latest 'Group of Death' match. Therefore, match of the day has to be this evening's fixture at Hongkou Stadium where North Korea will take on South Korea (kick-off is 7pm).