Kim Jong Il Dead?

[Badgers Nose]

He not dead, sometimes cocaine makes heart stop, don't you read stupids?

[karl262]

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/30/h...-in-a-lincoln/

Post from autoblog about how exactly North Korea could have gotten their hands on a 1975 Lincoln.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

There are many countries we know nothing about.

Swaziland, Rwanda, Bhutan, Laos, Guatemala etc...

I've met people from at least 3 of those countries and heard first hand accounts about them. Can't say the same for North Koreans. Not the same at all IMO.

[Itse]

Drawings from the NK prison camps. The drawings are not very good, but if you have a soft heart and a good imagination, I don't necessarily recommend checking them out... Especially thinking that they have people of all ages in these camps, including children. Who of course are not excluded from hard labour.

http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/arti...ht-torture.htm

And if that doesn't do it for you, this article has some really juicy bits. The well-recorded cannibalism isn't even the worst of it.

http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/terror...uman_flesh.htm

One of the reasons NK still limps forward is because it's neighbours really don't want it to collapse. That place is just so fubar that should the regime collapse, millions of people would pour over the borders to South Korea, China and Russia. Too weak to be worthwhile physical labour, no education and propably a lot of them just total headcases. The country propably has essentially no worthwhile exports or industry either. It would be just a total moneysink filled with problems.

This doesn't really encourage anyone to come up with solutions to end what's going on. (Not that it would be easy to come up with a plan.)

It's just cheaper and easier for everyone outside NK to let them rot where they are.

EDIT: Here's one more story. It's an easier read.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/cana...50524-all.html

[GirlySports]

I wonder if the part about having North Koreans scatter everywhere is true.
Let's used East Germany as an example. When the wall fell, was there mass exodus of East Germans all over europe? I don't think the European countries took them? Was there even mass exodus in West Germany? This I don't know.

Let's say Korea unified. Then the North would be rebuilt with new cities, new officials new laws of trade and commerce. It definitely would take years but the South is strong now and might be able to expand into the North.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I wonder if the part about having North Koreans scatter everywhere is true.
Let's used East Germany as an example. When the wall fell, was there mass exodus of East Germans all over europe? I don't think the European countries took them? Was there even mass exodus in West Germany? This I don't know.

Let's say Korea unified. Then the North would be rebuilt with new cities, new officials new laws of trade and commerce. It definitely would take years but the South is strong now and might be able to expand into the North.

I just get the sense that emotions involved are different. Germany was invaded, occupied and then partitioned. The people of Germany always wanted unification and had underground communication set up so that the sides maintained some contact. There were dissidents and activists on both sides pushing for it for many years.

Korea was divided due to civil war and political unrest. It seems to me that this has created more of a rivalry and distrust among both sides. I would not be surprised if this causes a lot more people in Korea to resist unification as opposed to in Germany.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I just get the sense that emotions involved are different. Germany was invaded, occupied and then partitioned. The people of Germany always wanted unification and had underground communication set up so that the sides maintained some contact. There were dissidents and activists on both sides pushing for it for many years.

Korea was divided due to civil war and political unrest. It seems to me that this has created more of a rivalry and distrust among both sides. I would not be surprised if this causes a lot more people in Korea to resist unification as opposed to in Germany.

An opinion poll last year, after North Korea shelled the South and killed some citizens, showed an increase in opinion that the two Korea's should be reunited.

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2...n-unification/

South Koreans view it as something that would be costly but a move that would ultimately remove threats to its own existence.

Cowperson

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

An opinion poll last year, after North Korea shelled the South and killed some citizens, showed an increase in opinion that the two Korea's should be reunited.

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2...n-unification/

South Koreans view it as something that would be costly but a move that would ultimately remove threats to its own existence.

Cowperson

I wonder how the North Koreans would view it though.

It is hard to imagine that all the tension of the past 50 years would just go away. Of course, there was tension in Germany, but it was mostly between the USSR and the USA with Germany used as a pawn. Most people in the North have been indoctrinated to never surrender to the South and the tension seems to have become more homegrown. I don't recall East Germany every threatening to detroy West Germany.

I bet both sides technically want "unification", but probably only on their own terms.

Even through the Iron Curtain, there was more transparency between the 2 Germanies than what we see in the Koreas

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

Apparently because my mom and dad were born in Hong Kong, I'm eligible to apply for a Hong Kong ID, which in turn includes a Chinese passport. My mom is in the process up updating her ID. Once she's done that, I'm totally up for getting my HK ID and Chinese passport.

With a Chinese passport, I could probably easily get access into North Korea. After watching the Vice Guide to North Korea, I'm really tempted to try to get in. But getting thrown into Yodok scares the living hell out of me lol.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I wonder if the part about having North Koreans scatter everywhere is true.
Let's used East Germany as an example. When the wall fell, was there mass exodus of East Germans all over europe? .

Prolonged mass famine makes a huge difference, and East Germany wasn't nearly as backwater relatively as North Korea is. People are literally eating each other in North Korea. And rats, and grass of the ground.

Of course, North Korea is a weird place. It's really hard to predict how that society would react to big chances, and what those chances would or even could be like.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Teh_Bandwagoner

Apparently because my mom and dad were born in Hong Kong, I'm eligible to apply for a Hong Kong ID, which in turn includes a Chinese passport. My mom is in the process up updating her ID. Once she's done that, I'm totally up for getting my HK ID and Chinese passport.

With a Chinese passport, I could probably easily get access into North Korea. After watching the Vice Guide to North Korea, I'm really tempted to try to get in. But getting thrown into Yodok scares the living hell out of me lol.

If you did go and the regime apprehended you as a spy or enemy, would you expect Canadian taxpayers to pay the extortion for your release?

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Teh_Bandwagoner

Apparently because my mom and dad were born in Hong Kong, I'm eligible to apply for a Hong Kong ID, which in turn includes a Chinese passport. My mom is in the process up updating her ID. Once she's done that, I'm totally up for getting my HK ID and Chinese passport.

With a Chinese passport, I could probably easily get access into North Korea. After watching the Vice Guide to North Korea, I'm really tempted to try to get in. But getting thrown into Yodok scares the living hell out of me lol.

Go in with a Chinese passport then for some weird fluke it is revealed that you are a born citizen of a NATO country...yeesh
You can go in as a Canadian out of a Japanese travel agency that runs tours.
Not worth the preceived deception.

[Itse]

A buddy of mine visited North Korea I think two years ago actually. Said it wasn't any harder to get in than any other dictatorship. (He's visited a few others.) He's a Finn. (And a Brit, with a British name.) He said he wasn't actually watched noticably. As an experiment he just got off a train at a smaller city unannounced and unsuspected, looked around a bit and got on the next train, no trouble.

(Yeah, my buddy has some weird travel habits. He likes to go to places where most people don't like Nigeria, Kenya, North Korea, Uzbekistan... He travels alone, is usually the only western white guy around and somehow never gets into trouble.)

I wouldn't recommend pulling something like that, but AFAIK mostly what they do to suspicious types is go through your stuff, take away any means of taking of notes or photos and throw you out of the country. They're not that really big into the hostage taking. They might have a thing for Americans though, and anyone suspected of being a reporter.

[JohnnyB]

You can arrange travel into North Korea from China for 6000rmb all inclusive. 3000rmb if you're Chinese, so use that passport. I know quite a few people who have gone this way. You are watched carefully all the time though and where you go is quite controlled.