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Noord-Korea!

1. [verwijderd] 31 juli 2021 07:18

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   North Korea's economy in crisis because of COVID-19 and sanctions
   
   North Korea's economy suffered its biggest contraction in 23 years in 2020 as it was battered by continued U.N. sanctions, COVID-19 lockdown measures and bad weather, South Korea's central bank said.
   
   The Bank of Korea (BOK) gives the most reliable estimates of economic output in the reclusive North, but other experts said the situation could be even worse.
   
   Kim Byeong-yeon, an economics professor at Seoul National University who specialises in North Korea, estimated that the economy there could have shrunk up to 20% from 2017-20, taking into account the role of informal markets which he said the BOK tends to overestimate during downturns.
   
   "It is indeed a major crisis, and one that might bring bigger political repercussions as people now have far more economic interests and knowledge than the 1990s, having done trade, smuggling and other activities themselves," Kim said.
   
   A South Korean government source with close knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the North faces its worst economic crisis since a 1990s famine killed as many as 3 million, although few deaths have been reported this time thanks to Chinese aid and the release of military and emergency reserves.
   
   "Two years of border shutdown and typhoons have deepened the North's crisis, but not to the extent that it shook the foundation of its economy," the source said, citing Chinese help.
   
   The BOK said gross domestic product (GDP) in the North contracted 4.5% last year in real terms, the worst since 1997 and reversing a 0.4% growth in 2019, the first expansion in three years.
   
   "Along with the continued intense U.N. sanctions, North Korea's lockdown measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic ... and worsened weather conditions such as heavy rains and typhoons were the main drivers to the contraction," a BOK official told reporters.
   
   The BOK has released annual estimates on the North's economic output since 1991, based on information from the South's intelligence and government and foreign trading agencies.
   
   NO CONFIRMED CASES
   
   North Korea has not confirmed any COVID-19 cases, but closed borders and imposed strict prevention measures, seeing the pandemic as a matter of national survival.
   
   The measures also included a 30-day quarantine for those who showed COVID-19 symptoms, a ban on domestic travel and entry to the capital Pyongyang, the BOK official said, adding that these moves greatly impacted the manufacturing and services sectors.
   
   North Korea's state-controlled economy had already been dogged by international sanctions, aimed at pressing leader Kim Jong Un to abandon nuclear and weapons programmes.
   
   Kim said last month that the failure to implement anti-virus measures had caused a "great crisis". In June, he said the country faced a "tense" food situation, citing the pandemic and last year's typhoons.
   
   The pandemic has compounded the squeeze, in part because North Korea halted trade with China, its biggest economic lifeline, with Chinese customs data showing bilateral trade plummeted more than 80% last year from 2019.
   
   The two countries were working to resume trade as early as August after scrapping earlier plans amid concerns over more contagious COVID-19 variants, the South Korean government source said.
   
   The Bank of Korea (BOK) gives the most reliable estimates of economic output in the reclusive North, but other experts said the situation could be even worse.
   
   Kim Byeong-yeon, an economics professor at Seoul National University who specialises in North Korea, estimated that the economy there could have shrunk up to 20% from 2017-20, taking into account the role of informal markets which he said the BOK tends to overestimate during downturns.
   
   "It is indeed a major crisis, and one that might bring bigger political repercussions as people now have far more economic interests and knowledge than the 1990s, having done trade, smuggling and other activities themselves," Kim said.
   
   "Two years of border shutdown and typhoons have deepened the North's crisis, but not to the extent that it shook the foundation of its economy," the source said, citing Chinese help.
   
   The BOK said gross domestic product (GDP) in the North contracted 4.5% last year in real terms, the worst since 1997 and reversing a 0.4% growth in 2019, the first expansion in three years.
   
   "Along with the continued intense U.N. sanctions, North Korea's lockdown measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic ... and worsened weather conditions such as heavy rains and typhoons were the main drivers to the contraction," a BOK official told reporters.
   
   The BOK has released annual estimates on the North's economic output since 1991, based on information from the South's intelligence and government and foreign trading agencies.
   
   NO CONFIRMED CASES
   
   North Korea has not confirmed any COVID-19 cases, but closed borders and imposed strict prevention measures, seeing the pandemic as a matter of national survival.
   
   The measures also included a 30-day quarantine for those who showed COVID-19 symptoms, a ban on domestic travel and entry to the capital Pyongyang, the BOK official said, adding that these moves greatly impacted the manufacturing and services sectors.
   
   North Korea's state-controlled economy had already been dogged by international sanctions, aimed at pressing leader Kim Jong Un to abandon nuclear and weapons programmes.
   
   Kim said last month that the failure to implement anti-virus measures had caused a "great crisis". In June, he said the country faced a "tense" food situation, citing the pandemic and last year's typhoons. read more
   
   The pandemic has compounded the squeeze, in part because North Korea halted trade with China, its biggest economic lifeline, with Chinese customs data showing bilateral trade plummeted more than 80% last year from 2019.
   
   The two countries were working to resume trade as early as August after scrapping earlier plans amid concerns over more contagious COVID-19 variants, the South Korean government source said.
   
   The BOK said North Korea's trade volume plunged 73.4% to $0.86 billion last year, with exports of the non-sanctioned items including watches and wigs plunging 86.3% and 92.7%, respectively.
   
   "Trade volume which took up about 21.9% of the GDP in 2016 ... was sharply reduced to 2.9% in 2020 after the COVID-19 lockdown impact added to the economic sanctions," the BOK official said.
   
   This week, North and South Korea restored hotlines that Pyongyang severed a year ago, amid efforts to rebuild ties by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been seeking to restart economic cooperation.
   
   Friday's BOK data showed that industrial output, which accounts for 28% of the North Korean economy, decreased 5.9%, while output from agriculture, forestry and fisheries fell 7.6%.
   
   The services sector, which accounts for a third of the economy, also shrank 4.0%.
   
2. [verwijderd] 1 augustus 2021 08:27

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   Kim Jong-Un hints at ‘hardships’, stoking fears of famine’s return amid North Korea’s pandemic isolation
   
   Three times this year, the hermit kingdom’s Kim has indicated his country is in trouble, raising the spectre of the deadly ‘Arduous March’ of the 1990s. Sealed borders, severe weather, and the presumed spread of Covid-19 have combined to create a ‘gravely serious’ humanitarian situation, say observers.
   
   North Korea ’s autocratic leadership is not known for drawing attention to problems within the hermit kingdom, where a popular children’s song proclaims “we have nothing to envy in the world”.
   
   So when Kim Jong-Un used a recent commemoration of the 1950-1953 Korean war to acknowledge the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns had sparked a “crisis of hardships” to rival the conflict, aid groups took notice.
   
   Kim’s acknowledgement of growing deprivation late last month was the third such public acknowledgement this year, including an admission in June that the secretive country’s food situation was “getting tense”. In April, the third-generation dictator, who assumed power in 2011, told officials to prepare for another “Arduous March”, the term used to describe a famine during the 1990s that is estimated to have cost between 240,000 and 3.5 million lives.
   
   So when Kim Jong-Un used a recent commemoration of the 1950-1953 Korean war to acknowledge the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns had sparked a “crisis of hardships” to rival the conflict, aid groups took notice.
   
   North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un scolds officials for ‘great crisis’ caused by coronavirus lapse
   
   “The fact that Kim Jong-Un is saying that the situation is dire indicates to me that things are bad in North Korea,” said Dan Chung, executive director of Crossing Borders, a US-based Christian aid group that works with North Korean refugees. “During the famine of the late 90s, North Korea made indications that the country was in trouble. North Korea’s default disposition is bombast and bragging. If they say they are in trouble, they usually mean it.”
   
   Tim Peters, the founder of Seoul-based non-profit Helping Hands Korea, said Kim’s remarks hinted at the “enormous impact” of the pandemic and related restrictions on the country.
   
   “Rarely do we agree with Kim Jong-Un, but such an assessment coincides with all of the indicators that our NGO has of the immensely complex crisis that the pandemic poses for the DPRK’s ageing, brittle infrastructure on every level,” Peters said, using the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
   
   Pyongyang has effectively sealed the country’s borders since January last year as part of measures to keep the pandemic at bay, severely curtailing cross-border traffic and trade with China, its main ally and trading partner. Trade between the neighbours fell to a record low in the first six months of 2021, with Chinese exports declining more than 85 per cent to US $56.77 million, according to Chinese customs data.
3. [verwijderd] 2 augustus 2021 17:16

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   North Korea has Collapsed: The Headline You Don’t Want to Ever See
   
   What is left to say at this point when it comes to that “Hermit Kingdom” everyone loves to hate? North Korea, or also known as the so-called Democratic People’s Republic, is the ultimate Pandora’s Box and every president’s worst nightmare: A-bombs, chemical toxins, biological weapons, and missiles to lob them all over the world—including now at the continental United States. And Pyongyang knows how to get the news cycle to turn its way—thanks to making Northeast Asia shake with nuclear weapons tests.
   
   www.19fortyfive.com/2021/06/north-kor...
4. [verwijderd] 2 augustus 2021 17:37

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   quote:

   johan20090 schreef op 2 augustus 2021 17:16:

   North Korea has Collapsed: The Headline You Don’t Want to Ever See
   
   What is left to say at this point when it comes to that “Hermit Kingdom” everyone loves to hate? North Korea, or also known as the so-called Democratic People’s Republic, is the ultimate Pandora’s Box and every president’s worst nightmare: A-bombs, chemical toxins, biological weapons, and missiles to lob them all over the world—including now at the continental United States. And Pyongyang knows how to get the news cycle to turn its way—thanks to making Northeast Asia shake with nuclear weapons tests.
   
   www.19fortyfive.com/2021/06/north-kor...
   

   Chinese intervention WILL happen in any collapse scenario of North Korea. North Korea will be propped up as a vassal state so that China will not have a common border with his US ally. This is certain.
5. [verwijderd] 4 augustus 2021 23:40

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   Slimmer Kim prompts ‘heartbreak’ in North Korea
   
   State television shows citizen expressing upset at ’emaciated’ condition of leader who once weighed 140 kilograms.
   
   North Koreans have been worrying tearfully about leader Kim Jong Un’s “emaciated” condition, state media quoted a local resident as saying, in a highly unusual broadcast that provided rare acknowledgement of foreign speculation about Kim’s weight loss.
   
   The comments – in a country where public discussion of the leader’s health and personal life is nearly always off-limits – are being seen as an effort to boost domestic support for Kim as he grapples with deepening economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, sanctions imposed as a result of its nuclear programme, and natural disasters, some experts said.
6. luchtschip 5 augustus 2021 00:18

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   quote:

   johan20090 schreef op 4 augustus 2021 23:40:

   Slimmer Kim prompts ‘heartbreak’ in North Korea
   
   State television shows citizen expressing upset at ’emaciated’ condition of leader who once weighed 140 kilograms.
   
   North Koreans have been worrying tearfully about leader Kim Jong Un’s “emaciated” condition, state media quoted a local resident as saying, in a highly unusual broadcast that provided rare acknowledgement of foreign speculation about Kim’s weight loss.
   
   The comments – in a country where public discussion of the leader’s health and personal life is nearly always off-limits – are being seen as an effort to boost domestic support for Kim as he grapples with deepening economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, sanctions imposed as a result of its nuclear programme, and natural disasters, some experts said.
   

   En weer geen link, dus weer pronken met andermans veren
   
   Het is trouwens een copy paste van een oud artikel van 29 Juni 2021.
   
   www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/29/slim...
   
   Nogmaals een vriendelijk verzoek een link bij je copy paste te plaatsen.
7. [verwijderd] 5 augustus 2021 18:11

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   Kim Jong-Un is funny - Dumb and dumber
   
   I'm sure these are exactly the things he says in Korean, we just don't understand
   
   www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCq_lU5kSWU
8. [verwijderd] 5 augustus 2021 21:23

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   Kim Jong-Un eats everything
   
   I was wondering if I can eat that - No sir, that's an island + It's look like a cookie
   
   www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyYYTkL99Ac
9. [verwijderd] 7 augustus 2021 13:20

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   BBC The Mole: Infiltrating North Korea
   
   A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea. A film by Mads Brügger.
   
   www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZS2c7b3z8
10. A Mao 7 augustus 2021 23:14

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    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
12. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 04:34

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    De Korean Friendship Association (KFA) die wordt geleid door Alejandro Cao de Benós, een Spaanse activist met nauwe banden met Noord Korea, is een dekmantel van Noord Korea om de VN sancties te omzeilen. Natuurlijk zeggen de belanghebbenden dat allles niet waar is. Het bewijsmateriaal staat op film en is onomstotelijk.
13. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 05:40

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    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    Er is een Nederlandse vertegenwoordiger van KFA. Er is een online formulier om lid te worden van KFA
    
    www.korea-dpr.com/organization.html
14. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 11:22

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    North Korea is an evil and dangerous enterprise. An influx of capitalist culture and a swelling desire for material goods could one day spell the end for North Korea’s Kim dynasty and hasten the pariah state’s re-entry into the international community. The regime’s elusive leader, Kim Jong-Un, may have no intention of undertaking reforms or giving up his nuclear weapons, change is inevitable.
15. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 12:50

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    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    Gold, drugs, missiles: North Korea’s attempted illegal sales through the KFA
    
    New film exposes Spanish Korean Friendship Association aristocrat who tried to help the DPRK sell weapons and drugs.
    
    A North Korean company offered Scud missiles, rocket artillery systems, a gold mine, drug manufacturing help and even more to two Danish individuals visiting Pyongyang in Jan. 2017, a new documentary revealed on Sunday.
    
    Director Mads Brügger’s “The Mole” showed that North Korea’s Korea Narae Trading Company offered these sanctioned items and services to the two Danes, who posed as an investor and a senior member of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA). The imposters used body cameras to secretly film deals that they tried to set up with North Korea under false pretenses.
    
    Korea Narae Trading Company’s shady dealings were first brought to light in the latest U.N. report on North Korea sanctions, published in September 2020.
    
    In the documentary, Spanish aristocrat and KFA President Alejandro Cao de Benós facilitated the potential weapons and drug-smuggling deals. It’s unclear why Brügger and his hired actors decided to stage an undercover bust in the DPRK, but Cao de Benós told NK News that the film’s director simply has an ax to grind.
    
    Regardless, the film shows extremely incriminating behavior: Cao de Benós mediated a contract signing between the undercover actors and DPRK operatives. The contract, shown in the footage, stated its intent to “establish the friendly business relations through … joint development and operation of a gold mine, manufacturing of the military equipment and medicines.”
    
    www.nknews.org/2020/10/gold-drugs-mis...
16. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 13:24

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    Hidden cameras expose Kim Jong-un's clandestine weapon and drugs trade | 60 Minutes Australia
    
    President van KFA Alejandro Cao de Benós is een crimineel en zeer gevaarlijk. De man ontkent alles en discussie is niet mogelijk.
    
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J1zAnA2Wds
    
    
17. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 14:00

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    Documentary claims to expose North Korea trying to dodge UN sanctions
    
    A new documentary with a bizarre cast of characters claims to shed light on North Korea's efforts to evade international sanctions, by tricking members of Kim Jong-Un's secretive regime into signing fake arms deals.
    
    The film features an out-of-work Danish chef fascinated by communist dictatorships; a Spanish nobleman and North Korean propagandist with a penchant for military uniform; and a former French legionnaire and convicted cocaine dealer who plays the part of an international man of mystery.
    
    But could it all be true? One former UN official told the BBC he found it "highly credible".
    
    The film, titled The Mole, is the work of maverick Danish film maker Mads Brügger, who says he orchestrated a complex three-year sting operation to reveal how North Korea flouts international law.
    
    The out-of-work chef fascinated by communist dictatorships is Ulrich Larsen, who, with Brügger's help, infiltrates the Korean Friendship Association, a pro-regime group based in Spain. Larsen moves up the ranks and ultimately wins the favour and apparent trust of North Korean government officials.
    
    Membership of the KFA brings Larsen into contact with its flamboyant founder and president, Alejandro Cao de Benós, a Spanish nobleman known around the world as "the Gatekeeper of North Korea".
    
    During the film, in which he is sometimes seen in North Korean military uniform, Cao de Benós boasts of his access and influence with the regime in Pyongyang.
    
    www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54464581
18. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 14:09

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 7 augustus 2021 23:14:

    Thanks voor het attenderen,
    Bizar inkijk in een wereld die verborgen is.
    

    Preident KFA Alejandro Cao de Benós voorliefde voor militaire uniformen

    Bijlage:
19. A Mao 8 augustus 2021 16:36

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    Rare mensen heb je toch in deze wereld…
    Die paar mensen die dan ook bij zo’n bijeenkomst van kaf gaan?? Waarom zou je dat willen? Heel bijzonder.
20. [verwijderd] 8 augustus 2021 19:06

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    quote:

    A Mao schreef op 8 augustus 2021 16:36:

    Rare mensen heb je toch in deze wereld…
    Die paar mensen die dan ook bij zo’n bijeenkomst van kaf gaan?? Waarom zou je dat willen? Heel bijzonder.
    

    Op Facebook is genoeg te vinden over de KFA Nederland.
    
    www.facebook.com/KFANL/
21. A Mao 8 augustus 2021 20:23

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    Heb het idee dat het niet echt leeft in Nederland.. :-)