theatlantic:

In Focus: North Korea Prepares for a Milestone Year

The North Korean government recently invited dozens of foreign journalists into its secretive country to cover the 100th birthday celebration for founder Kim Il Sung on April 15. Among pageants and openings, the event drawing the most attention is the scheduled launch of a three-stage Unha-3 rocket carrying a weather satellite. The launch is already drawing criticism from Western governments: If successful, it could demonstrate North Korea’s capacity to produce an intercontinental missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Despite their official invitation, foreign photographers are still restricted — escorted wherever they go and unable to photograph more than they can see within selected facilities or from the windows of buses and trains.

See more. [Images: AP, AFP/Getty]

theatlantic:

Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death

Nine years after watching his mother’s hanging, Shin In Geun squirmed through the electric fence that surrounds Camp 14 and ran off through the snow into the North Korean wilderness. It was January 2, 2005. Before then, no one born in a North Korean political prison camp had ever escaped. As far as can be determined, Shin is still the only one to do it.

He was 23 years old and knew no one outside the fence.

Within a month, he had walked into China. Within two years, he was living in South Korea. Four years later, he was living in Southern California.

Stunted by malnutrition, he is short and slight — five feet six inches, about 120 pounds. His arms are bowed from childhood labor. His lower back and buttocks are scarred with burns from the torturer’s fire. The skin over his pubis bears a puncture scar from the hook used to hold him in place over the fire. His ankles are scarred by shackles, from which he was hung upside down in solitary confinement. His right middle finger is cut off at the first knuckle, a guard’s punishment for dropping a sewing machine in a camp garment factory. His shins, from ankle to knee on both legs, are mutilated and scarred by burns from the electrified barbed-wire fence that failed to keep him inside Camp 14.

Shin is roughly the same age as Kim Jong Un, the chubby third son of Kim Jong Il who took over as leader after his father’s death in 2011.

Shin was born a slave and raised behind a high-voltage barbed-wire fence. His mother beat him, and he viewed her as a competitor for food. His father, who was allowed by guards to sleep with his mother just five nights a year, ignored him. His older brother was a stranger. Children in the camp were untrustworthy and abusive. Before he learned anything else, Shin learned to survive by snitching on all of them.

Love and mercy and family were words without meaning.

Read more. [Image: AP]

A chilling account of the only person born into a North Korean prison camp and escape. It’ll leave you speechless.

North Koreans soldiers saluted as civilians bowed beneath a large portrait of the country’s late leader, Kim Jong Il, to commemorate his death and celebrate what would have been his birthday.

Members of North Korea’s military watched the unveiling of a new bronze statue depicting the late leader Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung at Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday. This week would have been Mr. Kim’s 70th birthday.

peace—now:

Feb. 10:

A high school graduate who escaped from North Korea cries during a graduation ceremony at Hangyeore Middle and High School in Anseong, South Korea. The school was built to educate North Korean teenage defectors. 

(Photo: Lee Jae-Won, Reuters)

theatlantic:

Kim Jong Un death rumors spread on Twitter, Weibo 

It could be nothing more than a rumor, but word on China’s Twitter equivalent, Weibo, is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has died in a possible coup.

The news, which would be a huge game-changer if true, has started to seep into Twitter, with MIT journalism instructor Seth Mnookin tweeting, “Rumor of assassination also floating around; no confirmation RT @KSHartnett Hearing word of #NorthKorea coup. Kim Jong Un on the run.” The news apparently spreading among traders, as journalist Harry Cole reports. But everybody with half a brain is treating the rumor with a good deal of suspicion. Read more.

[Image: Reuters]

North Korean children celebrate the first day of the lunar new year in Pyongyang, North Korea on January 23, 2012. Pyongyang residents said they were encouraged to celebrate the traditional holiday as they usually do, despite the death of Kim Jong Il, only the second leader North Koreans have known since the nation was founded in 1948.

Former North Korean defectors living in South Korea release balloons carrying snacks in Ganghwa near the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas on January 20, 2012. About 100 kgs of Choco Pie, the thick wafer-like confection made in the South but also popular in the North and abroad, were launched by 20 large balloons across the border.

A handout picture from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency captured the country’s new leader, Kim Jong Eun, center, and other officials at Thursday’s memorial service for late North Korea leader Kim Jong Il, Mr. Kim’s father, in Pyongyang.

An anti-North Korean protester was pushed back by police Wednesday in Seoul.

Crowds attended the funeral procession for late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

The North Korean military parades to celebrate the 63rd founding anniversary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Pyongyang on Sept. 9. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and his son reviewed the parade of military hardware and thousands of goose-stepping troops, in what analysts saw as a bid to bolster loyalty to the regime.