Out of Pod Experience

UNCLE JANG, POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

State television showed Jang Song-thaek walking directly behind Kim Jong-un alongside the limousine carrying the coffin. Jang ranks a lowly 19th in the list of names on the state funeral committee but his public elevation confirms that he will play a key role in shaping policies.

An ascetic-looking, bespectacled 65-year-old, Jang has overcome a purge, bitter palace intrigue and personal tragedy to become vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, the supreme leadership council which Kim Jong-il led as head of the military state.

"Kim Jong-un is clearly the head of the new leadership but, in terms of hierarchy and influence, Jang appears to have secured considerable position," said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in the south.

Strong it may be -- North Korea is backed by neighboring China, has conducted two nuclear tests and has a 1.2 million-strong armed forces -- but prosperous it is not.

On average, the 25 million North Koreans have a life expectancy three-and-a-half years lower than they did when "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung, the new leader's grandfather, died in 1994, according to U.N. data.

The United Nations, in a country program for 2011-15, says North Korea's main challenge is to "restore the economy to the level attained before 1990" and to alleviate food shortages for a third of its 25 million population.

Indications from the transition since Kim Jong-il's death suggest his "military first" policy will continue, leading to further hardship in a country that endured mass starvation in the 1990s.

Leverage from outside, with the exception of China, is limited. All the United States, South Korea and Japan can do is hope that the regime does not collapse, nor flex its military muscle as it did in 2010, when it shelled a South Korean island.

North Korea was established in 1948 and under its founding father, Kim Il-sung, went to war to try to conquer the South. It failed and in 1953 a dividing line that would become the world's most militarized frontier was drawn across the peninsula.

PROSPECTS OF A PURGE

While Kim Il-sung was revered by his people for fighting Japanese colonial rule, the halo surrounding his successors has steadily dimmed to such an extent that his grandson, the new ruler, will have to rely on people such as his uncle, Jang, to hold on to power, at least in the short term.

Official media in the North have built Kim Jong-un, a jowly and rotund man in his late 20s, into a leader worthy of inheriting the crown, naming him "respected general," "great successor," "outstanding leader" and "supreme commander."

This year, dissident groups based in South Korea, citing North Korean refugees and businessmen working in China, linked the youngest Kim to a crackdown on business activities and a tougher policy on people seeking to flee from North Korea.

Those reports could not be verified independently, but would again suggest that further repression is more likely than an economic opening under the new man.

It also gives little hope for the 200,000 North Koreans who human rights group Amnesty international says are enslaved in labor camps, subjected to torture and hunger or execution.

"There is likely to be a politically motivated purge and imprisonment, and it could go on for a considerable period of time," said Pak Sang-hak, who heads a group in Seoul working to support defectors, and is himself a defector.

"That is especially because of the relative instability of Kim Jong-un's leadership. There might also be persecution as a way of intimidation and discipline."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/28/us-korea-north-funeral-idUSTRE7BQ0SS20111228

You already created a thread about this...

Couldn't you have just bumped it instead of spamming.

Lol same thing is happening in the western world. Instead there it's called 'Media and news.

People are equally stupid everywhere on this world

Yeah pretty same **** happened, when newgen liberal fags mourned Steve Jobs

the north korea border is has towers to block tv or radio signals/information from getting in from the outside, and the entire country is blacked out at night confirmed by nasa photos. Is anyone inside north korea even allowed to have access to the outside internet?