...Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To enforce these rights, governments are created by the power of the people. Whenever that government refuses to support the rights of the people, it is the job of the people to replace that government with one that will protect their rights and ensure their happiness. So when one corrupts a nation with pure despotism, it is a necessity to abolish that government to ensure safety to the people in the future. The past choices that our ruler, Kim Jong-un have made have been horrific to all of North Korea....
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...Will North Korea in due time undergo changes or experience implosions sooner or later ? Is a big changing or a revolution similar to the Arab Spring possible in North Korea? The answer from me and most scholars and intelligence analysts has been ‘‘NO’’ The Pyongyang regime’s stability in the aftermath of the events in the Middle East and North Africa is an ‘‘old question’’ that was answered in the 1990s when the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea) faced the most critical test of its life, and survived. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the drastic cuts in patron aid from China, and the onset of famine that killed hundreds of thousands all constituted the ultimate test of DPRK stability, and the regime staggered on through it all.(1) There are five potential variables that could bring the Arab Spring to North Korea’s doorstep: individual socio-economic development, rates of economic growth (rising expectations), demography (youthful population), the contagion effect, or regime type. Do we see the possibility for change in the DPRK from any of these? Not really. In the months since Kim Jong-un has been in power, most telling is the way he remains overshadowed by his late father and grandfather. Kim jong Un's a contrast to his introverted dad, Kim Jong Il. In power for more than a year, Kim is very much an extrovert who loves to appear in public, watch his beloved hoops and deliver speeches. "Much of his behavior may be political theater aimed at convincing...
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...Rogue states under dictatorial rule threaten the fragile peace, which exists in our modern world. Constantly as a society Americans have always fought against these said foes. However all too often we pass a blind eye to the humanity of the enemies’ civilian populations. For more often than not, those who live within these systems are chronically oppressed. The nation of North Korea is no exception, with “Bing-brother always watching.” The government in North Korea pervades all aspects of life. Hunger is a problem worldwide. However with a quarter of North Korea’s population (six million people) starving or malnourished, with nearly one million of those cases being children under the age of five years old, the situation is especially dire (Cullinane 3). Throughout history the term “famine” has referred to a shortage of food caused by uncontrollable circumstances. Modern famines are relatively nonexistent because international aid, globalization, and modern domestic responses are all able to provide a safety net for those in need of assistance. In reality, mass-starvations today are caused by government decisions and improper food distribution. The North Korean government controls food delivery through a Public Distribution System (PDS), on which 62 percent of the population is entirely reliant upon for monthly or biweekly rations (Haggard et al. 17). To put this dependency in perspective, by the end of the 1990’s the PDS could barely support six percent of the population (Haggard...
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...Less than 5,000 people visit North Korea every year. The tourist money is some North Korean citizens only source of income. When someone visits, the entire look and feel of the country changes. People are moved off the streets, some are told to paint their houses, and everyone gets electricity back for the time being. All of this is because of Kim Jong-un, the country’s current leader. (The Ethics of Taking a Trip to North Korea as a Tourist) Kim Jong-un assumed power when his father, Kim Jong-il, passed away in 2011, and has been in power ever since. (Kim Jong-un Biography) Kim Jong-un has not yet been overthrown. The people of North Korea treat him like a god more than a leader. They worship and acknowledge him in every way. They give all...
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...documentary “Inside North Korea” by Lisa Ling shows the isolation that North Korea faces, the fear that Kim Jong Il creates in the people, and it shows what life is like for North Koreans. This country has a political ideology called "Juche” enforce by Kim Il Sung. The ideology “Juche” will be presented in more detail below. North Korea is known as the hermit kingdom because it has been cut off from the rest of the world (Yi, Sun-Kyung, 2004). It is known to be one of the most isolated countries on earth (Lisa Ling). North Korea, Cruelly colonized by Japan early in the 20th century, and split from the south after World War II by cold war politics; it has suffered repressive governments and frequent famines (Yi, Sun-Kyung, 2004). Even with high numbers of famines in North Korea, nothing is imported or exported; this does not benefit the country or its people. This documentary shows the hardships the people have to go through. For example they have no freedom, there’s famine, they do hard labor, are isolated from the world, are punishment, killed, controlled, not allowed to even travel with-in their own country and cannot own a cell phone. It also shows the brainwashing and fear Kim Jong Il, known as The Great Leade, has created his very own people. No one is allowed to talk bad about him, better said to even think bad thoughts about him. He makes North Koreans think he is a supreme being and their God. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY The political ideology in North Korea is called "Juche”....
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...The Nuclear Fallacy of North Korea Bill Gonzalez April 22 2013 Since its inception, North Korea has never ceased to stir up trouble with the international community. Officially know as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea split from the neighbouring South Korea at the end of the Second World War in 1945. The young nation was initially adopted by the Soviet Union, which implemented their Communist ideals into the countries government and society. The tension between the communist government of the north and the republican government of the south would eventually lead to the Korean War, a three-year conflict which saw the US and other members of the UN supporting South Korea and North Korea being supported by the Soviet Union and later China. The Korean War, which never ended in a piece treaty (it’s still technically going on today), would lead to the strained relations that exist between North Korea and the UN today. North Korea’s economy initially recovered from the aftermath of the Korean War, however increasing debt, inflation, the mismanagement of funds, numerous droughts, and the lack of western trade partners lead to an eventual economic decline in the late 1970’s. North Korea has since been one of the world’s poorest countries, with roughly 20-27% of the population living below the poverty line. The social economic issues in North Korea haven’t stopped the government from developing nuclear weapons however, a process which has lead to...
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...many. North Korea is led by Kim Jong – Un. He is a fierce dictator who initiated the "Military First" policy forcing his country into further isolation. Politics, economy, military, and even information is closely regulated in North Korea. It can be argued that due to the isolation the people of North Korea have faced, the United States would most likely face difficulties if they attempted to invade this country. (U) North Korea is a Communist state. Politically, there is no freedom and the people of North Korea have no opinions or choice as to who their leadership will be. Elections are held, but the citizens must not vote against the Kim family. If they choose to do so, they...
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... the capital of North Korea threatening to tear up the Korean Armistice Agreement and launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, Japan and South Korea which would have major global implications. In this blog I am going to explore various online news articles and form my own critical analysis through the notions of map reading, map testing and map making. Kim Jong-Un is the third and youngest son of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the "Dear Leader" who died in 2011. Kim Jong-Un took over his father’s role and was named head of the party, state and army marshal which cemented his control over the army as well as becoming “the great successor.” Not long since Kim Jong-un took over from his father, the 28-year-old leader announced a nuclear threat to the United States, Japan and South Korea. He wanted the tough U.N sanctions that were implemented in early January 2013 revoked. Prior to that, he authorized the execution of two space rocket launches and a third nuclear weapon test. Due to his absolute power in his seat, if Kim can convince his people and his army that North Korea faces critical threats from hostile countries, his generals would dare not challenge his authority. He also knows that by playing crazy like his father’s leadership style, he can effectively manipulate global powers. His father was always threatening South Korea with war. Unsure whether he was crazy enough to carry out the attack; South Korea would supply resources...
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...Kim Jong Un is the the 29-year-old ruler of North Korea, one of the most distinctive and unpredictable countries in the world. It is a cocktail of poisonous elements: autocratic, repressive, isolated and poor (Powell).Its regime is dangerous not only to its people but also to the rest of the world. Its actions have had an unsettling impact on international relations in northeast Asia, particularly its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, all of which led to tensions between China and the united States (Ahn). North Korea’s present and future, therefore, are of global concern (Powell). North Korea is "a Stalinist monarchy" where bloodlines, and only bloodlines, determine who the next dictator will be--no matter how young or inexperienced that person may be, notes South Korean scholar Cheong Seong-chang (Ahn). Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops sit across the border, helping defend South Korea against the 1.2 million-member army, most of it which exists within 30 miles of the demilitarized zone. Over the past decade, despite crippling economic sanctions imposed by most of the outside world, North Korea has defiantly developed and tested nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles needed to deliver them (Ahn). Western intelligence agencies make an educated guess that Pyongyang is holding 8 to 12 nuclear weapons. The hard truth is that North Korea is Asia's last remaining Cold War trip wire (Ahn). This is the country now ostensibly helmed by...
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...The “Secret State of North Korea” is a documentary about the aggressive dictatorship of Kim-Jong-Un and the affects that it has on its people. The documentary shows people’s efforts to help combat the dictatorship by smuggling information from the outside world of North Korea to let people know how absurd the leadership is. It shows the conditions people are living in there and how they try and cope with the oppressive leadership. The documentary tells various different stories of people including an orphan that lived his life by having to try and pick pocket people in order to feed himself. He eventually was able to get out of the country and now is trying to pass information into the country to help others. The North Korean people are ruled to the point where the government controls the information that comes in, what they watch on television, and what they see on the internet. They are brought up to believe that America is the enemy and that everything that Kim-Jong-Un is doing is to better the country and is in the best interest of the people, when in reality Kim-Jong-Un doesn’t care at all about the people and him and his people are doing everything to maintain control for their own benefit. The punishments in North Korea are as severe as being killed or tortured for not following the rules, making conditions much worse. The primary social problem is as described the oppressive leadership and how the people of North Korea are being treated like insects instead of human beings...
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...failure of action because we didn’t know–we do know”(Weber), said Micheal Kirby, the chairman of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea . Micheal Kirby raises the question, what do we, as humans and as members of a nation, owe to other humans wronged in their own nation? Since the Holocaust, humans have promised that “never again” will the heinous acts committed in the Holocaust occur, yet humanity has failed to keep its promise since the same heinous acts against humanity continue have occurred...
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...North Korea (officially named the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) is a single-party Communist state in south-east Asia, ruled since 1949 by the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). Regarded by many in the international community as a pariah state (meaning that it is an outcast), North Korea has in recent years become increasingly poverty-stricken, with many of its citizens having barely enough food to survive. The KWP is kept in power largely thanks to a combination of international concern for North Korean citizens and the patronage of the Chinese government, which exports large quantities of food to North Korea in return for KWP assistance in certain areas. Until the 1990's, North Korea also received significant quantities of aid from Russia, but the fall of communism in that country led to this aid being almost entirely stopped, the catalyst for many of the recent problems in North Korea. It is widely speculated that North Korea's entire economy would collapse virtually instantly if China withdrew its current level of support. In almost every measure of prosperity, North Korea lags far behind most other countries. Barbara Demick points out in her book Nothing to envy: real lives in North Korea that "if you look at satellite photographs of the Far East by night, you'll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (Demick, 2010, page 3). The country has a strong centrally-controlled economy that...
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...Russia and North Korea have declared 2015, the year of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II as “Friendship Year”. Since last year, Russia and North Korea have increasingly improved their ties with each other. The growing ties and relationship between the countries has got the world thinking about the intentions of their alliance. More recently, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has confirmed his visit to Russia. This will be the leader’s first visit to anywhere since taking on the position of North Korea’s leader after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been facing a lot of heat from the United Nations recently because of their military operations in Ukraine. North Korea was sanctioned by the United Nations because of their nuclear test programs in 2006 and since then, the relationships had been worsening, with the States again charging North Korea’s Kim Jong Un of heinous crimes against its own population and more. Both Russia and North Korea have been left in isolation and it seems that both the countries were in need of a remarkable alliance. The countries have announced that they will deepen economic and political ties starting from this year; their ‘year of friendship’ (McCurry). An official North Korean news agency said that the countries would “develop bilateral relations on to a new higher stage in various fields including politics, economy and culture under a mutual agreement”. Another question in the minds of the people...
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...around the world(Beath). Many countries have different methods on how to accept immigrants and how to keep immigrants out. America, China, North Korea and many other countries around the world have closed borders against other countries. Their borders do have some errors that let immigrants enter the country illegally. The European Union has an open border within its countries, which is the main reason for extensive immigrants(Lynch). Many Countries have been attempting and struggling to strengthen their borders from neighboring countries. America has been struggling with immigration for a long time. Many undocumented immigrants in America are from Mexico or other countries in South America(Chavez). Immigrants go through tough life choices with leaving their family and selling their belongings to pay smugglers(El Paso Times).When refugees get to America they...
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...Nestled in the north peninsula of Korea in East Asia lies North Korea also referred to as The Peoples Republic of Korea and is divided into nine provinces. The nation has extensive infrastructure, but not modernized and is underdeveloped. Communism consumes North Korea where isolationism and is a dictatorship are staples in the government. Every aspect of the nation is state regulated and laws are carried out diligently with serious reprisal for disobedience. North Korea prides itself on their military abilities and puts forth the interests of the military before anything. Despite severe food shortages, economic instability, and lack of electricity, North Korea is undeterred in their efforts to maintain the fourth largest military in the...
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