Here’s a Foreign Policy photoessay from 2009 (registration required) by a photographer whose speciality is still-Communist societies after the fall of the Soviet Union and most other Communist states. Here’s his latest, on an unabashedly Maoist town in China.
Archive for the 'current events' Category
Japan Focus has a round-up of articles about current issues in Japan-Korea historical reconciliation. I’m particularly interested in the Ahn Jung-geung articles: I understand why he’s considered a hero in Korean history, though I do think there’s some oddity in the current push to raise his profile.
We now have pictures and a brief description of the soon-to-be-open North Korean pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai. I don’t think it’s actually going to change many minds about North Korea….
Kim Jong Il’s third son, Kim Jong Un, hasn’t been seen in public by the West in a decade or more, but Japan’s Mainichi Shinbun thinks they spotted him. More importantly, he’s starting to take the positions that Kim Jong Il did before he took over from Kim Il Sung. So, maybe.
The Washington Post reports on the relatively recent and dramatic rise. It’s worth noting that ‘stress’ is not usually considered a factor in suicide risk assessment, no matter how easy it would be for journalists if it were. Nor does the internet actually increase suicide risk, though the ‘contagion’ factor of famous cases might have some basis in actual science.
NYTimes reports on new information project: smuggling Chinese-network cell phones into NK to interview locals
This Economist article is mostly about China and India, but notes South Korea’s retreat from the brink of a gender imbalance disaster.
NYTimes reports on the arrest of a man with 1700 pairs of (allegedly) stolen shoes, and the larger problem of shoe management in a society which often goes shoeless.
North Korea has stopped using money. All transactions to be carried out by bank transfer and certified check.
Turns out there’s actually an interesting debate about whether North Korea has claimed supernatural powers for their leading family.
