Για τη Βόρειο Κορέα
Enforcement of the new laws is increasingly severe. DailyNK, a South Korean news site that maintains a network of sources inside the North, recently smuggled a North Korean smartphone out of the country and found that it came loaded with Orwellian state-developed software. It automatically takes screenshots that only the authorities can access. It also autocorrects ideologically suspect expressions: oppa becomes “comrade” and South Korea is changed to “puppet state”. South Korean hairstyles or fashions have become cause for “inspection on the street”, Ms Kang says. “They’d say pants are too baggy… They’d measure everything, the length of my hair, how long or short it was… Whenever we would go out, our hearts were always pounding.” Violations can earn drastic punishments. Ms Kang told a recent UN gathering that three of her friends, including a 19-year-old, were executed for sharing South Korean TV shows.
Ο Economist (€) γράφει για την κατάσταση στη Βόρειο Κορέα και το πώς πλέον έχει σύμμαχο και τη Ρωσία εκτός από την Κίνα.
When Mr Kim first came to power, many observers predicted his regime’s swift collapse. Instead he appears to have become more internally secure, more threatening to the world through weapons development, less isolated diplomatically and more resilient economically. A reckoning may yet come: Bashar al-Assad’s recent fall in Syria shows how quickly brutal dictatorships can crumble. But in the meantime North Korea’s regime has become even more menacing both to the world and its own people.
Για να πέσει βέβαια «γρήγορα» ο Assad, προηγήθηκε ένας αιματηρός εμφύλιος που διήρκεσε σχεδον 14 χρόνια.