X-Nico

3 unusual facts about North Korea


Theatre state

Hunik Kwon and Byung-Ho Chung, for example, argue that contemporary North Korea is a theatre state.

Wonsu

Wonsu is a very high military rank of the armed forces of the Republic of Korea and of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Period photographic evidence demonstrates that the early marshal shoulder board rank insignia was the same as that of the current vice marshal shoulder boards (a large star overlain with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea coat-of-arms).


4th Fighter Wing

The readiness posture of the wing was given a true test in early 1968 when the North Koreans seized the USS Pueblo, an American intelligence-gathering ship, just off the coast of North Korea.

71: Into the Fire

For 11 hours, they defended P'ohang-dong girls' middle school, a strategic point for safeguarding the Nakdong River, from an attack by overwhelming North Korean forces, the 766th Unit.

African Renaissance Monument

Built overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the Ouakam suburb, the statue was designed by the Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby after an idea presented by president Abdoulaye Wade and built by Mansudae Overseas Projects, a company from North Korea.

Battle of Lake Khasan

The conflict started on July 15, when the Japanese attaché in Moscow demanded the removal of Soviet border troops from the Bezymyannaya (сопка Безымянная, Chinese name: Shachaofeng) and Zaozyornaya (сопка Заозёрная, Chinese name: Changkufeng) Hills to the west of Lake Khasan in the south of Primorye, not far from Vladivostok, claiming this territory by the Soviet–Korea border.

Chung Eui Girls' High School

Chung Eui Girls' High School is a girl's school in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Do Jong-hwan

Since that time Do has also written about the issue of Division of Korea, depicting the difficulties on a single people in a divided country, Do opens up new possibilities for the unification of North Korea and South Korea. He is the recipient of many Korean literary prizes.

Dominican Republic passport

In May 2001, Kim Jong-nam, the son of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, was arrested at Narita International Airport, in Tokyo, Japan, travelling on a forged Dominican Republic passport.

Einhausen

The float built in 2007 on the theme “North Korea” was featured in the November edition of the Carnival magazine Tusch!!! (a national trade magazine published around Carnival) as Germany’s best political float of 2007.

Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea

Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Associated Press photographer Max Desfor, taken on December 4, 1950, at a destroyed bridge over the Taedong River near Pyongyang, North Korea.

Francis Hong Yong-ho

After his disappearance, he was for many years was listed as the Bishop of Pyongyang, North Korea.

GANEFO

In September 1967 was announced a second Asian GANEFO to be held in Beijing, China, in 1970, but later Beijing dropped the plans to host the Games, which were then awarded to Pyongyang, North Korea.

International counter-terrorism operations of Russia

The Delhi summit on security took place on February 14, 2007 with the foreign ministers of China, India, and Russia meeting in Hyderabad House, Delhi, India to discuss terrorism, drug trafficking, reform of the United Nations, and the security situations in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

Japan–North Korea Pyongyang Declaration

The Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration, signed in 2002, was the result of the first Japan-North Korea summit meeting.

Jerry Wayne Parrish

Jerry Wayne Parrish of the U.S. Army (March 10, 1944 – August 25, 1998) was one of six American soldiers to defect to North Korea after the Korean War.

Kim Chŏng-tae Electric Locomotive Works

The Kim Chŏng-tae Electric Locomotive Works in P'yŏngyang is North Korea's primary—possibly only—manufacturer of railway motive power.

Kim Il-sung Square

Kim Il-sung Square is a large city square in the center of Pyongyang, DPRK (North Korea), and is named after the country's founding leader, Kim Il-sung.

Korea Democratic Party

Within three months, membership reached 500,000 with branches in all of North Korea's provinces.

Korea Ponghwa General

Korea Ponghwa General Corporation is an industrial group headquartered in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Korea Unha General Trading

Korea Unha General Trading Corporation is headquartered in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Mangyongdae-guyok

Man'gyŏngdae-guyŏk, or Man'gyŏngdae District (만경대구역) is one of the 19 guyŏk that constitute Pyongyang, North Korea.

Michael Robert Cavendish

Cavendish, along with former President Jimmy Carter, led the grassroots campaign to free American teacher Aijalon Gomes from North Korea.

Moranbong-guyok

Moranbong-guyŏk, or the Moranbong District, is one of the 19 guyŏk which constitute the city of Pyongyang, North Korea.

North Korea–Pakistan relations

Pakistan has an Embassy in Pyongyang while North Korea maintains an Embassy in Islamabad, a vast Consulate-General in Karachi, and consulates in other cities of Pakistan.

Park Jung-geun

He received a suspended 10-month prison term for violating South Korean National Security Law by resending North Korean tweets.

Potonggang-guyok

Potonggang-guyok is one of the 19 districts, or guyok, of Pyongyang, North Korea.

Primo-vascular system

The Bonghan duct is named after Kim Bong-han, a North Korean professor from Pyongyang Medical University, who reported in 1962 that he had found the anatomical structures of meridian-collaterals known as Bonghan corpuscles (BHCs) and Bonghan ducts (BHDs).

Pyongyang International Film Festival

The Pyongyang International Film Festival is a biennial cultural exhibition held in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Pyongyang Sinri Primary School

Pyongyang Sinri Primary School is a model primary school in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Rail transport in Russia

Joint ventures have been formed to build and operate a port in Rasŏn in North Korea, and rail links connecting that port to the Russian rail network at the North Korean-Russian border Khasan-Tumangang.

Ricardo Alarcón

On 2 December 2003, United States Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John R. Bolton charged that Cuba, along with Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Libya, were "rogue states...whose pursuit of weapons of mass destruction makes them hostile to U.S. interests and who will learn that their covert programs will not escape either detection or consequences."

Ryongsong-guyok

Ryongsŏng-guyŏk, or Ryongsŏng District (룡성구역) is one of the 19 guyŏk that constitute Pyongyang, North Korea.

Samsok-kuyok

Samsŏk-kuyŏk, or Samsŏk District is one of the 19 kuyŏk that constitute Pyongyang, North Korea.

Sarah Leah Whitson

While Whitson was praising Seif al-Islam as a reformer, journalist Michael Totten was comparing Libya to North Korea and Turkmenistan and describing Seif al-Islam as seeking to export “his father’s prison state system...to as many countries as possible.”

Shin Suk-ja

Shin Suk-ja (also spelled Shin Sook-ja; born 1942) is a South Korean prisoner of North Korea, imprisoned with her daughters in Yodok concentration camp after her husband Oh Kil-nam defected from North Korea to Denmark.

Silmido

On 1968, January 21, North Korea’s guerrillas infiltrated the border and reached till Segumjunggogae (Sinyeong-dong, Jongno-gu) of Seoul to attack the Blue House to assassinate the President Park Chung-hee.

Sosong-guyok

Sŏsŏng-guyŏk, or Sosong District, is one of the 19 guyŏk of Pyongyang, North Korea.

Steffanie Borges

She remained in the band for six years, performing a highly media covered concert in North Korea in June 1991 and recording with Show-Ya the single "Flame of the Angels" in 1992 and the album Touch the Sun in 1995.

Sunan-guyok

Sunan-guyŏk, or Sunan District is one of the 19 guyŏk that constitute Pyongyang, North Korea.

Taedonggang-guyok

Taedonggang-guyŏk, or Taedong River District, is one of the 19 guyŏk, and one of the six that constitute East Pyongyang, North Korea.

Taewonsu

Taewŏnsu (literally grand marshal, usually translated as generalissimo) is the highest possible military rank of North Korea and is intended to be an honorific title for the nation’s Great Leaders.

Telecommunications in North Korea

On May 2006 TransTeleCom Company and North Korea’s Ministry of Communications have signed an agreement for the construction and joint operation of a fiber-optic transmission line in the section of the KhasanTumangang railway checkpoint in the North Korea-Russia border.

Ten thousand years

In North Korea, manse was used to wish long life for Kim Jong-il, and for the political principles of his father, Kim Il-sung.

The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall

Bremmer's J Curve describes the relationship between a country's openness and its stability; focusing on the notion that while many countries are stable because they are open (the United States, France, Japan), others are stable because they are closed (North Korea, Cuba, Iraq under Saddam Hussein).

Volunteer Army Unit for Punishing Traitors

Targets included offices of the Japan Teachers Union, buildings in Osaka and Tokyo of the terrorist sect Aum Shinrikyo (which had perpetrated the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995), the pro-North Korea Chongryon association, and in the only threat taken seriously by the Japanese police, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hitoshi Tanaka, who had attempted rapprochement with North Korea in 2002.

Waegwan Abbey

With the rise of Communism in China and North Korea, the monasteries of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien in Tokwon and Yanji were dissolved.

Yu Hyun-mok

Born in Sariwon, North Hwanghae, Korea (North Korea today), he made his film debut in 1956 with Gyocharo (Crossroads).


see also

2013 North Korean nuclear test

This was said after North Korea floated propaganda leaflets to South Korea that threatened the annihilation of Baengnyeongdo.

343d Bomb Squadron

The squadron flew its first combat mission on 7 August, striking marshalling yards at Pyongyang, capital of North Korea.

38th parallel

38th parallel north, a circle of latitude in the Northern Hemisphere, used as the pre-Korean War boundary between North Korea and South Korea

98th Operations Group

It flew its first combat mission on 7 August, striking marshalling yards at Pyongyang, capital of North Korea.

Administrative divisions of North Korea

The three-level administrative system used in North Korea was first inaugurated by Kim Il-sung in 1952, as part of a massive restructuring of local government.

Armen Mkrtchyan

At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Mkrtchyan reached the finals, where he faced off against the division reigning Olympic Champion, Kim Il of North Korea.

Automotive industry in North Korea

Since 1950, Sungri Motor Plant in Tokchon has been North Korea's first and largest motor vehicle plant producing urban and off-road passenger cars; small, midi- and heavy cargo, construction and off-road trucks and buses under the names Sungri, Jaju and others.

Battle of Kujin

On 24 October, MacArthur had removed all restrictions on the movement of his forces south of the Yalu River and prepared for the final phase of the UN advance, defying a directive of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and risking Chinese intervention in support of North Korea.

Blockade of Wonsan

Ozbourn eventually returned to San Diego in April 1951 for repairs and later sailed back to North Korea.

Camp Nou

The intention was to make it the fourth-largest stadium in the world (in terms of seating capacity), after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the USA (297,000 capacity), the Rungnado May Day Stadium in North Korea (150,000 capacity) and the Salt Lake Stadium in India (120,000 capacity).

Changbai

Changbai Mountains, mountain range on the border between China and North Korea

Chongjin

Chongjin is the only city in North Korea other than Pyongyang to operate a tram system.

Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting

Won Jeong-hwa, who was arrested by South Korea in 2008 and charged with spying for North Korea, is accused of using this method to obtain information from an army officer.

Communism in Korea

On July 22, 1946, the North Korea Bureau joined with the New People's Party, the Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party (supporters of an influential religious movement) to form the North Korean Fatherland United Democratic Front.

On July 29, 1946 the New People's Party and the North Korea Bureau held a joint plenum of the Central Committees of both parties and agreed to merge into a single entity.

East Pyongyang Grand Theatre

The theatre was specifically chosen by Zarin Mehta, who rejected the home of the North Korea State Symphony as too small.

Fake passport

In May 2001 Kim Jong-nam (the eldest son of the former leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il) was arrested on arrival at New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), accompanied by two women and a four-year old boy identified as his son.

Google Code

Accessing Google Code website and its hosted contents is banned from countries on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list, including Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Han Park

He negotiated for the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American citizens who crossed the border (according to their confession) to do a news story about North Korea.

Humberto Leal Garcia

Euna Lee, an American journalist who was arrested in North Korea in 2009, criticized the United States' failure to comply with the Vienna Convention, saying that she believed "prompt consular access" protected her from physical mistreatment while a prisoner, and that the decision in the Leal case would encourage foreign governments to violate the rights of American citizens abroad.

Hwang Sok-yong

The novel is still topical today after Kim Dae-jung’s visit to North Korea and meeting with Kim Jong-il led to reunion programs for separated families, and talk of reunification.

Kaicheng

Kaesong, North Hwanghae, North Korea, whose Hanja name, when transliterated into Mandarin, is Kaicheng

Kim Hyon-hui

Kim was originally trained as an actress, and starred in North Korea's first Technicolor film, playing a girl whose family fled to North Korea to escape poverty in South Korea, as North Koreans are taught that South Koreans live in extreme poverty.

KJU

Kim Jong-un (born 1983 or 1984), supreme leader of North Korea since 30 December 2011

Korea General Machinery Trading Corporation

Huichon Machine Tool Factory in Huichon is North Korea's leading manufacturer of heavy-duty machine tools for domestic use and for export.

Koryo Hotel

For a time after 1946 the leader of North Korea's Democratic Party Cho Man-sik was kept under house arrest in the older Koryo Hotel.

Lee Jong-seok

A graduate of Sungkyunkwan University who spent most of his career as an academic, he authored the 2000 "Understanding Contemporary North Korea".

Lee Myung-bak government

The head of the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification, Kim Tae-u, proposed that the South Korean government renegotiate the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region with North Korea without any official apology from North Korea over the ROKS Cheonan sinking and the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong.

Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army

Besides Kim Il-Sung, An Gil, Kim Chaek, Choi Yong-Geon and Kang Geon were also Korean high-rank officers of NAJUA, later assumed high positions in North Korea.

O Kuk-ryol

In June 2009, O was identified by international authorities and the United States government as a key figure in North Korea's currency counterfeiting activities, specifically with United States one hundred-dollar bills, known as Superdollars.

Pak To-chun

He was also elected to the National Defence Commission in April 2011 and promoted to Politburo full member in April 2012, largely replacing Jon Pyong-ho as North Korea's military industry manager.

Phantom Below

The Navy does not believe his story and it appears his career is over until he is recruited to command a covert mission to tap an underwater cable lying between North Korea and mainland China.

Potato production in North Korea

Along with North Korea's Academy of Agricultural Sciences, World Vision, and the Asia Pacific Peace Committee, which was replaced by the Korea National Economic Cooperation Agency (KNECA), a fifth hydroponic seed potato farm was established in Taehongdan County in 2007, with expectations of boosting potato production quality by 50 percent.

Reunification Highway

Construction began in 1987 and finished on April 15, 1992, the birthday of North Korea's president Kim Il-sung.

Sinyang

Sinyang County, a county of South Pyongan Province in North Korea

Song Young-gil

At the same time, Song has provided products to mothers and babies in North Korea through an agreement with the Korea Peace Foundation, which opened a door that was shut after the North's sinking of the Cheonan.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2

Determined to fight the West and quash dissent among the North Korean populace, Jung attacks some of North Korea's largest cities, such as Sinpo and Hyesan.

Tourism in North Korea

For instance, Croatian journalists had a special access in June 2012, although their phones were confiscated and returned as they departed and had a special tour guide, and after several days of touring, wrote a newspaper story of life in North Korea.

Tumen Border Bridge

During the Korean War, it was one of the border posts from which the Chinese People's Volunteer Army entered North Korea.

Volunteer Army Unit for Punishing Traitors

Ichirō Murakami had some friends in politics, Shingo Nishimura, former deputy of the Democratic Party of Japan and later of the New Renaissance Party, known for being highly critical of North Korea.

Yalu River

During the war the valley surrounding the western end of the river also became the focal point of a series of dogfights for air superiority over North Korea, earning the nickname "MiG Alley" in reference to the MiG-15 fighters flown by the combined North Korean, Chinese and Soviet forces.