North Korea shuts down universities for 10 months

[Springer9]

I wonder why the Peoples Republic Workers Paradise doesn't just shut down their military instead? Who the hell do they think is going to invade that god forsaken country anyway?

North Korea has shut down its universities for the next 10 months and sent students to work in factories, agriculture and the construction sector as it struggles to rebuild its economy.

North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il Photo: AP

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo 10:46AM BST 28 Jun 2011

Pyongyang has told the North Korean people that the nation will have achieved its aim of becoming "a great, prosperous and powerful nation" in 2012, which marks the 100th anniversary of the founder of the reclusive state, Kim Il-sung.
In addition, Kim Jong-il will turn 70 in February and the "Dear Leader" hopes to be able to transfer his power and an economically stronger nation to his son and heir-apparent, Kim Jong-Un.

Thank Marx everything will be all better next year.

[aquart]

1. What's our date for being all better?

[brooklynite]

2. I'm sure it was an impulsive "volunteer" decision on the part of all the students and faculty...

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. That's "austerity" right there. nt

[KatyMan]

4. Not comparing the two people whatsover,

But Kim Jong-Il has always reminded me of Phil Spector for some reason.

[originalpckelly]

6. He does, doesn't he?

And what's with the clothing choices of ex-dictators?


It's the: "I just don't give a fuck" look.

Very catchy.

[BOG PERSON]

18. phil spector devised the wall of sound

and kim jong-il devised the wall of songun!

[msanthrope]

5. But where are the pictures of the smiling students? n/t

[Shagbark Hickory]

7. Sounds like they're putting a lot of people to work there in the DPRK.

Maybe we could try doing that here.

[originalpckelly]

8. I know.

I personally could get behind the whole: "work or die" jobs program, myself.

Nothing is better for an economy than a little forced labor.

[msanthrope]

9. You do realize that the 'jobs programs' aren't voluntary, right? It's the Great Leap Forward.....

North Korean-style.

[NeedleCast]

11. Can't Tell If Serious....

[slackmaster]

12. About 92% of the jobs in this country are in the private sector.

Our government doesn't have funding to hire people willy-nilly.

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. Imagine if the gov just took over oil drilling and ran out the private corps that don't pay taxes.

We'd have more money to hire people and start other publicly owned and operated industries.

Hopefully that idea doesn't end me up on any watch list.

[originalpckelly]

31. Government owned monopolies are just as corrupt, if not more corrupt.

Yeah, great idea.

[Shagbark Hickory]

32. How would that be a major problem?

[Igel]

33. Did the article say the DPNK was *hiring* the students? n/t

[slackmaster]

35. No, it sure didn't.

:hi:

[sufrommich]

17. I hope that was sarcasm. It's hard to tell these days. nt.

[Codeine]

30. I always look to North Korea for my economic advice. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Nothing says "great, powerful and prosperous" better than being unable to educate students

Link - which points out that this may also be a way to avoid student unrest: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8602525/North-Korea-shuts-down-universities-for-10-months.html

[Igel]

34. That was my assumption.

Students tend to be better informed, less prone to blindly following ageing leaders, have more time to protest, and be able to self-organize to protest.

If you have a perpetual crisis it's always possible to tell the students, "It is your civic duty to abandon the libraries and classrooms, to go forth to dig up potatoes from the frozen ground!"

Oh. That was the USSR. My bad.

[izquierdista]

13. He's reduced the country to a flock of chickens

My chickens live better than the average North Korean. They get all the stale bread, vegetable peels, and weeds out of the garden that they want, and all the bugs they can scratch out or chase down. I fill their fresh water twice a day and keep their coop on the move so the shit doesn't build up. Oh, and I've never had to send a single one to a "reeducation camp". Contrast that with this news item:

Pigs Raised in Apartment Buildings in Pyongyang
The noise, nasty smell, filth and clogged drain caused by secretly raising pigs in an apartment have been provoking a stream of complaints from neighbors to dong (the lowest administrative unit) office in Subok-dong, Soonchun City, South Pyongan Province. Repeated warnings not to raise pigs in apartments were to no avail. For the pig raisers, suffering from nasty smell from pig waste is better than being damaged in theft. They also brew alcohols at home, because they can use the residues from brewing to feed the pigs. Home-brewing can be done secretly but raising pigs inevitably affects the neighbors. The pig raisers usually put their pigs in balconies or bathrooms, and they leave pig waste in the drain pipe. The clogged drain exacerbates the already destitute water supply condition.

Jung Soon-young (alias) living in a fifth-floor building complained, “People persistently raise pigs at home. I hate the filth and smell. I made several complaints to the dong office and the head of the dong office came out to give warnings, but they were to no avail. People start raising pigs again two or three months after such warnings.”
Kim Ok-hwa (alias) who has two baby pigs at home said, “I feel sorry about the nuisance to neighborhood. We don’t want to live together with pigs, either. We do it because that’s the only option we have to survive. There is no business out there. Raising pigs is our life line. If you want us to quit, give us ration.”

Kim, Young-mi (alias), a resident of Soonchun dong, raises pigs in her apartment bathroom. Her household has relied on her husband’s income from repairing electronics, such as color televisions and refrigerators. He could make as much as 4,000-5,000 won a day, but the business is going very slow these days. Ms. Kim started home brewing using corn. Before the currency reform, she could make decent amount of money by home brewing. Now, the corn price soared to 700-800 won per kilogram and home brewing is not quite profitable any more. However, Ms. Kim still continues it to feed the pigs hoping to make some money from selling them. Ms. Kim said, “We cannot make enough money by home brewing and repair business. Getting food is our priority, so we decided to continue to raise pig secretly although I’m aware of the complaints from the neighbors.”

It's a good thing all the men in North Korea are put through the military and trained how to use a bayonet -- It probably comes in handy digging up roots and grubs.

More daily life in NK at: http://goodfriendsusa.blogspot.com/2011/06/north-korea-today-no-404-may-25-2011_6579.html

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. sounds like 'great leap forward' type shit

[BOG PERSON]

16. true fact: in south korea it's illegal to say anything nice at all about the north

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea#Internet

[brooklynite]

19. Just a guess but, probably the same rule applies in North Korea...

[BOG PERSON]

22. it's almost like

they have some kind of bitter feud going on between them!

[Diclotican]

20. Springer9

Springer9

Sorry to say, Karl Marx had nothing to do whith the fundation of this extreme, horrible regime who are ruling North Korea, for so many years. In fact, the Juce idelogy have more with traditional Korean ideas, than Marx teatchings... And most north koreans, are not exactly fluent in Marx, but rather in the teatching of Kim il Sungs more than 400 books..

But it is quiet telling about state of affairs, when you have to shoot down universitetes, to send the able to factories around the country.. Specailly when you have a 2.5 million grand army standing ready to go to war all the time.. To have armies on war footing cost a lot of ressourses, that North Korea dosen't have!

Diclotican

[jberryhill]

24. I think you are reading it wrong

I doubt shutting the universities had anything to do with their labor being needed elsewhere.

The universities may have been disbanded for another reason.

[Diclotican]

36. jberryhill

jberryhill

Proberly mostly becose it is a rebellion going on in the universitites, who we dosen't know about yet.. Even in a closed down nation like NK, ideas from the outside world, sometimes drip inside.. And erode the stone.. And students have allways been more freethinking than their parents.. If ideas like democracy and freedom have been known inside NK, maybe first and foremost by a small fraction, it can go viral in underground areas... Where the government dosen't have all that control.

Or it can be that students are just needed all over where farming is still used in NK, Most of the population in rual areas are on a starving diet this days, and students from the City's have maybe get a better diet than their counterparts in rual areas..

Diclotican

[GreenStormCloud]

25. Civil unrest often starts in universities.

NK is entering another huge famine. People are already starving to death there. In the 1990s they lost about 10% of their population to famine. This famine looks like it will be worse as even the military is short on food. So they appear to be dispersing the students so they can't organize and lead riots.

[jberryhill]

26. +1

[BOG PERSON]

27. link please

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Typical link here:

TONY EASTLEY: Every now and again the West gets a glimpse of what's really going on in North Korea, and the most recent footage shot over several months, shows images of filthy, homeless and orphaned children begging for food, soldiers demanding bribes, and people forced to build a railway for the dictator's son.

The ABC has obtained some of the most revealing footage to be smuggled out of the secretive and impoverished North Korean state.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3253989.htm

Though we also have:

The US and South Korea are at odds with the United Nations World Food Program over how seriously North Korea is suffering from lack of food and are in no hurry to resume feeding the North’s hungry people.
...
A central question is whether North Korea needs emergency shipments as called for by the World Food Program. Yes, Ms. Park acknowledges, “The problem this year is changed by flood and winter cold,” but the widespread view here is that North Korea basically has enough food.

It’s believed that North Korea wants to stockpile food for celebrations planned next year to mark the 100-year anniversary of the birth of the late Kim Il-sung, the long-reigning “Great Leader” who died in 1994 after passing on power to his son, current leader Kim Jong-il.

“There’s a need, but we don’t know how great it is,” says a knowledgeable western observer. “My hunch is it’s less about a shortage of food and more about unequal distribution. You can buy rice in the markets if you have the means.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0629/Reports-of-North-Korea-food-shortages-overblown-say-US-South-Korea

[Diclotican]

37. GreenStormCloud

GreenStormCloud

Its the same I was thinking about.. A famine on the way, or it might even been there, but ar just not videly known yet.. You know a country are in trouble, when even the armed forces are starting to starve for lack of food.. It is usaly one of the last parts of a government hand to start starving, becouse it is the protectors of the rest of the country..

It is rumored, by many sources that NK are into a real troublesome periode this days, And the desperation from the NK government, who more or less demand food from the South and from the rest of the world - for not making more military actions, is huge.. NK is in dire straits this days (no offense to Dire Straits) and NK have been in trouble for a few year now.. Most of the economy is in ruins, the posibility to produce food outside the government stores is absolutely not there anymore.. And most of the contry is is trouble..

The only thing that keeps NK running, is help from the outside world, even China is not to happy about given NK to mutch food and help anymore.. Most of the help NK get, is from Japan, USA, (eu) and South Korea, who donate toons of food every now and then, to keep things running.. But after NK exploded 2 nuclear devices, and specially after last years attack on South Korea and sinking of a naval ship, the willingness to get food to NK have not been there.. But it looks like the outside world have to give NK food and other things.. Mostly becouse it else is on a brink of chatastrope.. Last time in the 1990s, many millions died of starving.. Today the situation is maybe worse, as even the armed forces are starting to starve..

We dosen't know how bad the situation is in NK, But my guess, it is BAD... Really BAD...

Diclotican

[Johonny]

21. This the California Republican party's budget solution

as far as I can tell

[jberryhill]

23. They did it to stifle potential dissent

This is not a mobilization, it is a dispersion.

There was trouble brewing in the universities.

[FLPanhandle]

28. Nixon probably wished he could do the same thing.

Young adults are more inclined to voice dissent. He's sending them off home.

[eppur_se_muova]

38. So ... spread dissenters around the country? Get them talking to the populace at large?

GOOD PLAN. Spread the infection far and wide.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

40. Or they're all falling apart and they don't have money or resources to keep them running.

Gotta complete that phallic ghost hotel, you know. And the military parades.

[Renew Deal]

39. How is taking kids out of school going to make the economy stronger?

Was something else going on at those schools like maybe free thought?