Seven Million Dollars a Second

If we go with the highest-end estimates of what it cost North Korea to burn up the sky this past Friday the 13th, we’re left with a staggering bit of DPR-Kaput math. The sum of $850 million U.S., divided by 120 seconds (e.g. the roughly two minutes the rocket flew), equals a new benchmark for the dirt-poor country of seven million dollars per second.

Filed under: News

Three ‘Chukbae’ for North Korea’s First European Restaurant

It’s not quite as momentous as the decision to defiantly launch a satellite to commemorate the 100th birthday of Kim Il Sung. But the recent opening of North Korea‘s first officially sanctioned restaurant in Europe is still cause for some DPRK celebration.

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Korean War Hero Sparks Solo Midwestern March

On September 11th, 2011, John Moore departed Gallup, New Mexico on foot carrying a large wooden cross on his back. Exactly two months later, Veteran’s Day, he arrived at his destination of Pilsen, Kansas.

Filed under: News

Crappy Birthday, Kim Jong-un!

DCInside.com sounds more like a Beltway gossip hub than an online meeting place for South Korean hackers. But it is on that ROK website, today, that some are taking credit for the mother of all hacks against pro-North Korea Twitter, YouTube and website accounts.

Filed under: News

Empathizing with the Hiker Families

During Laura Ling and Euna Lee‘s detainment last year in North Korea, Laura‘s mother Mary kept a constant vigil at the computer, tormented – as any mother would be – by the diabolical circumstances constraining her child. Now, unfortunately, that situation is repeating itself with the case of American hikers Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, who’ve been in Iranian captivity since July 31st, 2009.

Per a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Joshua‘s mother Laura mentions the word “powerlessness,” a term that came up many times during the Ling-Lee saga for mom Mary, sister Lisa, husbands Michael Saldate and Iain Clayton, and so on.

Filed under: News