Here is the roundup:
1. An enterprising individual set up a Twitter account for North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA). The DPRK was not happy about this. According to Forbes:
Someone’s been impersonating North Korea on Twitter. And the hermit kingdom isn’t happy about it.
Since early April, a Twitter account under the handle @KCNA_DPRK, claiming to be based in Pyongyang, has been twittering headlines of the official news releases published by the Korean Central News Agency, the government-run news outlet of the dictatorial Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The headlines, it seems, are real–or at least as real as any that emerge from North Korea’s reality distortion field. The twitterer, on the other hand, is an impostor.
In response to an e-mail from Forbes asking about its new presence on Twitter, a KCNA spokesperson replied: “We do not permit to appear KCNA on Twitter at all,” and said that the agency is currently inquiring with Twitter’s management regarding its tweet-alike. Twitter staff didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
a twitter conversation with Forbes, the author of the KCNA twitter feed admitted that he or she was a writer and Web master for the German-language parody site Stupidedia, based in Austria. “KCNA has unintentionally funny articles, and I thought it would be funny if an antiquated regime like North Korea had a Twitter account,” wrote the faux-Communist, who didn’t respond to requests for his or her name. The fake KCNA account, which has gained more than 1,000 followers, was set up using the Twitterfeed RSS service to automatically syndicate every newsflash from the real DPRK news agency.
The Twitter site is here. Read the full story here.
2. Some lovely moments on the North Korea/China boder courtesy of Reuters (click on images for larger verison):
3. As we mentioned earlier this year, LinkedIn does not allow residents of North Korea to open accounts and Google’s London office does not allow North Korean citizens to enter the building. Well, it also appears that Microsoft, Google and possibly AOL do not allow citizens of Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan and North Korea access to instant messaging services. This is not due to company policy, but rather newly enforced US trade embargoes.
Unfortunately, most North Koreans do not have access to IM services because of the policies of their own government (not because of foreign trade sanctions). Sadly, US trade restrictions on these kinds of “technology transfers” to North Korea (and other countries) actually facilitate the desire of petty despots to isolate their ignorant populations.
4. A valuable reader sends in the following bizarre tale of Kim Jong il (from KCNA):
Souvenir Picture Which Was Not Taken
Pyongyang, May 26 (KCNA) — The car carrying General Secretary Kim Jong Il was running a sightseeing road of Mt. Kuwol on May 1, Juche 86 (1997).
The road under construction was yet far short of completion. Not minding this, however, he did not take his eyes off a car window as if he was fathoming the troubles of the soldier builders.
He got off the car near the fork of the road in the mid-slope of the mountain and met commanding officers of a unit of the Korean People’s Army engaged in the building of the holiday resort of Mt. Kuwol and highly appreciated the painstaking work of the soldier builders. He earnestly told them to spruce up the mountain to provide the people with a better resort of cultural recreation, true to the behest of President Kim Il Sung.
He went round a number of construction sites through the sightseeing road built by soldiers and spread before them a far-reaching blueprint to turn the mountain into a splendid resort of cultural recreation for the people.
The sun of May Day began to sink unnoticed.
Out of the ardent desire to provide him a happy time, if but for a moment, officials earnestly asked him to have a picture taken with them against the background of the picturesque scenery of the mountain.
He smiled a generous smile of understanding and said that was not a good idea when the resort was in the thick of construction and he would come again after the completion of the project and have a souvenir picture taken.
The officials were choked with emotion at his words full of warm love for the toiling soldier builders whom he thought before anyone else.
The story about the souvenir picture which was not taken will go down long to the posterity as a legend of the leader’s love for the KPA soldiers along with Mt. Kuwol, a famous mountain of the people.
Withinh the past few weeks the KCNA has been running these stories about KJI’s past happenings more often. People this is a sign of regime handover imminent. They are buttering up his legacy to prepare the masses for the next in lineage of the “Great Man”. Expect to see even more “divine” stories from KJI’s past in the near future. Jung Un will be crowned for succession by Novemeber if not sooner. Start to see official stories about him in the KCNA by September.