You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
China-Japan-Koreas
Norks vow 'do-or-die' labor campaign to revive economy
2009-06-25
I think they mean that literally ...
SEOUL, June 25 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday vowed a do-or-die labor campaign to build a strong, prosperous nation by 2012 under the baton of leader Kim Jong-il, amid growing outside skepticism about the North's economic plans.

North Korea has been dependent on international food aid, mainly from South Korea and China, to feed its 24 million people. But the conservative Seoul government cut off its decade-long rice and fertilizer aid to the North last year, which also faces new U.N. sanctions over its recent nuclear test.
Get the World Food Programme, etc. to cut off the rest of the food aid. It only goes to party cadres and the army. The people starve anyway. North Korea needs to implode, and soon.
State media said Kim has visited about 100 places over the past six months since Dec. 24, when he revived an aged labor movement with a trip to a steel factory. The so-called Chollima movement was launched in 1958 by his father and North Korean founder Kim Il-sung to rebuild the country out of the rubble of the Korean War and continued through the early 1970s.

"The forced march of Great Comrade Kim Jong-il ... is a great journey (showing) his endless devotion to the nation, the revolution and the people," the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, a state-run radio, said, calling the labor campaign an "all-out do-or-die battle of the entire people."

North Korea seeks to build a "strong, prosperous and powerful nation" by 2012, the centenary of Kim Il-sung's birth and when Kim Jong-il turns 70.
They're in their fiftieth year of their five-year plan ...
Adding to the labor campaign, North Korea has set a span of 150 days -- from late April to September -- to further labor productivity. State media regularly report how workers in machinery factories, coal mines and farms are outpacing their production plan under the so-called "150-day battle."

"In the flames of the all-out battle, the movement of socialist competition is gearing up with vigor and energy to achieve the production goals commissioned to each unit by all means," Radio Pyongyang said.

According to the Unification Ministry, Kim has made 77 public outings so far this year, compared to 50 during the same period of last year. The increase was notable in economic and art-related areas, it said.

Analysts see few good signs for the North's economy, with the fall in outside aid and new U.N. sanctions, which entirely banned North Korea from weapons exports as well as related financial transanctions. Some say the financial pressure made North Korea think again over an industrial complex jointly run with South Korea, which it might have considered shutting down as a means of retaliation for Seoul's conservative policy. South Korean firms operating at the park paid more than US$26 million in wages last year to the North Korean government.

North Korea's gross national income in 2007, the latest data available from South Korea's central bank, was $26.7 billion, a mere 2.5 percent of South Korea's $1.5 trillion.
Posted by:Steve White

#4  South Korean firms operating at the park paid more than US$26 million in wages last year to the North Korean government.

Very telling chose of words there. Almost an admission the the people doing the actual work are slaves of the North Korean Government.

I think when North Korea falls people are going to be shocked at what they find there and what the North Korean people had to suffer for their 'dear leader'.

And of course it'll be all George Bush'es fault!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-06-25 15:42  

#3  You know, if China wants to keep a mad dog in the front yard, they can bloody well pay for the dog food.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2009-06-25 15:22  

#2  Gromky, why did you let a koala get into your head?
Posted by: Steven   2009-06-25 11:36  

#1  Do or die. Yikes. Would suck to be a North Korean right about now. Actually it would suck most other times, as well. Maybe they'll really do it this time and become prosperous in 2012? It's like a koala crapped a rainbow in my brain.
Posted by: gromky   2009-06-25 08:44  

00:00