Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK's history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it's not the case that China is somehow the DPRK's master. Russia is the DPRK's other neighour that isn't US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don't care if we're on the 14th sanctions package, it's all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians' use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance's presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its "allies" when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Earlier this week, I mentioned how the WCK strike is breaking down some barriers in a way that everything else hasn't because "Jose Andres is big with the Pod Jons set". I saw something today in FT that I think provides some good background on the cachet he holds among the freaks in DC :
Pretty frustrating that it takes someone drone striking the employees of the head chef of your favorite restaurant to make these freaks reassess wtf is going on, but I will take it.
Full FT Blog post
One of the few high points for me of Washington’s grim pandemic lockdown in spring 2020 was a Lunch with the FT I did with José Andrés. Because of the rules, we had to do it on Zoom. But even that had its upside. The Spanish chef, and world-renowned humanitarian, was eating at one of his outlets in Virginia Beach; I was sitting in my home office with Mexican food from one of his “pop-up” restaurants. At the end of our session, I asked what his greeting-and-goodbye rule was during the age of coronavirus. At the time, people were annoyingly clinking elbows, which struck me as precisely the wrong sneeze-ridden part of the body to be using. Andrés stood up, straightened himself, stared into the camera, then pounded his barrel chest, shouting, “I give you my heart! I give you my heart!” From almost anyone else, Andrés theatrical gesture would have come across as contrived. From him, however, it was utterly sincere. Very few people give their hearts to the extent that Andrés does.I have been thinking a lot about him, as have so many others, after seven of his colleagues — what he calls “angels” — were killed in three Israeli drone strikes earlier this week. Since last October, Andrés’s World Central Kitchen has supplied 43mn meals to Palestinians trapped in that enclave, which is almost 20 meals per person. I don’t have a complete list, but I would not be surprised if this exceeds all other non-governmental organisations combined. Either way it is a safe bet that only UNRWA, boycotted by Israel and now the US, would have supplied more food to the Gaza strip than WCK. It is because of that largesse, and Andrés’s now global reputation, that the world has reacted more emotionally to the death of his colleagues than it has to the roughly 200 aid workers who have died in the Gaza Strip in the past few months. None of them should have died. Each was risking their life to keep the innocent living. The fact that some Hamas fighters are doubtless also being fed is both unavoidable, and also why Israel has been dragging its feet on allowing more aid to go in.
The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not. Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity. He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food. Andrés’s Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America’s capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington’s first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. When I spoke to Andrés during the pandemic, he was keeping dozens of local restaurants alive by ordering food deliveries from them to supply homeless shelters, hospital staff and other essential workers. From the front lines of war-torn Ukraine, to the devastation of natural disasters around the world, Andrés’s WCK has become a global Good Samaritan like no other.
For an insight into Andrés’s philosophy and broken heart, read what he wrote this week in the New York Times:
Will this be enough to prompt Biden to take action against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government? I do not know. Over the past few months, the periodic White House “leaks” about how Biden is getting really frustrated, and his patience is close to snapping, have become almost self-parodying. They remind me of the movie Team America: World Police caricature of the UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, threatening to write a “strongly-worded letter” unless North Korea gave up its weapons of mass destruction.
At some point, the pressure on Israel and Biden to change the way it is fighting this war has to become decisive. But not yet it seems. For my question this week, I am turned to the renowned Israeli journalist, Noga Tarnopolsky. Noga, you are based in Jerusalem. I know you’ve been holding your breath since October 7 and you are struggling to see a way out of this morass. Could the WCK deaths have some impact on Israeli public opinion?
It's like how otherwise conservative politicians will change their mind when one of their kids is gay, people are only real to them if they relate in some way to them or someone they know
Then you get the opposite with my mom who is perfectly fine, supportive and accepting of other people's kids being LGBT, but I myself were to ever come out as bisexual even as an adult in my mid 20s, it would be a completely different scenario because it's one of her own kids and she would never accept it.