ABC News: "Hundreds of thousands" in North Korean "prison camps"; 25% "starving"

[eyeheartlenin]

http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-restores-order-kim-funeral-photoshop-184908568.html

At the bottom of the link above, Christiane Amanpour, global affairs anchor of ABC News, narrates a brief video about North Korea, shot by ABC News, in which she reports that "hundreds of thousands" of North Koreans are in "prison camps," and that the UN estimates that "a quarter of the population" is "starving." Amanpour relates that, owing to malnutrition in North Korea, North Koreans are now, on average, "two inches shorter" than their South Korean counterparts.

[Small Geezer]

I've been on the phone to the Supreme Peoples Assembly of the DPRK and they've assured me, finally, that Christiane Amanpour has met her match and she will spend some time in a Labour camp.

Hopefully she will be so mentally and physically exhausted that she will have no force to continue boring and patronising the rest of the world.

Mansei Kim Jong Un!

[CynicalIdealist]

Before this becomes a shitstorm where M-L zealots claim that DPRK is an utopia on earth "albeit flawed" and the majority of the rest believe the article, let me throw my hat in the ring to say that I don't think we should trust ABC or DPRK on this.

[Robespierre Richard]

Before this becomes a shitstorm where M-L zealots claim that DPRK is an utopia on earth "albeit flawed" and the majority of the rest believe the article, let me throw my hat in the ring to say that I don't think we should trust ABC or DPRK on this.

Are there actually people here actually rooting on the sanctions imposed on the DPRK or favoring imperialist invasion? Because functionally this article serves as a way of affirming anti-communist sentiment which screaming "North Korea isn't communist!" will do even less to reverse than screaming that Stalin wasn't communist. Indeed, this whole kerfuffle reminds me of Khrushchevite revisionists claiming that the Soviet Union now favored 'world peace' rather than anti-imperialism, and the effect that this had on the NATO bloc's policy toward the USSR (none.)

[bcbm]

us has 7.3 million in 'prison camps' and 1 in 6 battle hunger

[Sendo]

I seriously think they quote the biggest number they can get away with. I also never hear what percentage of prisoners are political prisoners. Apparently all people in custody are in concentration-labor-death camps.

They must be playing this for laughs. If they cared so much about starvation they'd talk about Africa and South Asia. Far more people are starving there. Even if the numbers are true, they're being manipulated for page hits. 25% of North Korea sounds more dire than 10% of Bangladesh.

I don't have time to watch to whole thing but seriously fuck the anchor. Those "WAILING" mourners. I bet she didn't mock the sobbings of Americans for Princess Diana which made absolutely no sense at all.

[Agathor]

It's been reported by human rights groups, UN agencies and many other non-partisan organizations. But I guess somebody who supports, sympathizes, or sees a glint of socialism or redemption in the North Korean military state has trained themselves to withstand evidence with the fortitude of a nuclear bunker, so I won't bother arguing with them.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You don't have to believe that NK has a "glimmer of socialism" to defend it. They have a planned collectivized economy with a state monopoly on foreign trade. They have abolished capitalism. Socialists defend this. To go along with hoopla about how bad it is there (and surely it is not great), is to walk lockstep with the imperialists who hate NK not because there is dynastic rule, or political prisoners, or hunger, but because they overthrew capitalism and now the have the A-Bomb. Other comrades have pointed to the hypocrisy of the bourgeois press -- don't seem to read much about dynastic rulers elsewhere. . . The House of Saud? Oh, they're okay -- because they ally themselves with imperialism. And I think Robespierre Richard is correct -- to favor sanctions or worse, is to ally oneself with imperialism. Oh and Agathor, there is no such thing as a non-partisan group.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The House of Saud? Oh, they're okay -- because they ally themselves with imperialism.

Saudi Arabia's government isn't covered very well in US media, actually. Most of the time they're portrayed as a bunch of assholes that we have to put up with so we can get their precious precious oil.

[NewLeft]

us has 7.3 million in 'prison camps' and 1 in 6 battle hunger

Ya, but that's less than North Korea so America is doing just fine.

[black magick hustla]

Are there actually people here actually rooting on the sanctions imposed on the DPRK or favoring imperialist invasion? Because functionally this article serves as a way of affirming anti-communist sentiment which screaming "North Korea isn't communist!" will do even less to reverse than screaming that Stalin wasn't communist. Indeed, this whole kerfuffle reminds me of Khrushchevite revisionists claiming that the Soviet Union now favored 'world peace' rather than anti-imperialism, and the effect that this had on the NATO bloc's policy toward the USSR (none.)

screaming either way wont accomplish much