Google Chief’s Advice To North Korea Is As Bizzare As Visit

Jan 102013
 

Eric Schmidt concluded his controversial four day visit to North Korea with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson with an exhortation to the pariah state to open up internet access.  It is a call that is so inane and inappropriate it can only increase speculation as to why he went there at all.

The trip which Governor Richardson had apparently initiated in order to try and secure the release of a US tour guide imprisoned there had drawn criticism from the State Department which did not support his outreach to a rogue state. The reason for Mr Schmidt’s presence was somewhat unclear.

But if it really was to spread the good word about the internet he would have done better to stay home and sent an email. Unless he is in possession of hitherto unseen supernatural abilities he would have had more luck nailing jello to a ceiling than convincing the world’s most repressive state to open the doors to the online world.

The United Nations reports that ten percent of North Korean children are so stunted by malnutrition that they have permanent physical and mental impairment. The country relies on foreign aid and grudging support of its neighbors to survive day to day.

What would average North Koreans do if they had internet access? Perhaps google “food” and “shelter” to see what it looks like. The internet can be a useful tool for democratic reform but not if you are going to die from a treatable disease while waiting for a search engine to finish bring up its results.

There are priorities for North Korea and concentrating on feeding, housing, educating and keeping them healthy is probably slightly ahead of disarmament and abandonment of a nuclear weapons program which itself is much, much higher up the list than internet access at this stage.

The whole rational for undertaking this visit is bewildering. Unless there was some secret mission they were on, the governor and the google CEO seem to have done little more than provide photo opportunities and reflected glory for the leaders of the most repressive, isolated anti-free speech ant-democratic country in the world.

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Global Press Freedoms Hit New Low: Burma and North Korea Lead From The Bottom

May 032011
 
Washington based information freedom watchdog Freedom House released a study this week showing a worldwide decline in access to a free media.
While most of the crackdowns came in the middle east the Asian region had two of the ten worst offenders in the list in Burma and North Korea.
Thailand, Cambodia and China were also found to have a declining free press and restrictive online access.
The reports summary states: The number of people worldwide with access to free and independent media declined to its lowest level in over a decade.

China’s Censors Blocking Coverage Of Egyptian Uprising

Feb 022011
 

China is blocking coverage of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprising or giving a slanted view via state media as one party states in Asia take a sober look at what is happening in the middle east.

China, Burma and North Korea are all heeding the happenings that threaten to topple regimes similar to their own.

As the NY Times reports. “In another era, China’s leaders might have been content to let discussion of the protests in Egypt float around among private citizens, then fizzle out.

“But challenges in recent years to authoritarian governments around the globe and violent uprisings in parts of China itself have made Chinese officials increasingly wary of leaving such talk unchecked, especially on the Internet, the medium some officials see as central to fanning the flames of unrest.

Radio Free Asia has spoken to experts who all point out that the lesson for Asia is that a heavy hand cannot keep the people down indefinately and the leadership needs to loosen the shackles willingly or the people will do it for themselves.

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South Korean Cyber Police Cracking Down On False Rumors Following North Korean Attack

Nov 252010
 

South Korea ‘s specialist cyber police are pursuing anyone found to be posting what they say is false information regarding North Korea’s attack on Yeonpyeong Island.

The JoongAng Daily says the The Cyber Investigations Unit at the North Jeolla Provincial Police Agency is investigating a 34-year-old man surnamed Lee yesterday for writing on the Internet that the Yeonpyeong Island bombardment was provoked by South Korea.

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Sarah Palin: “We gotta stand with our North Korean allies”

Nov 252010
 

A slip of the tongue over North and South Korea has landed former Alaska governor and former vice presidential candiate Sarah Palin in hot water and set the blogosphere alight.

During a radio interview on Wednesday Palin, who has recently said she is considering a 2012 run for the United States presidency, told Glenn Beck how she would handle the current situation on the Korean peninsula.

Chanel Six News quoted Pailin saying: “This is stemming from, I think, a greater problem when we are all sitting around [and] asking; oh no, what are we going to do?” 

 ”We aren’t having a lot of faith that the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is gonna do.”

But a few seconds later, Palin got the countries mixed up. “But obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies,” she said. “We are bound to treaties,” Palin continued, before Beck corrected her.

The mistake set off an immediate firestorm on the Internet. “Please [keep] doing interviews. Each one provides more evidence that you are utterly clueless,” one user wrote on Twitter.

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China, Vietnam Burma and North Korea Prominent On “Internet Enemies” List

Aug 102010
 

Paris based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders lists China, North Korea, Burma and Vietnam as “Internet Enemies” – the highest classification for state sponsored internet censorship, interference and repression.

South Korea is listed as being “under surveillance” which is a designation indicating censorship issues but not as serious as those countries in the top tier.

The organization’s entries for the countries contains a host of useful information including number of netizens, costs of getting on the web, details of detentions and arrests for internet related activities along with a full analysis of the internet’s impact and government response.

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North Korea's Short Missiles Fail To Please

Nov 052009
 

SEOUL—North Korea test fired two types of short range missiles earlier this month but the tests showed a distinctly disappointing performance according to intelligence sources.

None of the five missiles tested found their target. Two missed, two fell into the sea and another failed to launch.

With a range of 75 miles (120 kms), the missiles are believed to be an altered version of the Soviet Union’s SS-21 missile.

Do they protest too much?

Jun 152008
 

Soviet dissidents used to say the surest sign that an air crash had occurred back in the USSR was a sudden surge in official reporting on air disasters abroad. A plane would go down, and suddenly the airwaves were alive with grisly, fiery footage of Western crashes, from Illinois to Edinburgh—with no mention of what had just happened in Minsk. It’s no wonder, then, that North Korea-watchers grew mightily curious when Pyongyang’s official press began running detailed reporting this month on how to avoid bird flu and how North Korea had no cases of the deadly virus to report. Continue reading »

A harmonic convergence in North Korea?

Feb 262008
 

The musical puns are almost too good to resist, but I’ll do my best. The New York Philharmonic, America’s oldest symphony orchestra, played a concert today. They do that a lot, being an orchestra and all. But this concert was extraordinary, because it occurred in Pyongyang—possibly the most repressive country on Earth, and not known as a world music capital. Continue reading »

North Korean executed for making calls abroad

Feb 202008
 

RFA-Korean reports that North Korea last year executed the director of one of its state-run companies last year for having made phone calls abroad without permission, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Paris-based RSF said in its annual survey of press freedom worldwide that North Korea “is the world’s most isolated country and the security forces are responsible for keeping it that way at all costs. Pyongyang’s executions for the offense of communicating with people outside the country have shot up. Continue reading »

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