CMR Listener in North Korea

North Korea is very unusual country, which is in the news a lot at the moment: EG see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22120623. It calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and is one of the few communist states left on Earth after the collapse of the Soviet Union, over two decades ago, took down most of the USSR's allies with it. There is no religion at all in the country, but the Leader, Kim Jong Un, and his predecessors are adored and venerated in a way that has taken the role of God in their society. It is possible to visit North Korea, but only as part of an organized package tour; backpacking is banned, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZlCxQzaq34. Personally I don't think North Korea is going to start a war; I suspect the current strife, has more to do with North Korean domestic politics than any imperialistic intentions. I suspect the new leader, a young Western-educated, rich man, wants to "Prove himself" to his government officials and people, to be the equal of his revered father and grandfather.

If you go to the Critical Mass Radio Homepage: http://criticalmassradio.co.uk/, you'll notice that we have a Revolvermap function. This is a program that monitors the location of all the page viewers, and therefore listeners online, and displays where exactly they are on the globe. As you can see, we have had a hit from North Korea. I don't know when this North Korean listener tuned in; whether it was during a HPANWO Radio broadcast or one of the other shows. This is interesting because that country has the most restricted Internet access in the world. Access to the World Wide Web is mostly reserved only for official government use. Ordinary computers are not connected to the WWW and can only view the country's own intranet, called the Kwamyong. There is an official North Korean government portal, but the people inside the country can't see it: http://www.korea-dpr.com/. It's an interesting read; it attempts to debunk the "myths" we hear about the place in the Western media. However it no longer has the statements it used to saying that Kim Il Sung, the first Leader, is still ruling the country from Heaven, or that the second one, Kim Jong Il, doesn't have to go to the toilet! The exclusivity of the Net in North Korea means that whoever listens to CMR there is probably a government minister; maybe it's Kim Jong Un himself. Its hard to tell through the resolution, but the hit looks to be in the region of the capitol, Pyongyang. If it was Kim who tuned in; I hope he's enjoying Critical Mass Radio, and I'd like to ask him to lift the restrictions he's placed on his people. Let them have all the information on the triple-dub the rest of us do. OK, Kim? Then hopefully more North Koreans will click on the Web and settle down every Tuesday evening in front of HPANWO Radio.