Word: koreanized
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...North Korea, or more than a quarter of the population. Yet in March, North Korea, without explanation, rejected all food aid from the United States, its largest official donor, and kicked five aid groups distributing the food out of the country. The step is potentially disastrous for the North Korean people. The WFP figures that last year's harvest, though slightly improved on 2007's, still fell about a third short of the population's needs. (See pictures of the work done...
Marcus Noland, an expert on the North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, believes that efforts to roll back reform have intensified in the past six months, symbolized by the return of mass-mobilization development strategies that echo the regime's policies of the 1950s. "The whole country and all the people," Kim Jong Il was quoted saying in a January editorial, "should launch a general offensive dynamically, sounding the advance for opening the gate to a great, prosperous and powerful nation...
Noland argues that this "almost back-to-the-future reversion of economic policy" stems from the same root cause as Pyongyang's recent belligerence: North Korean politics. North Korea watchers speculate that Kim Jong Il, who likely suffered a stroke last year, is maneuvering to install his son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor, and that Pyongyang's May nuclear test, recent war threats and anticipated long-range missile launch are all part of an effort to build support for the Kims, especially among the country's powerful military brass. Economic policy, Noland says, has become tied...
...treatment in recent weeks of an industrial park just north of the border. The Kaesong industrial zone, opened in 2004, was developed mainly by South Korea as part of Seoul's attempts to engage its northern neighbor through economic cooperation, and today it houses more than 100 South Korean companies that employ about 40,000 North Koreans. The zone has been a major source of trade for North Korea, but that hasn't stopped Pyongyang from threatening its operations. In May, North Korean officials said that all contracts regarding the South Korean companies in the park were nullified. Pyongyang...
...Okada says he intends to steer Takarazuka toward more Asian stories, especially Chinese and Korean ones. "Not Christian, but Buddhist. Maybe even John Woo," he says. The mind strains to contemplate a Takarazuka production of something like Woo's historical epic Red Cliff. But you'd be amazed at what can be done with 400 women, gorgeously lit pastel scenery and a ton of glitter...