Word: pyongyang
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...cult of Kim's personality dominates the capital, Pyongyang (pop. 1.8 million). With its broad streets, tree-lined parks and bucolic riverbanks, the city is in many respects attractive. But virtually all its public buildings are monumental paeans in stone to the "Great Leader," constructed in a style that might be called Marxist Triumphalism. Dominating the skyline is the Tower of the Juche Idea, a 561-ft. stone column topped by a 66-ft. torch that glows at night. Across the Taedong River is the 600-room Grand People's Study Hall, a new national library. Near...
...million strikingly conforms to Korea's ancient reputation as the "Hermit Kingdom." Though the library boasts a capacity of 30 million volumes, it has only four listings under "United States," the most recent a 1975 edition of U.S. Pharmacoepia. No foreign publications are on sale in Pyongyang. And at the Potonggang, the capital's newest hotel, foreigners are kept under almost constant surveillance...
...clairvoyant scientific insight with which to perceive clearly the essence of inextricably entangled phenomena and ability to compress aspirations of millions of people in a simple proposition ... are his distinguished qualities with which to conduct ideo-theoretical activities." Moreover, North Korean officials steadfastly assert that the world looks to Pyongyang for inspiration and that the government's paid propaganda advertisements in Western newspapers constitute editorial acclaim for the Great Leader. "Korea," observed one high-level official, "is the freest country in the world...
North Korea reserves its special loathing, however, for the U.S. and South Korea. Americans are portrayed as demonic war criminals bent on enslaving the Korean people. Although U.S. analysts suspect that China is counseling Pyongyang against aggression, North Korea's tough and well-equipped armed forces (at 750,000 strong, the world's fifth largest) are highly visible and heavily indoctrinated. Among their articles of faith: South Korea longs to be "liberated," and the U.S. and South Korea are preparing to invade the North...
Signs of an all-Korea detente that first emerged with the joint North-South agreement of 1972 have long since evaporated. Recent South Korean suggestions of renewed negotiations were, snarled a North Korean radio broadcast last month, "nothing but a dog barking at the moon." Pyongyang currently aims to create a "Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo." As preconditions to further talks, however, it demands complete U.S. withdrawal from the peninsula and the overthrow of the present South Korean government...