Storm Kim

North Korea weather agency faces month-long ideological review

Some employees could face personnel penalties or forced reassignment to hard labor

North Korea’s State Hydro-Meteorological Administration is undergoing a sweeping, party-ordered ideological review this month after a string of forecasting failures worsened storm and heat wave damage across the country in 2026. The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea has ordered agency staff and workers at related institutions to hold monthlong self-criticism sessions starting in mid-August.

A source told Daily NK on Thursday that the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea recently held the State Hydro-Meteorological Administration responsible for a series of forecasting failures. The committee ordered agency departments and cells to hold general assemblies for one month and to produce strongly worded self-criticism statements, according to the source.

A cynical chap might suggest that this is the way to deal with the Met Office and its fixation with climate change propaganda, but forced reassignment to hard labor, or even hard labour may be too much for them.

Some strongly worded self-criticism statements should be easy enough though, could happen one day before the sun goes out.

Missiles and Hairstyles

North Korea launches about 10 short-range ballistic missiles

North Korea launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles towards the waters off the country’s east coast on Thursday, South Korea’s military said on Thursday.

This comes just a day after Pyongyang dismissed US scaling back a major military exercise with South Korea.

The missiles were launched towards waters off North Korea’s east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said...

North Korea has frequently reacted to joint US-South Korea military drills with weapons tests and strong rhetoric. Pyongyang views the exercises as preparations for an attack and says they justify strengthening its nuclear capabilities. Washington and Seoul maintain that the training is purely defensive.


"Pyongyang views the exercises as preparations for an attack" - or possibly not. Aggressive military display towards South Korea has been a key element of North Korean foreign policy since the days of
Kim Jong Il. Military activity in the South gives North Korea an opportunity to emphasise that policy to its own citizens by setting off a few photo op missiles. 

A constant and conspicuously aggressive military posture towards South Korea seems intended to justify the extremely harsh treatment handed out to North Korean citizens whenever they are detected showing an overt interest in South Korean lifestyles, freedoms and prosperity. Music, films, hairstyles are all double plus ungood.

Across the River

A video which illustrates the fascinating absurdity of North Korea rather well, a monumental pyramid of absurdity with an absurd, waddling despot perched on the top.

One for Ed and Miatta

What’s behind North Korea’s coal industry push?

From miner housing to carbon neutrality, North Korea's coal strategy carries implications well beyond its borders

North Korea held the second plenary session of the ninth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea from June 20 to 22. According to Rodong Sinmun, the party’s official newspaper, the meeting’s purpose was to review North Korea’s progress on 2026 party and state policies. These policies stem from strategic tasks set by the Ninth Party Congress and the new five year plan. The party also said it aimed to discuss and resolve pressing issues needed to put socialist construction on a stable, sustained path of development.

The second agenda item at the plenary session was titled “On Boosting the Coal Industry and Transforming Coal Mining Towns Nationwide.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said overcoming the coal sector’s remaining backwardness is an urgent task for the successful completion of the new five year plan.

What we need to counteract this horrific development is a determined visit to North Korea by a large delegation of UK climate protesters with their placards, soup and orange powder. This should attract Kim's attention and make him think again.

None of them would come back of course, a few people may see this as a disadvantage.


On March 15 this year, Kim visited the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, part of the Sunchon Youth Coal Mining Complex in South Pyongan province, where he voted in Supreme People’s Assembly elections and met with miners. “For people to live, grain farming must go well,” he said. “For the state to live, coal farming must go well. Coal has been and remains the heart of our industry and the engine of our self-reliant economic development.”

Serious Scrumping

Hunger drives North Korean children to raid state orchards

Even farmworkers say the children deserve sympathy, not blame

Hunger is driving teenagers in Kwail county, South Hwanghae province, to sneak into state orchards this summer. They pick peaches and plums to eat on the spot or carry home. Guards increasingly look the other way rather than punish them. A source in the province described the pattern to Daily NK recently, pointing to worsening hunger among North Korean children in 2026.

Peaches and plums are now in season, the source said. In Kwail county, teenagers in groups of two or three have been slipping into orchards to eat fruit or take it home. “Orchard guards only shout to scare them off,” the source said. “They don’t chase after them to catch them.”

Kwail county is a hub of North Korea’s fruit industry, known mainly for apples but also producing pears, peaches, grapes, persimmons and apricots, according to the source. Most of the fruit grown there goes to central government officials and Pyongyang residents.

Low IQ Missiles

North Korea tests AI-guided missiles for the first time

State media said that Kim was satisfied with the tests, with the North Korean leader saying the weapons "suit the proper conditions of ⁠modern warfare".

Kim Jong Un supervised the launches, and it is claimed he was satisfied with the results.

Blimey, the North Korean regime is remarkably keen on presenting itself as bang up to date with military hardware.

Imagine a spoof story about the latest, most destructive missile warheads being composed of explosive blancmange.

Extremely unlikely of course, but suppose the spoof goes global and a few months later we see official photos of Kim Jong Un inspecting the a new North Korean missile equipped with the very latest blancmange warhead.

Dear Leader

There is a Korean saying that if you tell a lie one hundred times, even the person who made up the lie will eventually come to believe it.

Jang Jin-Sung

Dear Leader is Jang Jin-Sung's fascinating account of his defection from North Korea. Disturbing of course, but well worth reading.

Jang Jin-sung is the pseudonym of a North Korean defector and former elite propagandist who served as a state poet under Kim Jong-il before escaping to South Korea in 2004.[1][2]Employed in the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, Jang composed officially sanctioned poetry extolling the Kim regime, which granted him privileged access to Pyongyang's inner circles and the moniker of poet laureate.[1][3] His defection followed a personal crisis involving unauthorized possession of South Korean media, prompting a clandestine border crossing via China that exposed him to risks of recapture and execution.

The book primarily covers the Kim Jong-il regime, describing the bizarre nature of the regime and Jang's defection with a friend across the frozen Tumen River to China. It's an interesting account because in spite of his young age, Jang was an elite propagandist, in North Korean terms life was good. 

What seems to have pushed him into defecting was partly his unauthorised use of South Korean literature, but also a fascination with the outside world. As a propagandist he came to know the outside world in a way which was strictly forbidden to North Korean citizens. Another motive for defecting was the fanatically restrictive nature of all North Korean art, literature and music, his main interests in life.

Anyone who composes a work that has not been assigned to the writer through this chain of command is by definition guilty of treason. All written works in North Korea must be initiated in response to a specific request from the Workers’ Party.

Jang gives Byron's poetry as an example of his access to literature beyond North Korea, part of a policy of disguising the source of North Korean propaganda covertly circulated in the outside world.

The book was the Collected Works of Lord Byron. As part of North Korea’s ‘Hundred-Copy Collection’, the print run of this book was restricted to one hundred copies. In North Korea, the circulation of foreign books is restricted in this way so that only the ruling Kim and his family, his closest associates and select members of North Korea’s elite have access to them. Each of the books in a hundred-copy set has a stamped number on the first page to show which of the hundred copies it is.

Before encountering Byron’s poetry, I had thought that adjectives such as ‘Dear’ and ‘Respected’ were a special form of pronoun in the Korean language reserved for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Along with ‘Great’, which is always seen in one of the terms referring to Kim Il-sung as ‘Great Leader’, I had assumed that these adjectives were names just like Kim and therefore etymologically and purely Korean.

How to build the wrong reputation

The biggest car heist in history: How 1,000 Volvos went missing

Half a century ago Volvo shipped 1,000 cars to North Korea. The Swedish Export Credit Agency is still sending reminders to pay the bill.

In 1966 Volvo launched the 144 series. The timeless design, safety features and classic Volvo practicality made it a best seller. Over the next eight years, 523,808 models were produced, making it Volvo’s biggest volume model by some margin.

The 144 attracted admirers across the globe, including in North Korea. At the time, Sweden was one of the few countries to have established diplomatic relations with the state – and some Swedish companies saw both a potential export opportunity and a means to cement that relationship.

Some of the 144s acquired by North Korea are still running, many as taxis, though likely somewhat roughly, given limited access to parts.

Reputations are easily acquired but not so easily erased -

North Korea courts Chinese private investors for Pyongyang commercial complex

Ministry of External Economic Affairs leads effort to secure goods and foreign currency through private Chinese capital, as legal risks give investors pause

Chinese investor reaction has been mixed. Some view North Korea as an untapped market with significant upside, but others are urging caution, citing policy uncertainty and a lack of institutional stability.

Curiously Familiar

North Korea orders 400 housing units built in North Hamgyong in a single month

Local cadres voice quiet alarm over materials shortages and labor mobilization demands

North Korea is pushing a sweeping housing construction drive across the country under the banner of “regional development,” and central party officials traveled to North Hamgyong province earlier this month to enforce the campaign’s targets with unusual intensity...

The officials repeatedly stressed that the current housing construction targets surpass those of the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il eras, describing the campaign as “an unprecedented housing supply revolution for regional development in the history of the republic.”

Interesting due to a significant similarity with the UK government target of building 1.5 million net new dwellings in 5 years. 

Not only housing of course. There are prominent UK politicians and political pundits who have government central planning securely embedded at the centre of their ideology, where government is the sole originator of inflexible plans, targets and rules in all areas of life.

This time it will be different

Zohran Mamdani's $70 Million Grocery Gamble

Amid a $5.4 billion budget deficit, the mayor of New York City is pushing forward with a proposal that has historically yielded terrible results.


North Korea tightens grocery store regulations

Gray market workarounds may no longer be tolerated under new rules

“In the past, store managers have met government quotas with goods from the gray market, but it doesn’t look like that will fly anymore,” the source said. “Managers aren’t sure whether it will be possible to meet government quotas if they follow state-mandated procedures and use goods provided by the state.”

The past has yet to be decided

N. Korea touts 'new strategy' at party congress

 

According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, leader Kim Jong Un continued delivering the Workers' Party Central Committee's work report for a second day during proceedings held Friday.

The report said a "new struggle strategy corresponding to the soaring confidence of the state and the people" was announced, along with sector-by-sector goals and implementation tasks. However, no specifics were made public.

That's a chilling photo - barely a single molecule out of place.

"However, no specifics were made public." Of course not, the past has yet to be decided.

Sacks of dried night soil

North Korean households receive heavy yearly scrap collection quotas as new year begins

Those unable to gather recyclables on time must pay cash equivalents, and quotas are sometimes raised arbitrarily, leaving North Koreans feeling "shackled" by collection demands

North Korean neighborhood watch unit leaders have given households their yearly quotas for various scrap materials they are supposed to collect for the government...

According to the source, one neighborhood watch unit in Chongjin provided the following quotas to each household in a meeting on the evening of Jan. 14: 40 kilograms of scrap metal, 10 kilograms of scrap paper, 5 kilograms of scrap rubber, 2 kilograms of oil crops, and three 25-kilogram sacks of dried night soil.

There are many observations a chap could make about sacks of night soil, but I'll resist the temptation for now.  

In other news, I see Lord Mandelson has resigned from the Labour Party.

A goat yoked to pull an ox cart

North Korea's Kim Jong Un dismisses vice premier, comparing him to 'a goat yoked to pull an ox cart'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed a vice premier over a factory modernisation project in a rare public rebuke ahead of a ruling party congress, state media has reported.

Mr Kim blamed Yang Sung Ho, a vice premier in charge of the machine-building industry, for causing what he called "unnecessary man-made confusion" during works to modernise the Ryongsong Machine Complex in the northeast of the country, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday.


That's an interesting metaphor.

 

Or there is the digital approach

North Korea demands neighbors spy on neighbors in surveillance push

Authorities are offering rewards and threatening punishments to normalize citizen surveillance and reporting of "anti-socialist lifestyles"

According to a source in North Pyongan province, regional branches of the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea (SWUK) held year-end review sessions starting Dec. 20. The meetings evaluated how well members followed directives from above, including participation in political study sessions and compliance with neighborhood watch protocols.

Officials repeatedly instructed attendees to “keenly watch for behavior that goes against socialist lifestyles.”

“They kept emphasizing that we must raise each other’s awareness and immediately report non-socialist behavior so the enemies’ schemes don’t take root in people’s lives,” the source said.

Grim of course, but there is a flavour of old school totalitarian measures about this. It's a long way from facial recognition or China's social credit system.

And yet...

The UK pandemic debacle was merely one reminder that it is possible to encourage natural informers to indulge themselves when confected virtue is on offer. It's as well to be politically vigilant.

Which of course we aren't.

Things could be worse

N. Korean parents gather firewood for classrooms as prices more than double

Students take days off to collect quota as green wood fills classrooms with smoke, while forest rangers mostly look the other way

North Korean parents are taking turns gathering firewood to heat their children’s classrooms after prices more than doubled from $28 to $69 per cubic meter, with only eight of 27 families at one Hamhung middle school able to pay cash upfront.

“Parents at some schools in Hamhung and other parts of the province have been roaming through the woods to gather firewood. Parents are responsible for providing the firewood needed to heat their children’s classrooms,” a source in South Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently.


Bad Kim Jong Un he looked out,
from his feast this evening,
When the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
tho’ the frost was cruel,
When poor parents came in sight,
gath’ring winter fuel.

To verify compliance

North Korea launches multi-child family inspection campaign as officials visit homes to renew certificates

Visitation teams are checking whether families have valid certificates and if mothers are actually receiving reduced work hours and doubled vacation days promised by the regime

North Korea’s Central Committee has ordered provincial party committees to pay special attention to families with multiple children, dispatching “visitation teams” to homes to verify compliance with pro-natalist policies and renew family certificates that previously required parents to visit government offices themselves.

So backward, surely it would be much easier to verify compliance with a digital ID system. North Korea should invite Keir Starmer and his team over for a prolonged visit.

Political Paranoia

An interesting aspect of North Korea is extreme political paranoia directed at its own citizens. Even here in the UK, this kind of paranoia does highlight a disturbing characteristic of the Starmer government. 

As we know, there has been an unmistakeable rise of paranoid political interference in what UK citizens say and even think. As we also know, it is one of the defining characteristics of a totalitarian political outlook.

 
N. Korean authorities jail private tutors as crackdown intensifies

Several Chongjin residents in their 30s and 40s have been caught working as private tutors

North Korean authorities have recently been tightening restrictions on private tutoring. Anyone caught being paid for private lessons reportedly faces legal sanctions, with no exceptions being granted.

“Here in Chongjin, there have been several recent cases of individuals being sent to labor camps for giving children private lessons at their homes,” a source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently.

Two Headlines

North Korea builds grain centers to tighten control over food distribution

"The system looks comprehensive on paper, but practical problems could emerge, such as electricity shortages, lack of technical personnel and logistical deficiencies," a source told Daily NK


Malnutrition spreads across North Korea as food prices surge over 50 percent

As food prices continue climbing, the regime has attempted to intervene through price caps and market restrictions, but these measures have proven largely ineffective

Gadget culture

An interesting Daily NK piece on the use of electronic devices to encourage favourable attitudes towards China within the North Korean population. 

How China uses electronic devices to spread cultural influence in North Korea

The primary motivation is supporting local manufacturers struggling to find buyers in China's domestic market

Chinese local governments are quietly backing large-scale production of electronic devices designed specifically for the North Korean market, according to sources familiar with the operations.

Factories officially registered as electronic parts assembly companies are busy manufacturing small, unlabeled devices that cater to North Korean consumers. The product line includes SD card players, rechargeable video players, and other popular “MP” devices that have become staples across the border...

“There’s a definite strategy in China of progressively increasing influence over North Korea while concealing official involvement. China is currently building pro-Chinese sentiment inside North Korea,” the source concluded.

No more rabbit dung for us

Wonder drugs no more: N. Korea’s health supplement market turns to foreign brands

North Korean officials prefer German company Doppelherz's magnesium, lutein, collagen, and milk thistle products

A health supplement revolution is quietly taking hold among North Korea’s elite. Disillusioned with counterfeit “medicines from Ponghwa” that people mockingly call “rabbit dung,” wealthy officials and the newly rich are abandoning domestic products for foreign-made dietary supplements they can actually trust.