northkoreacapitalist

[northkoreacapitalist]

CNN’S PORTRAYAL OF NORTH KOREA AS LAWLESS AGGRESSOR REVERSES REALITY

FAIR, the national media watch group, writes: 

"Felix Abt, a Swiss entrepreneur who served as a pointperson for investments in North Korea for seven years, and headed Pyongsu, North Korea’s first foreign-invested pharmaceutical company, wrote a memoir that described repeatedly witnessing the effects of draconian US and UN sanctions on North Korea. They prevented the country, Abt wrote, from doing necessary things like rebuilding water supply and drainage systems, hindering imports of mechanical parts and fuel to operate agricultural machinery, and causing electrical shortages that are 'the largest bottleneck to any industrial development of North Korea.' He also noted that less than 20% of North Korea’s land is arable—which makes it heavily dependent on food imports, like his native Switzerland—yet illegal unilateral US sanctions compounded the damage caused by droughts, floods and the collapse of major trading partners like the USSR, causing between 500,000-600,000 deaths by starvation in North Korea during the 1990s (Al-Jazeera, 3/27/14). CNN calling for stricter enforcement in light of what have historically been genocidal sanctions—which are still causing harm to the North Korean people—is especially callous. Yet CNN doesn’t seem to think it worthwhile to question the justice and legality of UN sanctions on North Korea; the report makes it seem as if only North Korea considers UN sanctions to be 'hostile acts,' or 'questions their legitimacy.'"

Link to the full article here.

[northkoreacapitalist]

INTERESTED IN GETTING A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF NORTH KOREA? HERE COMES ‘THE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE DPRK’

Dr. James Hoare is a British academic and historian specializing in Korean and Chinese studies, and a career diplomat in the British Foreign Office. He was British Chargé d'affaires in Pyongyang where his work laid the foundation for the establishment of a full embassy in the North Korean capital. Hoare has written widely on China, Japan and Korea. Since retiring he has been a frequent commentator on radio and television in Britain and abroad, usually on Korean issues. Hoare is the author of the "Historical Dictionary of Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (which also mentions business man and book author Felix Abt)

[northkoreacapitalist]

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW AND UNDERSTAND...

... North Korea better you better ignore the misleading mainstream media!  

[northkoreacapitalist]

THE SWEDISH-KOREAN ASSOCIATION BLOGS ABOUT FELIX ABT’S NEW BOOK.

Translation:     

New book by Felix Abt 

The Swiss entrepreneur Felix Abt, who lived and worked in DFR Korea for many years and became famous with his book A capitalist in North Korea, has now released the sequel North Korea behind the veil, with the subtitle What the mainstream media does not want you to see !, which is free as an e-book. In the preface, Abt writes, among other things; North Korea has been portrayed for decades as a monolithic gulag network filled with slaves and a hellhole by the mass media. The socio-economic changes North Korea has undergone over the last decade or more have been almost entirely unreported. Despite my firsthand knowledge and insights gleaned from my time in this isolated country, my views have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. The reason for this, I believe, is because I have tried to be as fair and objective as possible, instead of merely trashing the country as I’ve been expected to. Against this background, Abt writes that he owes the North Korean people to continue to tell the outside world about their country. The book can be downloaded here as a pdf file.

[northkoreacapitalist]

BECAUSE...

...the book ‘A Capitalist in North Korea’ advocates incremental change through engagement, as practiced by the author himself, with North Korea instead of violence and other forms of coercion it was ignored/censored by the U.S. mainstream media and their "bloodthirsty journalists" 

Glenn Greenwald quote source.

From Vietnam to Iraq, how the media spins lies to sell wars. A must-watch documentary piece!  

[northkoreacapitalist]

WTF. Academia want Felix Abt to pay for quotes someone else used. He just doesn’t care who the hell mentions him.

[northkoreacapitalist]

FACEBOOK SPREADS FAKE NEWS

while it suppresses real news and unwelcome voices, including the Facebook page of the book author of “A Capitalist in North Korea”. And every time when his posts are deleted and he appeals to Facebook he doesn’t get any specific reason for censoring him. 

[northkoreacapitalist]

THE NEVER-ENDING KOREA WAR 

The North Koreans have wanted to normalize its relations with the United States for a long time and have believed it was possible, since the U.S. also gave up its hostility towards Vietnam and has developed a normal relationship with it. But that was wishful thinking on the part of the North Koreans. To this day the U.S. has not agreed to end the seven-decade-long Korean War and it continues to demand that North Korea first disarm unilaterally which is a non-starter for Pyongyang. 

[northkoreacapitalist]

Wikipedia - a discredited ‘Encyclopedia’

Wikipedia, by its very nature, will always be dominated by those with the greater numbers on their side and/or the more time and energy at their disposal.

Therefore, as the author of a book which challenged the usual North Korea narrative Felix Abt couldn't expect a fair Wikipedia article. 

What's your experience with this "free online encyclopedia" (Wikipedia self-description)?

Here is the link to the the piece “Wikipedia - A Disinformation Operation?” 

[northkoreacapitalist]

ONE OF THE BEST NORTH KOREA BOOKS 

is Bruce Cumings "North Korea. Another Country". Cumings is an American historian and his book is, unlike most other North Korean books, not partisan and not indiscriminately trashing the country. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Korea, and on declassified government reports, fluent Korean speaker Cumings traces that story, from the brutal Korean War to the present "crisis". Highly recommended!

#northkorea #books

[northkoreacapitalist]

COFFEE IS ILLEGAL IN PYONGYANG. AND COMMENTING ON IT ON ‘CHANNEL NEWS ASIA’ IS OUTRAGEOUS.

“At the Bugsae shop in Pyongyang, not far from the first pharmacy I had set up, I used to buy canned Pokka coffee & other drinks supplied by this Singaporean business man who's been jailed now for supplying such banned "luxury" items to North Korea. Sad!”

I posted the above comment on the below-mentioned ‘Channel News Asia’ (CNA) piece which it deleted!!! Obviously, my comment was as outrageous for them as drinking “illegal” Pokka coffee in Pyongyang...

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-supplier-north-korea-luxury-goods-ng-kheng-wah--12117118

[northkoreacapitalist]

TRUE NORTH KOREA EXPERT ON “A CAPITALIST IN NORTH KOREA”

“One of the only books from a living experience in the country has been written by Felix Abt ('A Capitalist in North Korea. My seven years in the Hermit Kingdom'). It did not receive the response it deserved.” — Dr. A. Schild, former Chief Technical Advisor in North Korea for the UNDP financed aid coordination programme and book author.  

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9783746933467&i=stripbooks&linkCode=qs

[northkoreacapitalist]

FACEBOOK’S DOUBLE STANDARDS

Facebook makes millions off scams AND hate ads AND it regularly suppresses posts by the author of the book ‘A Capitalist in North Korea’ for "not complying with Facebook's policies" which he doesn't know. Upon his request, Facebook was sly enough not to give him any specifics.

[northkoreacapitalist]

NORTH KOREA — BANNED BY HOSTILE FOREIGN POWERS TO USE HI-TECH IN FOOD PROCESSING

Media call North Korea either a “technological backwater” or a country that “violates sanctions” when it does acquire modern technology such as robots from the ABB Group whose chief representative I was in the DPRK.

[northkoreacapitalist]

[northkoreacapitalist]

INTERVIEW WITH A CAPITALIST: LIFE, VENTURES AND ADVENTURES IN THE HERMIT KINGDOM

“Setting up multiple businesses, North Korea’s first business school and the first foreign chamber of commerce is not your typical Sunday stroll. It involves a lot of conviction work, but also frustrations, disagreements (on both sides) and quarreling, for which I was neither sent to a labor camp nor expelled from the country, as Western media consumers are inclined to believe. Yet, with mutual respect, patience, empathy and perseverance foreign business people stood a fair chance of setting up a profitable business as I did (before ever harsher ‘sanctions’ were imposed from the mid-2000s).” 

“I recently spoke to Mr. Abt about his time in North Korea. We touched on living in the DPRK during a time of market reforms, the ‘Pyongyang Illusion’ vs. ‘The countryside illusion’, the reality behind concentration camps and why the prospect for peace currently seems dim.”

Lawrence Hamilton: World Traveler, Radio Producer, Wrestling Commentator, Whale Obsessive & Flaming Deadhead.

Read the full interview here

[northkoreacapitalist]

DID ANYBODY

read my book while smoking North Korean cigarettes?