North Korea: history, people and nuclear weapons

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North Korea: history, people and nuclear weapons
Picture: anna-news.info
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For more than 50 years, North Korea has been an authoritarian country. It is still one of the few countries in the world ruled by a communist dictator.

For the past two decades, North Korea has been working on a nuclear program that could give them access to an atomic bomb.

North Korea has an area of ​​about 120,000 square kilometers and a population of 23 million. Most of the country is dry and mountainous. Most of the population lives in the cities of the coastal lowlands.
The country has many industries. Most of them produce weapons and other products for the country’s army.

History of North Korea

For a long time, Korea was an old independent kingdom. In the first half of the 20th century, it was under the control of Japan, which destroyed most of the Korean culture and even banned the Korean language. During World War II, many Koreans fought in the Japanese army.

North Korea
Picture: Zotyaba | Dreamstime

After Japan lost the war, Korea became a divided country. The Soviet Union took control of the northern part of Korea and made it communist. The southern part was under the influence of the Americans.

In 1950, communist leader Kim Il Sung invaded the south and tried to reunite it with the north. The United States and Great Britain entered the war against the communists and provided aid to the South Korean army. The war lasted three years and ended in a stalemate.

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In the 60s and 70s, Kim created a cult of personality and saw himself as the great leader of North Korea. But he became more and more isolated and had only the Soviet Union and China with whom he had relations. When communism collapsed in Europe and the Soviet Union, North Korea continued its state communist system and had few partners.

In 1994, Kim Il Sung died and his son Kim Jong Il took over the government. He is the only communist leader to have inherited power from his father. He continued his father’s communist ideology right up to the present day. Diplomats who know the North Korean leader describe him as paranoid and hypochondriac.

People of North Korea

The daily life of the North Korean population is very difficult. They lack food, and consumer goods such as washing machines or bicycles are very difficult to obtain. Sometimes even electricity fails during the day.

North Korea
Picture: Linqong | Dreamstime

You can see very few cars on the roads that are in very bad condition. Most North Koreans have no idea what the outside world is. They are not allowed to leave their country.

In the 1990s, North Korea experienced a famine in which hundreds of thousands of people starved to death.

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The government controls every aspect of daily life. Television and newspapers are owned and operated by the state, foreign television is prohibited, and only 20,000 people have mobile phones. The first Internet cafe was opened in 2002, and although some people have an Internet connection, the government censors most of the content.

North Koreans have little information about the outside world or how the world views them.

According to Amnesty International, over 200,000 people are political prisoners or in labor camps.

Nuclear program

North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world. About a million men and women have guns, and a communist country spends about 25% of its money on defense. However, he does not have any modern weapons. Most of them came from the Soviet Union and China long ago.

North Korea
Picture: Dreamstime

North Korea has been hard at work on its nuclear program for the past two decades. At first, officials claimed they were working on a reactor to produce nuclear power, but the country was unofficially collecting plutonium to make nuclear bombs.

After Western warnings to end the program and economic sanctions against the regime failed, the United States brought North Korea to the negotiating table. President Clinton signed an agreement with North Korea that would give them food and oil if they stopped their nuclear program.

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When George W. Bush became US President in 2001, tensions between the two countries increased. Bush called North Korea a terrorist state and said it was part of the global axis of evil.

In 2006, he successfully tested his first atomic bomb, and in 2009 there was a second explosion. Military leaders have also tested missiles that could deliver nuclear bombs to South Korea and Japan. This could lead to the start of a new arms race in Asia. Some experts believe that communist leaders may even have an intercontinental missile that could reach the United States.

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