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Olympics notes: Will North Koreans get to watch the PyeongChang Winter Olympics?
With the PyeongChang Winter Olympics coming up, one of the issues for North-South discussion is television access for Korean Central Television. That because Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), one of South Korea’s major TV networks, holds Olympics broadcasting rights for North Korea even though it doesn’t broadcast there. The rights for the 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024…
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Olympics notes: Will North Korean athletes get Samsung phones?
As part of its Olympics sponsorship deal, Samsung Electronics is providing a Note 8 smartphone featuring Olympic branding to every athlete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Samsung will supply more than 4,000 of the phones to athletes and “members of the Olympic family,” which includes officials and International Olympic Committee staff. The hope of the…
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A look inside the Potonggang Electronics factory
Korean Central Television (조선중앙텔레비죤) broadcast footage over the new year holiday of the flat-panel TV assembly line of Potonggang Electronics (보통강전자제품공장). The video shows workers testing LCD TV components, putting parts together to make TV sets and testing the final TVs but at no point does it back up its main claim that the curved…
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KCTV gets a widescreen, stereo upgrade
North Korea’s main TV channel, Korean Central Television (조선중앙텔레비죤), debuted a substantial technical upgrade on December 4 when it switched to widescreen, high-definition broadcasting. Until Monday, North Korean TV had broadcast via satellite to Asia on a high-definition, widescreen channel, but programming in that format appeared for only a few seconds at the start and end…
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Voice of Korea winter 2017/2018 schedule
Voice of Korea (조선의소리), North Korea’s international shortwave broadcasting station, adjusted its transmission schedule on October 29 for the winter 2017 and spring 2018 seasons. The broadcasts follow the same basic line-up each day. :00 Opening signal, station identification: “This is Voice of Korea” :01 National Anthem :03 Song of General Kim Il Sung :06 Song…
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North Korea Tech wins Internet blocking case
North Korea Tech should soon be available again to readers in South Korea after I successfully won an appeal against blocking of the site by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC). The blocking began on March 24, 2016, when the KCSC ruled the site be blocked because it alledgedly violated the country’s National Security Law.…
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North Korea gets a new Internet link from Russia
There’s a new Internet link into North Korea from Russia. For years, the country has relied on a single connection from China Unicom but on October 1 a new link went into operation connecting with the TransTeleCom (ТрансТелеКо́m) backbone in Russia. I wrote in depth about the link on 38 North. Since that story was…
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The Pyongyang Times has a new address
North Korea’s only English-language newspaper, The Pyongyang Times (평양타임즈), has firmed up its online presence with its own URL: pyongyangtimes.com.kp . The newspaper’s articles have been available as a subsection of the Naenara (내나라) website and the new address isn’t a new website but a link directly into that Naenara section. The same site also hosts…
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The North Korea website list is updated!
It’s been a while since I updated my list of North Korean websites, but it’s all change from today. The list has been revised and updated to include all the current sites online that are hosted in North Korea. It also lists several of the major North Korean-linked sites hosted overseas and sites of interest…
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North Korea’s tourism agency is online
North Korea’s National Tourism Administration (국가관광총국) has launched a web site. The site, called “DPR Korea Tour,” is available at tourismdprk.gov.kp and was first noted by a Chinese travel agency on Twitter user in mid-May, but doesn’t appear to have been noticed by anyone else. Doug Madory at Renesys alerted me to the site on…
