What Is Flig?

Some portraits of N. Korea's Kim said removed

BEIJING - Portraits of Kim Jong-il have been removed from some public meeting halls in North Korea, a Pyongyang-based diplomat said on Tuesday, but others said the leader's picture remained prominently displayed.

In Moscow, a North Korean diplomat denied the reports.

"This is false information, lies. Can the sun be removed from the sky? It is not possible," the unidentified diplomat at the North Korean embassy was quoted by the Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, as saying.

Portraits of Kim were ubiquitous in homes, offices and public buildings across North Korea, where they have hung prominently for years beside a picture of his late father, the reclusive communist state's founder Kim Il-sung.

"In some meeting places where they used to be placed side by side the one portrait has been removed," the diplomat told Reuters by telephone from Pyongyang.

When was the last time the Dear Leader was seen in public? There's a report on the DPRK website of a troop inspection yesterday, but no photos.

Let's start a scurillous rumor that Kim Jong-Il is dying of AIDS, just like Arafat. While he may not share the same appetites, the Son of Heaven's predilection for Actresses and prostitues is certainly well documented. It's easy to imagine that some percentage of those concubines were junkies, is it not? And who would have the temerity to ask the dear leader to wear protection?

For some queasy comedy, the DPRK website can't be beat. The articles and press releases truly read like a parody of Communist propaganda, but the intentions behind them are all to real.

Here's an example:

GNP Condemned for Backing U.S Anti-north Moves

Pyongyang, November 16 (KCNA) — The Reunification Solidarity of south Korea on November 11 made public a statement titled "The Grand National Party (GNP) should promptly stop acting a stooge of the U.S. in its moves to destroy the north," according to a press report. The statement recalled that an "Assemblyman from the GNP" zealously backed the adoption of the "North Korean Human Rights Act" by the United States at an interview on November 10, saying that his party is "planning to promote again a hearing on the human rights in the north." The "North Korean Human Rights Act", a brainchild of the U.S. to invent a pretext to attack the north, is aimed at a war on the Korean Peninsula and destruction of the north, it noted, lashing out at the GNP for rolling up its sleeves in cooperating with the U.S. in the moves to invade the north, far from opposing the act. It demanded that the GNP immediately stop serving the U.S. as its henchman.

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