World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
- Blogsites are treated in the same manner as social media sites. Medium, Blogger, Substack, etc. are not valid news links regardless of who is posting them. Yes, legitimate news sites use Blogging platforms, they also use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and we don't allow those links either.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
I'm never quite sure how to feel about this. On one hand, if the person just wants to make some money and they're doing the job, why bother them. On the other hand though, I know that anybody who has consistent access to an internet connection in North Korea is almost certainly working for the benefit of the great leader and they aren't actually seeing any money or benefit for themselves. I just hate that the citizens of North Korea have to suffer and be punished because of their asswipe of a leader.
When you look at the ISS pics of NK during the night, you get a sense of how bad it is for most of the population.
https://www.38north.org/2023/04/a-fresh-look-at-north-korea-at-night/
Maybe they just really like the Dark Sky initiative.
An entire country of astronomy nerds sounds like a tourist destination to me!
I like how they point out that tiny batch of lights near the coast are NK fishing boats while all the other massive clusters of lights on the ocean are South Korean, Chinese and Japanese fishing boats illegally using spotlights to attract fish.
Always curious to hear how NK has no electricity, but they manage to hack the systems of a trillion dollar conglomerate on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean.
The contradictions abound.
Do you seriously not realize that the corrupt dictatorial government might have a bit more quality of life things and resources than the oppressed peasant class?
I think maybe they're just better about not pointing their lights upward at night
You believe that North Korea actually is electrified but they just avoid light pollution? They are among the least electrified countries in the world.
The ironic part is that they're the only country of the world with a drawing of an hydroelectric plant on their emblem
Wait, are we talking about Korea or Amazon?
It kind of amazes me they don't have better infrastructure. It's not like they're shy about forced labor.
You can only do so much with forced labour. They aren't doing their best, just "enough" to not get punished.
I'm sure plenty of them also use malicious compliance and sabotage stuff to get back at the top brass.
There's a certain irony in this statement, coming from folks who consume it regularly.
seeing the stars instead of light pollution doesn't sound like a bad thing on its own
They’re also a security threat. Any opportunity to exfiltrate potentially profitable or leverageable data will be taken. I’d bet they’re used to sniff out vulnerabilities for ransomware attacks too. I definitley identify and agree with the healthy sympathy (I guess empathy if you’re in the states, our leader more than qualifies as an asswipe) for the citizens of North Korea
But thats good, the USA is carrying out genocide in Palestine and is about to invade Venezuela. And Amazon is no saint either.
The US is enabling and providing political cover for the Palestinian genocide, Israel is carrying it out. I don’t think an invasion of Venezuela is imminent, just the same kind of underhanded manipulation and isolation that has been done to Cuba for the past half century. Agreed Amazon sucks.
None of that changes the fact that only thing that these North Korean tech workers do is help Kim fund his military projects and his Bourgeoisie lifestyle
...and economic support, and military support defending their coastlines and boats, and military support defending them from Iran, and most of the weapons used on Palestinians are of US origin.
Then you'll be probably horrified to learn that US+EU economic sanction have murdered half a million people per year since 1971 per the latest academic health research estimates. This is more death than the deaths from war since 1971 on average.
I’m aware of all that about Gaza. No excuses from me, I find it horrifying and shameful. Same as far as sanctions go (I do agree with the Russia ones where it’s a tool to get an actual war to end, or sanctions against individuals in certain contexts). I agree with you on the last point too, it’s just that Jeff doesn’t style himself as a hero of the Proletariat. I dunno who’s responsible for more human suffering between the two, but the hypocrisy does piss me off. They can both get fucked as far as I’m concerned.
Good, at least we agree that sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela are horrifying and they murder hundreds of thousands.
My main problem with the big criticism against North Korea is how little we actually know of the country, the level of corruption, and the actual reasons why the people there have a low material standard of living.
North Korea is a reclusive and inwards country not because of a personal idea of the Kim family, but because of its recent history. In the 1950s, North Korea was bombed by the USA with an unimaginable amount of explosives, in one of the most violent and extensive bombing campaigns in human history, to the point that [85% of all buildings in the country were destroyed] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea?wprov=sfla1), and hundreds of thousands if not millions died violent deaths (without counting starvation and disease from the destruction of all infrastructure). The country was quite literally bombed into the stone age.
After being utterly destroyed, when the Korean War froze, North Korea was subjected to an almost complete economic embargo by all nations except the eastern block, so it could rely only in the USSR for trade. As a country without much in the way of arable lands (mountainous and cold) or natural resources (its only reliable energy sources are coal and hydro), it was forced by external forces to adopt its current policy of Juche.
When in 1990 the USSR was dissolved, North Korea, much like Cuba, saw itself entirely isolated from the world, unable to trade with any partner due to the immense economic sanctions it was subjected to for the cardinal sin of being communist. This caused a massive rise in poverty in the country, problems with energy generation, food supplies...
Maybe if North Korea had been allowed to freely trade in the international market to exploit its advantages and cover its disadvantages, it would have thrived much more than it has, and it wouldn't rely so much on state power to secure its own ideological thesis without external interference. Most of what we read about North Korea is false anyway, stuff like the "intergenerational gulags" is literally made up much like the Iraq WMDs.
My point is: the west is entirely responsible for the current state of North Korea, from the entire destruction of the country to its isolation in the international economic sphere. Criticizing from our high point of view the people that have been subjected to millions of deaths from our actions isn't exactly the most honest thing to do, especially when it's done using false stuff like the intergenerational prisons I mentioned. North Korea has a lot of problems, no doubt, but the way to solve these problems is to let them flourish and develop by themselves, not to further continue murdering millions of them through economic sanctions.
North Korea intentionally does this to get revenue for the state.
These people are definitely not there just to make some money. And whatever money they make will be used to prop up the genocidal regime.
Are you talking about the USA Amazon workers propping up the USA genocidal regime, as seen in Palestine? Because, AFAIK, there's no genocide going on as a consequence of North Korea. Care to elaborate?
I'd say locking up a substantial part of your population, including their families in murderous gulags amounts to genocide. Oh, and did anybody say Arduous March?
US has highest prison population in the world, 1 in 5 black men go through the prison system. Is that genocide?
This is fox news propaganda, similar level to "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq"
Gulags are just prisons. GULAG is the acronym of the penitentiary system of the USSR.
Eh, this doesn't sound like the job you would give someone in a prison camp. You're talking about people that you're allowing to interact and work regularly with foreigners outside the country. That does not sound like the type of position you trust to a political prisoner. That sounds like a position you put someone of high trust. It's probably a pretty cushy job as the standards of North Korea go. Sure beats scratching at dirt or working in some godawful arms factory. It's probably the type of job you need some good family connections in the Party in order to get. Sure, the government takes all the direct monetary benefit of the work, but that is just kindof how Communist systems work. I imagine the people working those jobs have some of the highest standards of living available to people that aren't senior party leadership.
Then you surely condemn the global sanctions on North Korean economy? Especially given the recent study showing how US+EU sanctions murder half a million people yearly since over 50 years ago.