Machines not missiles on show at North Korea anniversary parade

It looks like Kim has been dieting a bit. Obesity and Covid are a dangerous combination, so that was probably the motivation to do it.

North Korea put tractors and fire engines on show rather than the more usual tanks and missiles at a parade

JT proceeds to show missile launching vehicles and zero fire engines and tractors in the photos.

So where are the fire engine pictures? Why is JT missing out on showing how peaceful NK has become?

Ego Sum Lux MundiToday  02:57 pm JST

It looks like Kim has been dieting a bit. Obesity and Covid are a dangerous combination, so that was probably the motivation to do it.

He's been preparing for the new season of NK's Next Top Model. Insiders say he's a frontrunner.

This looks so 1970-1980s in countries of the Eastern Bloc. Their parades, like the famous one being held in Prague during their era of socialism..

If you look with interest, you will see olive green tractors.

The message to the world must surely be, “Look, it’s the people that make DPRK what it is, not the military or the leadership!”

(I can think of at least one reason behind such thinking.)

Where do they get money to do this?

ShinkansenCabooseToday  03:13 pm JST

So where are the fire engine pictures? Why is JT missing out on showing how peaceful NK has become?

Perhaps "fire engines" is just another way to say "engines that create fire" - i.e., rockets. No evidence of anything else in these pictures.

AlexToday  04:08 pm JST

Where do they get money to do this?

Pachinko parlors

It makes a nice change to parade tractors and firefighters and everyday heroes that keep Nth Korea functioning rather than just a bellicose parade of weapons and warnings to whoever is listening.

Kim actually looks better in that light grey suit. Maybe there is hope for change after all, time will tell.

Black flag, the only picture with tubes (possibly missiles) are being pulled by tractors.

If they are trying to soften their image, I doubt a few marching firemen will seriously distract anyone from their restarting the plutonium producing plant.

Wearing a very western suit and tie, not sure what the message is that they are trying to convey? Unless it’s that his Imperial Majesty, ruler of the Kim Family Empire is fed up with wearing the scruffy rubbish produced in his Imperial domains?

Perhaps there are no missiles because the South Koreans have just introduced their own, real, functioning, SLBMs with a real, functioning submarine as well. (Unlike the submerged platform the DPRK was using in its photo ops.) What's the point of parading SLBMs that can't really be used when your enemy has real, usable ones?

@ Peter 14 Today 05:14 pm JST Maybe there is hope for change after all

I might have agreed with you, were it not for the fact that the UN atomic agency (IAEA) said in August that Pyongyang appeared to have started its plutonium-producing reprocessing reactor at Yongbyon.

Well, that, and for the KCNA announcing that the thousands of HazMat Worker-Peasant Red Guards "were full of patriotic enthusiasm to display the advantages of the socialist system all over the world, while firmly protecting the security of the country and its people from the worldwide pandemic." (Source is from another publication).

Well, that, and for the KCNA announcing proudly that their artillery will pound "the aggressors and their vassal forces with annihilating firepower in case of emergency." The classics never go out of style.

Nahh, I still don't agree.

Kim the Fat has become Kim the Slim. Whoda thunk?

It looks like Kim has been dieting a bit. Obesity and Covid are a dangerous combination, so that was probably the motivation to do it.

More likely his wife in his ear every day and he grew tired of being seen as a clown abroad.

Kim the Fat has become Kim the Slim. Whoda thunk?

I have wondered (without any evidence) if he died of covid and they swapped him out with a lookalike.

Relatively rapid weight loss can also mean some kind of illness (and that wouldn't be a surprise based on his known smoking and drinking habits). Maybe they ran out of missiles to show at the parade because they used them all in tests!

A little more about "change"?

A group of young people in Tanchon who gathered to prepare for Youth Day (Aug. 28) were arrested by the Ministry of State Security while singing and dancing to South Korean songs, Daily NK has learned. 

A source in South Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Sept. 3 that, “a group of youths at the Yangjong food facility in Tanchon were arrested in the morning by the Ministry of State Security.” According to the source, the arrest came “after [the youth had finished] working on repairs and during a nightly gathering to practice singing and dancing to prepare for the Youth Day event, which their youth organization had told them to do.”

The incident was immediately reported to the provincial government, the Tanchon party committee and local youth organization. The young people caught in the roundup are reportedly undergoing a preliminary examination by the Ministry of State Security.

The source said that “there is a rumor circulating that their sentences will not be light” and that “people believe that heavier sentences will be imposed as [the government] is intensely cracking down on watching South Korean movies or listening to South Korean music.”

https://www.dailynk.com/english/group-youth-tanchon-arrested-singing-dancing-south-korean-music/

@Skeptical, DPRK is a strange place. Their governments have long fought to prevent videos and CDs of South Korean TV shows from making their way north. It is one of the reasons they are so upset over the balloons launched over the DMZ from ROK into DPRK. Most have some South Korean TV shows on CDs attached to them. Red lipstick is strictly forbidden in DPRK. Too western and decadent for them so it is outlawed. Some women may wear it at home if they can get it but never outside. Also, all DPRK homes and apartments have this radio on the wall blasting propaganda all day. There is a volume knob but you can never turn it fully off.

Maybe they’re out of gas to haul around all those mock-up missiles?

Maybe they’re out of gas to haul around all those mock-up missiles?

Give it a few days and the web page 38 North will have a detailed analysis of the parade by veteran Korea watchers.