Slashdot Mirror
Kim Jong Un Claims To Have Cured AIDS, Ebola and Cancer
jones_supa writes: North Korea has created a wonder drug which not only cures AIDS, but also eradicates Ebola and cancer — at least, according to the latest proclamation from the country's news agency. Their announcement says the miracle cure consists of ginseng grown from fertilizer and rare earth elements. The drug's website cites a medical study in Africa where the product was tested on HIV-positive patients. It records that every single participant in the trial noted an improvement, with 56% being completely cured and 44% noting a considerable improvement in their condition. Among other benefits, the North Korean scientists also revealed that the drug is capable of curing a number of cancers, but did not provide details of the medical trials which support this claim. It's also good to remember that the state has previously claimed that Kim Jong Il invented the hamburger.
And that is different than the US Congress declaring climate change doesn't exist?
Yes, because the opposite happened.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The regime survives not because the masses don't know what life is like (there are somewhere between hundreds of thousands and millions of illicit radios, TVs, DVD players, and flash-memory-based video players in the country). It survives because the masses are incapable of fighting if for no other reason than malnutrition, let alone the fear of reprisal. Almost one in ten of the population is in the military, and the military is first in line for food. The remaining population, especially outside of the major cities, lives on subsistence food at best, often handouts from the United Nations. The average caloric intake is somewhere in the region of 2100 calories per day, but the military and the well-connected probably skew this badly. Those not connected often get far less, and those in prison camps fight over kernels of grain found in manure, and consider themselves lucky if a swarm of insects comes into the camp.
When you barely have enough food to make it to the next day, you certainly do not have enough food to fight back. Any internal change in the regime is going to come from the military, not from the people.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.