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Political power, as distinct from legislative power, is held by the Korean Workers Party (KWP), whose highest authority is the Party Congress, led by an elected Central Committee. )155.5 (2012 est. )geothermal: 0% of total installed capacity (2020 est. Ukraines Counteroffensive: Will It Retake Crimea? He reappeared in public in May, though the episode brought renewed attention to the countrys succession plans. )proven reserves: 600 million metric tons (2019 est. ), production: 0 cubic meters (2021 est. ), definition: age 15 and over can read and writetotal population: 100%male: 100%female: 100% (2015), total: 11 yearsmale: 11 yearsfemale: 11 years (2015), total: 6.1%male: 5.4%female: 6.9% (2021 est. There is seldom more than one candidate on the ballot for each constituency, and the electoral system is completely controlled by the party. In North Korea, the government maintains a tight hold over the economy. Government type - The World Factbook - CIA In recent years, the North's domestic agricultural production has increased, but still falls far short of producing sufficient food to provide for its entire population. Since the country's liberation from Japanese occupation in 1945, the position has been hereditary. Latin America Studies Program, Religion and Foreign Policy Webinar: Religion and Technology, Virtual Event Advertisement Answer 2 people found it helpful twilight777 Answer: Here's your answer! After his death, Kim Jong-Un assumed those positions, and he was made chairman of the State Affairs Commission upon its creation. Where Does the Russia-North Korea Relationship Stand? Then, you went home happily without any doubt in mind.. To do so, Kim rolled out policy modifications, shifting away from a centrally planned economy to one that is more incentive-based and allows for greater autonomy at the county and provincial levels. James loves to visit his grandmother in her farmyard on weekends. )imports of goods and services: -11.1% (2016 est. A major study conducted by the South Korean government in 2014 concluded that the country faces "natural . In Kims 2018 New Years speech, he emphasized using the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a springboard for progress and prosperity, stating that the central task facing socialist economic construction this year is to enhance the independence and Juche character of the national economy and improve the peoples standard of living. CNAs Gause says the economy is Kim Jong-uns strategy, adding that all of his recent efforts at diplomacy are designed to hook into the South Korean economic engine and solidify his legacy. The Central Committee is made up of around twenty departments, ranging from the sciences to agriculture, that link to civilian state and military bodies. Current leader Kim Jong-un has consolidated his power, purging many top officials and continuing to boost the countrys nuclear capabilities. 12. )imports: 0 kWh (2020 est. The first recorded kingdom (Choson) on the Korean Peninsula dates from approximately 2300 B.C. Over the subsequent centuries, three main kingdoms - Kogoryo, Paekche, and Silla - were established on the Peninsula. Lara and Alvin are friends. ), total population: 71.88 yearsmale: 67.97 yearsfemale: 76.02 years (2023 est. The constitution stipulates that the SPA Presidium is the highest organ of power during the intervals between sessions of the SPA, although the Presidium remains accountable to the SPA. The Central Court is the supreme judicial institution in North Korea. )2.92% (2020 est. The judicial system is theoretically held accountable to the SPA and the Presidium of the SPA when the legislature is not in session. Pak-Yong-sik is the minister of people's armed forces. ), total: 3.61 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est. ), general assessment: following years of isolationism and economic under-achievement, North Korea languishes near the bottom of the worlds telecom maturity index alongside Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (who also happen to be struggling under repressive political regimes); the obstacles to building a functioning telecom network are so numerous that a fixed-line segment barely exists; mobile communication is estimated to have eased up slightly to reach 19% in 2021, yet the high cost of ownership coupled with strict censorship makes mobile communications the exclusive domain of senior government officials and diplomats; for those citizens living close to China, it has been possible to obtain Chinese handsets and SIM cards, and to connect to towers (illegally) located just across the border; while this offers access to the outside world and at much lower prices than the state-controlled offerings, the risks are high including steep fines and the possibility of jail time; North Korea has been slightly more effective in building an IT sector and a nascent digital economy on the back of a concerted effort to grow a sizeable, well-trained IT workforce; but even here, its capabilities have been directed more towards nefarious activities such as cyber crime and hacking into Western countries computer systems; North Koreas determination to put itself offside with the rest of the world in pursuit of its ideology can only lead to tighter controls on communications inside and outside of the country (2022)domestic: fixed-lines are approximately 5 per 100 and mobile-cellular 23 per 100 persons (2021)international: country code - 850; satellite earth stations - 2 (1 Intelsat - Indian Ocean, 1 Russian - Indian Ocean region); other international connections through Moscow and Beijing, no independent media; radios and TVs are pre-tuned to government stations; 4 government-owned TV stations; the Korean Workers' Party owns and operates the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, and the state-run Voice of Korea operates an external broadcast service; the government prohibits listening to and jams foreign broadcasts (2019), number of registered air carriers: 1 (2020)inventory of registered aircraft operated by air carriers: 4annual passenger traffic on registered air carriers: 103,560 (2018)annual freight traffic on registered air carriers: 250,000 (2018) mt-km, total: 39over 3,047 m: 32,438 to 3,047 m: 221,524 to 2,437 m: 8914 to 1,523 m: 2under 914 m: 4 (2021), total: 432,438 to 3,047 m: 31,524 to 2,437 m: 17914 to 1,523 m: 15under 914 m: 8 (2021), total: 7,435 km (2014)standard gauge: 7,435 km (2014) 1.435-m gauge (5,400 km electrified)note: figures are approximate; some narrow-gauge railway also exists, total: 25,554 km (2006)paved: 724 km (2006)unpaved: 24,830 km (2006), 2,250 km (2011) (most navigable only by small craft), total: 270by type: bulk carrier 9, container ship 5, general cargo 193, oil tanker 33, other 30 (2022), major seaport(s): Ch'ongjin, Haeju, Hungnam, Namp'o, Songnim, Sonbong (formerly Unggi), Wonsan, Korean People's Army (KPA): KPA Ground Forces, KPA Navy, KPA Air Force and Air Defense Forces, KPA Strategic Forces (missile forces), KPA Special Forces (special operations forces); Security Guard Command (aka Bodyguard Command); Military Security Command; Ministry of Social Security (formerly Ministry of Public Security): Border Guard General Bureau, civil security forces; Ministry of State Security: internal security, investigations (2023)note 1: North Korea employs a systematic and intentional overlap of powers and responsibilities among its multiple internal security organizations to prevent any potential subordinate consolidation of power and assure that each unit provided a check and balance on the other note 2: the Security Guard Command protects the Kim family, other senior leadership figures, and government facilitiesnote 3: the North also has a large paramilitary/militia force organized into the Worker Peasant Red Guard and Red Youth Guard; these organizations are present at all levels of government (province, county, ward) and are under the control of the Korean Workers' Party in peacetime, but revert to KPA control in crisis or war; they are often mobilized for domestic projects, such as road building and agricultural support, between 2010 and 2019, military expenditures accounted for an estimated 20-25% of North Korea's GDP annually; North Korea in the 2010s and 2020s has increasingly relied on illicit activities including cybercrime to generate revenue for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs to evade US and UN sanctions, information varies widely; estimated 1.15 million active troops (950,000 Army; 120,000 Air Force; 60,000 Navy; 10,000 Strategic Missile Forces); estimated 200,000 internal security forces (2022), the KPA is equipped with older weapon systems originally acquired from the former Soviet Union, Russia, and China, and some domestically produced equipment; North Korea produces a diverse array of military hardware, including small arms, munitions, light armored vehicles, tanks, naval vessels and submarines, and some advanced weapons systems, such as cruise and ballistic missiles; most are copies or upgrades of older foreign supplied equipment (2022)note: since 2006, the UN Security Council has passed nearly a dozen resolutions sanctioning North Korea for developing nuclear weapons and related activities, starting with Resolution 1718, which condemned the North's first nuclear test and placed sanctions on the supply of heavy weaponry (including tanks, armored combat vehicles, large calibre artillery, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles and missile launchers), missile technology and material, and select luxury goods; additional resolutions have expanded to include all arms, including small arms and light weapons; the US and other countries have also imposed unilateral sanctions, 17 years of age for compulsory military service for men and women; service obligation up to 10 years for men and 5-8 years for women (2023)note: the bulk of the KPA is made up of conscripts; as many as 20% of North Korean males between the ages of 16 and 54 are in the military at a given time and possibly up to 30 percent of males between the ages of 18 and 27, not counting the reserves or paramilitary units; women comprise about 20% of the military by some estimates, in addition to the invasion of South Korea and the subsequent Korean War (1950-53), North Korea from the 1960s to the 1980s launched a considerable number of limited military and subversive actions against South Korea using special forces and terrorist tactics; including aggressive skirmishes along the DMZ, overt attempts to assassinate South Korean leaders, kidnappings, the bombing of an airliner, and a failed effort in 1968 to foment an insurrection and conduct a guerrilla war in the South with more than 100 seaborne commandos; from the 1990s until 2010, the North lost two submarines and a semi-submersible boat attempting to insert infiltrators into the South (1996, 1998) and provoked several engagements in the Northwest Islands area along the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), including naval skirmishes between patrol boats in 1999 and 2002, the torpedoing and sinking of a South Korean Navy corvette in 2010, and the bombardment of a South Korean Marine Corps installation on Yeonpyeong Island, also in 2010; since 2010, further minor incidents continue to occur periodically along the DMZ, where both the KPA and the South Korean military maintain large numbers of troopsin 2018, North Korea and South Korea signed a tension reduction agreement known as the Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA), which established land, sea, and air buffer zones along the DMZ and the NLL; implementation of the CMA required the removal of some land mines and guard posts; the efforts led to a reduction of tension in the DMZ, but North Korea has failed to uphold much of its side of the agreementthe KPA was founded in 1948; Kim Jong Un is the KPA supreme commander, while operational control of the armed forces resides in the General Staff Department (GSD), which reports directly to Kim; the GSD maintains overall control of all military forces and is charged with turning Kims directives into operational military orders; the Ministry of National Defense (MND) is responsible for administrative control of the military and external relations with foreign militariesNorth Koreas growing ballistic missile program includes close- (CRBM), short- (SRBM), medium- (MRBM), intermediate- (IRBM), and intercontinental- (ICBM) range ballistic missiles; the North received its first ballistic missiles, short-range FROGs (free rocket over ground), from the Soviet Union in the 1960s, but its modern ballistic missile program is generally thought to date back to the mid-1970s when it received a Soviet Scud-class missile, likely from Egypt; the North reverse-engineered the missile and developed an indigenously built version in 1984; it flight-tested its first Scud-based medium-range Nodong missile in 1990, and probably began development of the multi-stage Taepodong missiles around this time as well; the North revealed its first road-mobile ICBM in 2012 and conducted the first test of an ICBM-class system in 2017; it conducted additional ICBM tests in 2022 (2023), North Korea-China: risking arrest, imprisonment, and deportation, tens of thousands of North Koreans cross into China to escape famine, economic privation, and political oppression; North Korea and China dispute the sovereignty of certain islands in Yalu and Tumen Rivers, North Korea-Japan: North Korea supports South Korea in rejecting Japan's claim to Liancourt Rocks (Tok-do/Take-shima), North Korea-South Korea: Military Demarcation Line within the 4-km-wide Demilitarized Zone has separated North from South Korea since 1953; periodic incidents in the Yellow Sea with South Korea which claims the Northern Limiting Line as a maritime boundary, tier rating: Tier 3 the government of North Korea does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government did not demonstrate any efforts to address human trafficking; during this reporting period there was a government policy or pattern of human trafficking in prison camps, in labor training centers, in massed mobilizations of adults and children, and through forced labor by North Korean overseas workers; proceeds from state-sponsored forced labor funded government functions and illicit activities (2022)trafficking profile: human traffickersincluding government officialsexploit North Koreans at home and abroad; women and children are exploited in sex trafficking within North Korea; forced labor is part of an established system of political repression and a pillar of the economic system; children in prison camps are subject to forced labor for up to 12 hours per day; officials forcibly mobilize adults and school children to work in factories, agriculture, logging, mining, infrastructure work, information technology, and construction sectors; North Koreans sent to work abroad, including through bilateral agreements with foreign businesses or governments, face forced labor conditions; NGOs report overseas workers are managed as a matter of state policy; the government often appropriates and deposits worker salaries into government-controlled accounts; in 2017, the UN Security Council prohibited members from issuing or renewing work authorizations for North Koreans and, with limited exceptions, required repatriation; nonetheless, an estimated 20,000-100,000 North Koreans are working in China, primarily in restaurants and factories; North Korean women and girls lured by promises of jobs in China are forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitative labor arrangements; many North Koreans continue to work or enter Russia, and some workers are reportedly working in African, Middle Eastern, an Southeast Asian countries (2022), at present there is insufficient information to determine the current level of involvement of government officials in the production or trafficking of illicit drugs, but for years, from the 1970s into the 2000s, citizens of North Korea , many of them diplomatic employees of the government, were apprehended abroad while trafficking in narcotics; police investigations in Taiwan, Japan and Australia during that period have linked North Korea to large illicit shipments of heroin and methamphetamine, total population growth rate v. urban population growth rate, 2000-2030, Children under the age of 5 years underweight, School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education), International law organization participation, Household income or consumption by percentage share, Civil aircraft registration country code prefix, Military and security service personnel strengths, Military equipment inventories and acquisitions, Refugees and internally displaced persons, Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI).