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They eat ice cream and read ‘Harry Potter,’ but these North Korean YouTubers aren’t what they seem | CNN

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They eat ice cream and read ‘Harry Potter,’ but these North Korean YouTubers aren’t what they seem | CNN


Seoul, South Korea
CNN
 — 

The younger lady rifles by way of a fridge of popsicles, pulling out a number of to indicate the digital camera.

“That is milk taste – the image is so cute,” she says in English, pointing to the cartoon packaging with a smile. “And that is peach taste.”

After lastly deciding on an ice cream cone, she bites into it, declaring: “The biscuit could be very scrumptious.”

The four-minute video has racked up greater than 41,000 views on YouTube, however that is no extraordinary vlog. The lady, who calls herself YuMi, lives in North Korea, maybe the world’s most remoted and secretive nation.

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Her YouTube channel, created final June, is considered one of a number of social media accounts which have popped up throughout the web up to now 12 months or two, wherein North Korean residents declare to share their on a regular basis lives.

However consultants say not all is because it appears in these movies, and that the photographs comprise tell-tale indicators that the lives displayed are removed from the norm for the impoverished thousands and thousands underneath the dictatorship of chief Kim Jong Un.

As an alternative, they counsel, YuMi and others like are seemingly associated to high-ranking officers and could also be a part of a propaganda marketing campaign aimed toward rebranding the nation’s worldwide picture as a extra relatable – even tourist-friendly – place than its fixed discuss nuclear weapons may counsel.

YuMi’s movies “seem like a well-prepared play” scripted by the North Korean authorities, stated Park Seong-cheol, a researcher on the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights.

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For many years, North Korea has been comparatively closed off from the remainder of the world, with tight restrictions on free expression, free motion and entry to info.

Its dismal human rights file has been criticized by the United Nations. Web use is closely restricted; even the privileged few who’re allowed smartphones can solely entry a government-run, closely censored intranet. International supplies like books and films are banned, typically with extreme punishments for these caught with black market contraband.

This is the reason YuMi – who not solely has entry to a filming gadget however YouTube – is not any extraordinary North Korean, consultants say.

“Connecting with the surface world is an not possible factor for a resident,” stated Ha Seung-hee, a analysis professor of North Korea research at Dongguk College.

YuMi shouldn’t be the one North Korean YouTuber turning heads: an 11-year-old who calls herself Music A made her YouTube debut in April 2022 and has already gained greater than 20,000 subscribers.

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“My favourite guide is ‘Harry Potter’ written by J. Ok. Rowling,” Music A claims in a single video, holding up the primary guide of the sequence – significantly putting given North Korea’s usually strict guidelines forbidding overseas tradition particularly from Western nations.

The video exhibits Music A talking in a British accent and sitting in what seems to be like an idyllic little one’s bed room full with a globe, bookshelf, a stuffed animal, a framed picture and pink curtains.

Song A, purportedly a resident of Pyongyang, North Korea, holds up a Harry Potter book in a YouTube video uploaded April 26, 2022.

The rosy depictions of every day life in Pyongyang can also give a clue to the social standing and identities of their creators.

YuMi’s movies present her visiting an amusement park and an interactive cinema present, fishing in a river, exercising in a well-equipped indoor health club, and visiting a limestone cave the place younger college students wave the North Korean flag within the background.

Music A visits a packed water park, excursions a science and expertise exhibition heart, and movies her first day again at college.

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Park, the knowledgeable, says these representations aren’t 100% false – however they’re extraordinarily deceptive, and don’t signify regular life.

There have been reviews of North Korea’s rich elite, reminiscent of senior authorities officers and their households, gaining access to luxuries reminiscent of air-con, scooters and low. And the amenities proven within the YouTube movies do exist – however they’re not accessible to most individuals, and are solely granted to “particular folks in a particular class,” Park stated.

These amenities are additionally seemingly not open or working commonly because the movies indicate, he stated. “For instance, the ability provide in North Korea shouldn’t be easy sufficient to function an amusement park, so I’ve heard that they’d solely function it on the weekends or on a big day like once they movie a video,” added Park.

People walk on a snow covered street near the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang on January 12, 2021.

North Korea is infamous for frequent blackouts and electrical energy shortages; solely about 26% of the inhabitants has entry to electrical energy, in keeping with 2019 estimates from the CIA World Factbook. These blackouts had been captured in nighttime satellite tv for pc photographs in 2011 and 2014 that confirmed North Korea cloaked in darkness, virtually mixing into the darkish sea round it – in sharp distinction to the dazzling lights of neighboring China and South Korea.

The YouTubers’ English fluency and entry to uncommon luxuries counsel they’re each extremely educated and certain associated to high-ranking officers, Park stated.

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Defectors have beforehand instructed CNN that some North Koreans study British English of their English courses. The British Council, a UK-based group, additionally ran an English language trainer coaching program in North Korea, sending academics there for greater than a dozen years earlier than it was halted in 2017.

North Korean propaganda isn’t new; earlier campaigns have featured Soviet-style posters, movies of marching troops and missile assessments, and pictures of Kim Jong Un on a white horse.

However consultants say the YouTube movies, and related North Korean social media accounts on Chinese language platforms like Weibo and Bilibili, illustrate a brand new technique: Relatability.

“North Korea is striving to emphasise that Pyongyang is an ‘extraordinary metropolis,’” Park stated, including that the management “could be very concerned with how the surface world views them.”

Ha, the analysis professor, stated North Korea may very well be attempting to painting itself as a “secure nation” to encourage better tourism for its battered economic system – particularly after the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Whereas it has not but reopened its borders to vacationers, “the pandemic goes to finish sooner or later, and North Korea has been concentrating on tourism for financial functions,” Ha stated.

Earlier than the pandemic, there have been restricted choices for excursions wherein guests had been shepherded across the nation by guides from the Ministry of Tourism. The excursions had been fastidiously choreographed, designed to indicate the nation in its greatest gentle. Even so, many nations, together with the US, warn their residents towards visiting.

After the pandemic started, “there was speak (in North Korea) about shedding earlier types of propaganda and implementing new varieties,” Ha stated. “After Kim Jong Un ordered (authorities) to be extra artistic of their propaganda, vlog movies on YouTube started showing.”

A 2019 article in North Korea’s state-owned newspaper Rodong Sinmun, citing Kim, declared that the nation’s propaganda and information channels should “boldly discard the previous framework of writing and enhancing with established conventions and traditional strategies.”

The YouTubers’ use of English might mirror this effort to achieve international viewers. Each YuMi and Music A additionally helpfully embody English names for his or her channels: YuMi additionally goes by “Olivia Natasha,” and Music A by “Sally Parks.”

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North Korea has posted different varieties of propaganda to YouTube up to now decade – although its official movies are sometimes taken down by moderators.

In 2017, YouTube took down the state-run North Korean information channel Uriminzokkiri, and the Tonpomail channel managed by ethnic Koreans in Japan loyal to Pyongyang, saying they violated the platform’s phrases of providers and group tips.

One other YouTube channel known as Echo of Fact, purportedly run by a North Korean resident known as Un A who filmed herself having fun with every day actions in Pyongyang, was taken down in late 2020.

However the closures sparked outcry from some researchers who stated the movies offered a priceless perception into North Korea and its management, even when they had been propaganda.

When CNN requested remark from YouTube on these deleted channels, and people of Music A and YuMi, a spokesperson stated the platform “complies with all relevant sanctions and commerce compliance legal guidelines – together with with respect to content material created and uploaded by restricted entities.”

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“If we discover that an account violates our Phrases of Service or Neighborhood Tips, we disable it,” the assertion stated.

Specialists stated the movies by YuMi and Music A is likely to be an try by Pyongyang to achieve an viewers with out attracting the eye of moderators.

And nonetheless scripted they is likely to be, they too provided a priceless window into the nation, consultants stated.

“Individuals already know that (the movies) had been created for propaganda functions … the general public is already conscious,” Ha stated. However, she added, “I believe there needs to be correct training and dialogue on how we must always understand (such) content material as an alternative of simply closing the doorways.”

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EU and UK in talks about Europe-wide defence funding amid fear of US pullback

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EU and UK in talks about Europe-wide defence funding amid fear of US pullback

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Britain will this week join EU leaders in groundbreaking talks about setting up Europe-wide defence funding arrangements, as the continent struggles to beef up its military amid fears of a disappearing US security blanket.

UK chancellor Rachel Reeves will hold talks with other European finance ministers at a G20 meeting in Cape Town this week, as the war in Ukraine enters its fourth year.

“It could be a fund or a bank. For example, there is the concept of the Rearmament Bank, which we are also considering,” Polish finance minister Andrzej Domanski said.

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Domanski told the Financial Times that discussions had been taking place with the UK for months, adding: “Without Great Britain, the defence of Europe is difficult to imagine.”

The UK Treasury confirmed that Reeves would “raise defence financing proposals with her European counterparts” at the G20, but said talks were at an early stage.

Donald Trump has demanded European Nato allies increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, from an existing 2 per cent target that some still do not reach, or risk losing US protection. 

The US president’s rapid re-engagement with Russia, a country that most European countries see as an existential threat, has sparked frantic discussions on how to collectively bolster Europe’s defensive capabilities and reduce reliance on American troops and weapons.

Friedrich Merz speaking on Sunday © Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

On Sunday Germany’s incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that Germany had to fundamentally remake its security arrangements and end a decades-long reliance on Washington, saying Trump was “largely indifferent” to Europe’s fate and the continent needed to “achieve independence”.

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Collective European defence spending was broadly discussed during a call this weekend between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and a separate call between von der Leyen and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, according to a person briefed on the discussions. 

European countries are looking for ways to increase defence capabilities at a time of tightly constrained national budgets. By leveraging national guarantees, a bank would allow countries to boost spending without increasing their balance sheets upfront.

The UK is seeking ways of increasing defence spending from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent, costing at least £5bn extra a year, when its ability to boost outlays is heavily constrained by its self-imposed fiscal rules. 

General Sir Nick Carter
General Sir Nick Carter served as Chief of the UK Defence Staff from June 2018 to November 2021 © Andrew Matthews/PA

Among the proposals is one from General Sir Nick Carter, former head of the British military, who has suggested a “rearmament bank” to tap into Europe’s savings pool, modelled on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development — the lender set up after the fall of the Iron Curtain to support central and eastern Europe. 

“The Treasury is interested in it,” said one person involved in discussions with Reeves’ team. However, Treasury officials said there were many models of multilateral financing on the table and that Reeves had an open mind on the next steps.

Experts said a benefit for Reeves of Carter’s “rearmament bank” was that it would mitigate the impact of extra defence spending on the fiscal rules.

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Andy King, a former UK official who is now at Flint Global, a consultancy, said such a bank had the potential to raise “significant resources for defence without materially impacting the fiscal rules”. He added: “That’s not a certain outcome: the detail would matter in terms of how the entity was structured and how it used its lending capacity.”

The EU leaders meeting in late March will discuss common defence needs, and Poland’s goal would be to make progress on the funding needs at an EU finance ministers gathering in April, ahead of a decision by leaders in June. 

The European Commission said this month it would partially lift EU fiscal rules to allow countries to invest in defence, a move that would allow countries to borrow without incurring sanctions.

Von der Leyen has also opened the door to “common European financing” on common defence projects, and is expected to detail funding options in March.

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DHS memo lays out plans to detain migrants at Fort Bliss and other U.S. bases

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DHS memo lays out plans to detain migrants at Fort Bliss and other U.S. bases

An immigrant prepares to board a military removal flight last month at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas J. De La Pena/U.S. Department of Defense via Getty Images


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U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas J. De La Pena/U.S. Department of Defense via Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration is developing plans to build immigration detention facilities on U.S. military bases around the country, according to an internal memo obtained by NPR.

The Department of Homeland Security is asking the Department of Defense for help detaining immigrants without legal status, according to the DHS memo, a step that could significantly expand the military’s role in immigration enforcement.

The memo sent earlier this month from Juliana Blackwell, the acting executive secretary at DHS, lays out a plan to use Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, to “stage detainees for removal from the United States.”

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The request is still in the planning stages, according to a Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly. But if activated, the plan could dramatically expand detention capacity to support President Trump’s push for mass deportations.

Fort Bliss would initially detain up to 1,000 immigrants during a 60-day evaluation period, the memo states, and could eventually hold as many as 10,000 immigrants while serving as a “central hub for deportation operations.”

Fort Bliss could then serve as the model for as many as 10 other holding facilities on military bases nationwide, including Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey; Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station near Buffalo, N.Y.; Hill Air Force Base in Utah; and Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami.

There is some precedent for using U.S. military bases to house immigrants. The Biden administration stood up a temporary shelter for unaccompanied migrant children at Fort Bliss, and also housed tens of thousands of Afghans at military bases in Wisconsin, New Jersey and elsewhere after the fall of Kabul.

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On Friday, the Trump administration removed the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid dissatisfaction with the pace of arrests and deportations.

A lack of detention space may be one obstacle. ICE’s existing detention facilities are at full capacity, with more than 41,000 immigrants in custody, according to the most recent data from DHS.

At a White House press briefing last week, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller pledged to use “every element and instrument of national power” to accelerate deportations of immigrants with criminal convictions and final orders of removal.

“We are shortly on the verge of achieving a pace and speed of deportations this country has never before seen,” Miller said.

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Some Agencies Urge Staff Not to Comply With Elon Musk’s Performance Email

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Some Agencies Urge Staff Not to Comply With Elon Musk’s Performance Email

Several Trump-appointed agency leaders urged federal workers not to comply with Elon Musk’s order to summarize their accomplishments for the past week or be removed from their positions, even as Mr. Musk doubled down on his demand over the weekend.

Their instructions in effect countermanded the order of Mr. Musk across much of the government, challenging the broad authority President Trump has given the world’s richest man to make drastic changes to the federal bureaucracy. The standoff serves as one of the first significant tests of how far Mr. Musk’s power will extend.

As the directive ricocheted across the federal government, officials at some agencies, including the F.B.I., the office coordinating America’s intelligence agencies and the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, told their employees not to respond.

Mr. Musk’s email had even reached the inboxes of sitting federal judges — who are in the judicial branch, not the executive. The administrative office for the federal courts advised judges and staff that “this email did not originate from the judiciary or the administrative office and we suggest that no action be taken.”

The public pushback reflects a growing unease — and, in some cases, alarm — behind the scenes across the Trump administration about the perception of Mr. Musk’s unchecked power.

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The unease runs from lower staff to some cabinet secretaries, who have tired of having to justify specific intricacies of agency policy and having to scramble to address unforeseen controversies that Mr. Musk has ignited.

Those officials are aware that he has influence over the president privately, and they fear him using X, the social media website he owns, to single out people he views as obstructing him, according to one senior administration official.

Hours after a senior Defense Department official publicly and firmly pushed back on Mr. Musk’s directive on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Musk singled him out for retribution, saying on X that “anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job.”

One person who was quiet about the controversy throughout much of the weekend was Mr. Trump; after posting on social media on Saturday morning that he wanted Mr. Musk to be more “aggressive,” and then bragging about the purge of federal workers in a speech hours later, the president had remained mute on the subject for much of Sunday.

That afternoon, however, Mr. Trump posted a meme, which he said came from Mr. Musk, mocking federal workers who had to explain their duties and accomplishments, but he did not weigh in on the internal government conflict between his appointees.

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Mr. Musk’s public statements about his cost-cutting effort, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, have often expressed an open contempt for the federal work force, which includes some of Mr. Trump’s supporters.

By Sunday afternoon, some of the pushback against Mr. Musk from administration officials — coming in large part from the national security apparatus and law enforcement agencies — had become public and explicit.

“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” Darin S. Selnick, the acting Pentagon official in charge of personnel, said in a statement, instructing Pentagon employees to “for now, please pause any response.”

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the office of national intelligence, ordered all intelligence community officers not to respond, in a message to intelligence officials reviewed by The New York Times.

“Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, I.C. employees should not respond to the OPM email,” Ms. Gabbard wrote.

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Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, wrote in an email to employees that “the F.B.I., through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review processes,” telling workers that they should “for now, please pause any responses.”

Senior personnel officials at the State and Homeland Security Departments also instructed their employees to not respond to the email.

At the Justice Department and F.B.I., the threatening signals from Mr. Musk were met with a mix of anger and amazement that anyone would issue such a blanket demand without consideration for sensitive areas such as criminal investigations, legal confidentiality or grand jury material.

Some law enforcement supervisors quickly told employees to wait for more guidance from managers on Monday before responding to the demand, according to current and former officials.

Other departments gave conflicting guidance. The Department of Health and Human Services told its employees on Sunday morning to follow the directive. An hour later, an email from the Trump-appointed acting director of the National Institutes of Health, a subordinate agency, told employees to hold off on responding. Hours later, the health department told all employees to “pause” responses to the ultimatum.

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On Saturday, Mr. Musk posted a demand for government employees to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that failure to do so would be taken as a resignation. Soon after, the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal work force, sent an email asking civil servants for a list of accomplishments, but it did not include the threat of removal for not complying.

Unions representing federal workers suggested that Mr. Musk’s order was not valid. They advised their members to follow guidance from their supervisors on how, and whether, to respond to the email.

In a scathing letter on Sunday, Everett B. Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees — the largest federal employee union — told the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management that the email sent to federal employees was “plainly unlawful” and “thoughtless.”

Mr. Kelley demanded that the order be retracted, and noted, “By allowing the unelected and unhinged Elon Musk to dictate O.P.M.’s actions, you have demonstrated a lack of regard for the integrity of federal employees and their critical work.”

Multiple intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, had warned employees that responding could risk inadvertently disclosing classified work.

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Although Mr. Musk’s original email told employees not to include classified material, current and former intelligence officials said that if an adversary gained access to thousands of unclassified accounts of intelligence officers’ work that it would be able to piece together sensitive details or learn about projects that were supposed to remain secret.

Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican whose seat may be among the most fiercely contested in 2026, raised doubt about the order even as he gave broader support to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting effort.

“I don’t know how that’s necessarily feasible,” Mr. Lawler said of the ultimatum. “Obviously, a lot of federal employees are under union contract.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, also criticized Mr. Musk’s order.

“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” she wrote in a statement on social media. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”

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It is unclear what legal basis Mr. Musk would have to justify mass firings based on responses to the email, and the White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not immediately answer questions about the threat of removal.

But Mr. Musk — who made similar unconventional demands during his takeover of Twitter, now known as X — insisted on Sunday morning that the order amounted to “a very basic pulse check.”

In a series of posts, Mr. Musk also promoted baseless claims of wage fraud — that a significant number of “non-existent” or dead people were employed in the federal work force, and that criminals were using the fake employees to collect government paychecks.

“They are covering immense fraud,” Mr. Musk said in response to a post by a supporter that said that “the left is flipping out about a simple email.”

His claims echo a similar one that tens of millions of dead people may be receiving fraudulent Social Security payments. A recent report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general — a watchdog that investigates the program for waste, fraud and abuse — found that “almost none” of the people in the agency’s database who had likely died were receiving payments.

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Reporting was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Hamed Aleaziz, Apoorva Mandavilli, Devlin Barrett, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Ken Bensinger, Kate Conger, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Adam Goldman, Minho Kim, Kate Zernike, Lisa Friedman and Margot Sanger-Katz.

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