17.05.2022
KFA UK was alerted to the fact that both the ‘Guardian ‘ published an article and that also a ‘ health expert ‘ Dr John Campbell made a video which severely misrepresented, exaggerated and distorted the recent apparent outbreak of Covid 19 in the DPRK .
The ‘Guardian ‘ piece turns out to be a syndicated article from the French imperialist( yes France is imperialist , it has troops in many African countries ) news agency Agence France Presse (AFP ). The Asia-Pacific editor of Agence France Presse is none other than Oliver Hotham , the former chief editor of the CIA fake news and disinformation website ‘ NKNews ‘ . Hotham was responsible for a particularly vile and slanderous attack on KFA UK 3 years ago . It is likely that Hotham is behind the AFP piece which the ‘Guardian ‘ reproduces .It is really lame that the ‘Guardian ‘ are copying and pasting syndicated articles from imperialist news agencies rather than actually reporting news .
Most mainstream media stories on the DPRK are usually copies of syndicated articles which in turn are copies of stories circulated by south Korea and the CIA .
The AFP article in the ‘Guardian ‘ uses south Korean sources and quotes an official of the south Korean Sejong Institute , an entity devoted to anti-DPRK propaganda .
Turning black into white the ‘Guardian ‘ ludicrously asserts that the DPRK has one of the ‘worst public health systems in the world ‘ . Nothing could be further from the truth . In the DPRK free medical care was introduced for factory and office workers in 1947 and in 1953 universal free medical care was introduced in the DPRK . Everyone receives free medical care . By the 1960s the DPRK had 16 doctors per 10,000 people , a very high level . By 2017 , according to the World Bank the DPRK had 3.7 Doctors per 1,000 people . This was higher than south Korea which had 2.4 doctors per 1,000 people ( of course medical care is not free in south Korea ) and the United States with 2.6 doctors per 1,000 . The World Bank also said that Number of hospital beds per 1,000 in the DPRK was 13.2 per 1,000 compared to 2.9 beds per 1,000 in the UK .So basically the DPRK has 4.55 times the number of hospital beds per 1,000 than the UK . How on earth can the DPRK have one of the ‘worst public health systems ‘ in the world? This is just a barefaced lie . We would add that people in the DPRK benefit from the section doctor system in which doctors actually go to visit people in their localities and workplaces .Ironically , it is the UK where it is often impossible to go and see a doctor in person , instead it is all dumbed down ‘online consultations ‘ and phone calls.
A video by Dr John Campbell who is a Youtuber ‘health expert’ and apparently no friend of socialist countries , follows a similar pattern to the ‘Guardian ‘ . Dr Campbell has never set foot in the DPRK even once. Campbell titles his video ‘Disaster in North Korea ‘ ( failing to use the correct title of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or People’s Korea). However ,whilst the outbreak of Omicron in the DPRK which was previously 100 per cent Covid free constitutes an upheaval and a matter of very grave concern , it should be remembered that the Omicron is a less serious form of Covid 19 . As was pointed out on the Yale medicine website ‘ The good news is that, so far, BA.2.12.1 does not appear to cause severe illness and death’.
The DPRK took timely and prompt measures once the Omicron variant was detected . During the last 24 hour period , there have been 6 deaths from the outbreak of fever in the DPRK . Now compare this to the 1,000 plus deaths from Covid 19 per day during the height of the Covid 19 outbreak in the UK . How can it be a disaster in the DPRK when the number of deaths per day is less than a 100th of what it was in the UK . It should be noted that south Korea has 17 million Covid 19 cases and 23, 554 deaths from Covid 19 . Dr Campbell is clearly looking at the wrong part of Korea when talking about a disaster . !
Dr Campbell resorts to orientalist and racist rhetoric when he calls the population of the DPRK ‘naive ‘ . Ever since the global pandemic started 2 years ago the DPRK has carried out mass health education and warned people about the dangers of Covid 19 .
Campbell wrongly says that only 81,430 people had fully recovered as of the 16th of May but in fact the number of people who have recovered ( as of 15. 05. 2022 ) is 648 630.
Campbell for sources cites an American neo-con academic based in south Korea and also ‘defectors ‘ . Stories from ‘defectors ‘ have repeatedly been torn to shreds .
The fact of the matter is that the DPRK did more than any other country to prevent the inroads of Covid 19 into the country .It closed its borders and they stayed shut for over 2 years . Other countries failed to close their borders . The DPRK also took counter-pandemic measures such as mass disinfection .
Of course it is strange and curious as to how Covid 19 was able to enter the country with the borders closed. Maybe the DPRK will comment later as to how the virus found its way into the DPRK . However the possibility that in fact the US and south Korea deliberately spread the virus into the DPRK cannot be ruled out . Only a few weeks before the outbreak was reported in the DPRK , ‘defectors ‘ in south Korea claimed to have flown balloons containing anti -DPRK propaganda leaflets into the DPRK. Did the balloons also contain the virus ? . Germ warfare was used against the DPRK by the US in the 1950s.
Campbell blames the DPRK over the issue of vaccination but the Omicron variant in other countries spread among those who had been vaccinated , so it probably does not make much difference whether people in the DPRK were vaccinated or not . The DPRK correctly rejected the fake ‘humanitarian aid ‘ of imperialism aimed at destroying the socialist system , it rejected unsafe vaccines produced by ‘big pharma ‘ capitalist monopolies of the imperialist world .
Campbell resorts to old anti DPRK tropes about ‘malnutrition ‘ . If malnutrition is factor in the spread of Covid 19 , how come developed countries like the US and UK have high rates of Covid 19 infection . In 2021 the Director of Research Institute for Nutrition Care of Children of DPRK pointed out that “ In our country nutrition care of children is deemed a top priority affair though it is in hardship and everything is insufficient.
But those styling themselves experts under the berets of UN are distorting the situation of our country to give the impression that serious "malnutrition of children" exists in our country. This cannot but be viewed as a black-hearted act of hostility to tarnish the image of our country.
I vehemently denounce the hostile forces for abusing even the name of naive children, which should be respected as the most sacred one, for attaining their political purposes.
No matter how desperately the hostile forces may work, they can never write off the bright and happy looks of our children.
Taking this opportunity, I warn the quasi-media of south Korea taking the lead in the anti-DPRK smear campaign by echoing rubbish-like information no one lends ear to”.
Space does not permit us to deal with all the allegations and assertions of Campbell but would finally take issue with the claim that there is poor housing in the DPRK . This is a lie . In the past 10 years there has been massive housing construction in the DPRK with whole new streets and even cities built . Recently , 10,000 new flats were constructed in the Songhwa area of Pyongyang and another 10,000 are under construction in the Hwasong area of Pyongyang . Housing is virtually free of charge in the DPRK and there are no homeless people . How can anyone say that there is poor housing in the DPRK .
KFA UK
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