The term's contemporary usage is notably unrelated to the USSR, such as in the expression “ North Korea's Gulag ” for camps operational still today.

The late Kim Il-sung is North Korea's Eternal President of the Republic | Eternal President.

At the same time North Korea's policy of self-reliance and the antagonism of America and its allies made it difficult for them to expand foreign trade or secure credit.

In the 1970s, expansion of North Korea's economy, with the accompanying rise in living standards, came to an end and a few decades later went into reverse.

However, soon after making such investments, international prices for many of North Korea's native minerals fell, leaving the country with large debts and an inability to pay them off and still provide a high level of social welfare to its people.

By the mid to late-1970s some parts of the capitalist world, including South Korea, were creating new industries based around computers, electronics, and other advanced technology in contrast to North Korea's Stalinist economy of mining and steel production.

Moreover, his Juche philosophy had effectively replaced Marxism-Leninism as North Korea's official ideology ( as outlined in the 1974 North Korean constitution ).

Without Soviet aid, North Korea's economy went into a free-fall.

After three years of consolidating his power, Kim Jong-il became Chairman of the NDC on October 8, 1997, a position described by the NDC as the nation's " highest administrative authority ," and thus North Korea's de facto head of state.

The inefficiency of North Korea's Stalinist-style agricultural system also contributed to the disaster.

An official at South Korea's seismic monitoring center confirmed a magnitude-3. 6 tremor felt at the time North Korea said it conducted the test was not a natural occurrence.

North Korea's advancements in weapons technology appear to give them leverage in ongoing negotiations with the United Nations and other countries.

* On North Korea's streets, pink and tangerine buses, Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 2005

Some 80 percent of North Korea's land area is composed of mountains and uplands, with all of the peninsula's mountains with elevations of 2000 m or more located in North Korea.

Lack of information makes it difficult to assess the extent to which industrialization and urbanization have damaged North Korea's natural environment.

In 1989 the Central Statistics Bureau released demographic data to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities ( UNFPA ) in order to secure the UNFPA's assistance in holding North Korea's first nationwide census since the establishment of the DPRK in 1946.

If their estimates are correct, 6. 1 percent of North Korea's total population was in the military, numerically the world's fifth largest military force, in the late 1980s ( fourth largest as of 2006 ).

However, the CIA World Fact Book estimated that North Korea's annual population growth rate was 1. 0 % in 1991 and that it has since declined to 0. 4 % by 2009.

North Korea's population is concentrated in the plains and lowlands.

In 1987 North Korea's largest cities were P ' yongyang, with approximately 2. 3 million inhabitants ; Hamhŭng, 701, 000 ; Ch ' ŏngjin, 520, 000 ; Namp ' o, 370, 000 ; Sunch ' ŏn, 356, 000 ; and Sinŭiju, 289, 000.

North Korea's political system is built upon the principle of centralization.

In theory, North Korea's judiciary is accountable to the SPA and the Presidium.

The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America.

China for its part has sought to preserve North Korea as a strategic buffer zone, in part to prevent a mass influx of refugees and also out of the desire to not have a unified, American-backed Korea on its border.

As a young boy, he was aware of Sultán ` Abdu ' l-Hamíd's desire to banish ` Abdu ' l-Bahá to the deserts of North Africa where he was expected to perish.

The North hoped it would prove to be America's Dien Bien Phu, attempting to break the American public's desire to continue the war.

The British desire to trade with South America grew during the Industrial Revolution and the loss of their 13 colonies in North America during the American Revolution.

She argued that the union of the British North American colonies was motivated by a desire to protect individual rights, especially the rights to life, liberty, and property.

This hostility emerged from three sources: grievances at British violations of American sovereignty, restriction of American trade by Britain, and an American desire to gain territory by invading and annexing the poorly-defended British North American colonies.

While none of the parties desire a North Korea with nuclear weapons, Japan and South Korea are especially concerned about North Korean counter-strikes following possible military action against North Korea.

This desire has become increasingly relevant given the ability of North Korea's Rodong-1 missile to strike Tokyo, and it has gained increasing support as a result.

Japan Ministry of Defense's analyst Takesada points out that North Korea's desire of unification is similar to North Vietnam, and warns of the possibility of North Korea's compulsory merger with South Korea by threats of nuclear weapons, taking advantage of any possible decrease in the US military presence in South Korea, after North Korea deploys several hundred mobile ICBMs aimed at the US.

North Korea-United States relations developed primarily during the Korean War, but in recent years have been largely defined by the United States ' suspicions regarding North Korea's nuclear programs and North Korea's stated desire to normalize relations with the U. S., tempered by a stated perception of an imminent U. S. attack.

A major cause of the wars was the desire of each country to control of the interior territories of North America, as well as the region around Hudson Bay ; both were deemed essential to domination of the fur trade.

The geographical importance for the Northern forces of Plymouth's location at the mouth of the Roanoke River was the Union desire to push upriver and capture the vital Wilmington and Weldon Railroad line passing through Weldon, North Carolina, which would completely cut off the major supply line for General Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia from more southerly ports.

For some residents of North Carolina, she has been an important symbol of the state and the desire to keep it predominantly European-American.

Some Japanese state a desire to have their own military due to fear of the growing power of China and the hostility of North Korea.

His desire to have Northern Ireland treated like the rest of the United Kingdom was seen in April 1939, and again in May 1940, when he called for conscription to be introduced in the North ( which the British government, fearing a nationalist backlash, refused ).

) And more than that – perhaps, better and happier than that – I have had evidence from every part of Ireland, from the North as well as from the South, of a desire on the part of men who in the past have been divided from us, to come in at this hour of danger and peril – this hour which may be fraught with the happiest consequences for our country.

Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced.

In an attempt to draw others to the area and lessen the isolation of their farm, the Bulls built businesses in the center of Clinton Township, along the plank toll road that later became North High Street, the main north-south thoroughfare connecting Columbus to Worthington, Ohio to the north.

Built on a former landfill, construction for Dr. Michael M. Krop High School began in 1996 after the Miami-Dade School Board approved plans to build a new high school in North Miami-Dade County to lessen overcrowding in local elementary and secondary schools, including North Miami Beach High School.