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.

North Korea's desire to lessen its dependence on aid from China and the Soviet Union prompted the expansion of its military power, which had begun in the second half of the 1960s.

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 FDP retained their seats in the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was held six months after the federal election, but out of the seven state elections that have been held since 2009, the FDP have lost all their seats in five of them due to failing to cross the 5 % threshold.

* 1586 – English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in North America.

North Korean agents came south in 1966-1969, creating disruption, but ultimately failing to win over the South Korean populace.

The following season, the club became embroiled in a feud with umpire Allen, whom the Tigers accused of failing to curb field invasions or the illegal tactics of arch-rival North Melbourne.

After two more years of losses and with attendance worse than it had been in Oakland, the Gunds ( by this time majority owners ) were permitted to merge the Barons with another failing team, the Minnesota North Stars.

His engagement with the North Eastern Railway terminated abruptly owing to Dyson's failing to appear at a station to which he had been sent on duty.

United Future MP Judy Turner made clear that then current government policies were failing in regard to keeping both parents in children's lives, and to this extent made a huge effort in promoting a Member ’ s Bill on mandatory mediation by means of a national roll-out of the North Shore Family Court " Children in the Middle " pilot programme.

Although all of North Korea is economically depressed, Ryanggang province, along with neighboring North Hamgyong and South Hamgyong provinces, are the poorest, forming North Korea's " Rust Belt " of industrialized cities with factories now decrepit and failing.

Cape Norway () was where Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen wintered in 1895-96 after failing to reach the North Pole.

Helen Jones has engaged in a fierce war of words with Warrington Borough Council on numerous occasions, beginning when she obtained emails that revealed the council's Chief Executive had explored the possibility of legal action against her following an Adjournment Debate in the Commons ( where Jones had accused the council of failing to answer her letters on concerns raised by Warrington North constituents ).

The economy of the United States of North America ( USNA ) is failing.

However Hatton also said that his other statements had been meant seriously and that he would seek selection as a Parliamentary Labour candidate for one of the Liverpool constituencies ( or failing that, another North West constituency ) at some point in the future and that he has had a strong ambition to be a Liverpool MP for several years.

In mid-December North American Aerospace Defense Command, which had assigned the satellite the Satellite Catalog Number 10361, noticed Kosmos 954 making erratic manoeuvres, changing the altitude of its orbit by up to 50 miles, as its Soviet operators struggled to control their failing spacecraft.

In 1830, he ran for a seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives from Randolph County, motivated in large part by a failing law practice.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop needed solid dependable people to settle the North Shore area as a buffer against the French from Canada and he urged that the Lowells relocate to Newburyport on the Merrimack River, at the border of the failing Province of Maine.

Despite winning a major piece of silverware, Manager Barry Powell was sacked after a poor league showing ended with them failing to qualify for the newly created Conference North and Powell was replaced by fans favourite Chris Brindley.

After failing to pay for petrol on purpose in the central North Island, they are pursued by a motorcycle officer, with the duo ending up avoiding arrest by driving into a car wreckers.

A North American release was planned for the Saturn version, but was scrapped due to controversy between Working Designs and Sega, and the Saturn's failing support in the US market.

Bowness led the expansion team to a 27 – 43 – 8 – 2 record, earning 64 points and a sixth place finish in the North Division, failing to qualify for the playoffs.

As well as introducing its own brands to North America, Kader, under the Bachmann brand, built itself up as the largest volume seller of model railways by purchasing other failing companies, using the Bachmann name to front a series of purchases in the rest of the world to combat the then poor perceptions of Hong Kong based production quality.

Here he launched a successful but costly counterattack into Lithuania, managing to stabilize the front, but failing to break through to the Courland Pocket, where Army Group North was trapped after the decimation of Army Group Centre.

In a further twist, on January 4, 2005, he was again labelled a deserter after failing to return to his base in North Carolina from authorized leave and has not been seen since.

* Despite failing nearly a decade prior in North America, McDonald's Japan introduced in 2003 a nearly identical sandwich ( without the peppered bacon ) called the Tomato McGrand.