Mick Hartley

The Happiness Index, as featured on North Korean TV (via):

A Chinese media, Chaoxian.com.cn, reported on Thursday that North Korea's Chosun Central TV recently released the survey result of a 'Happiness Index (Gross National Happiness) of each nation,' which was conducted in North Korea.

According to the index, the happiest country in the world is China and North Korea is ranked no. 2. Interestingly, South Korea is ranked No.152 and the U.S. ranks last at No.203….

China scored 100 points and was selected as the country where the happiest people live in and North Korea with 98 points, ranked at no. 2.

The top five rankings include Cuba (no. 3, 93 points), Iran (no.4, 88 points), and Venezuela (no.5, 85 points). South Korea, with 18 points, was placed at no.152 and the U.S. ranked no. 203 with its score not marked.

No mention of the UK, alas, but if we featured I imagine it would be not far off the bottom. But why China at No. 1 ahead of themselves? Aren't they meant to have nothing to envy? 

As one (Chinese) commenter suggests, they've missed out the minus signs.

Elsewhere in the world's second happiest nation:

“So long as we want to knock the American imperialists down and unify the fatherland, we must carry out a decisive battle at least once with the enemy.” 

This quote is contained in a new document for public lectures which The Daily NK recently obtained. According to the document, it is a direct quotation from Kim Jong Il. It asserts Kim has also said, “At the decisive stage of liquidating the past, a stage which is now coming closer, we have to establish Battle Mobilization Footing in all sections and keep strong ideas of fighting against the enemy.” 

The document points to the governments of the U.S., Japan and South Korea as the warmongers and emphasizes that, therefore, North Korea must “deal with them not with words, but with guns.” 

The document was produced by the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Party in October, 2010 and spread via lectures in work places and municipal Party organizations during last year's winter drill. 

It also stresses, “We must be equipped with political, ideological and military technical preparations so that we can crush the enemy with a single stroke at any provocation, while maintaining a tense situation at all times and the determination to launch a righteous attack on the enemy’s stronghold with our very lives.” 

In addition, it says, “Liquidating the past with the enemy of the proletariat class, including the rubbery American imperialists, is our national assignment; to pay back the cost in blood our people bled a hundred thousand times and wage a sacred struggle to guarantee our people’s happy lives by rooting out the foundations of war from this soil and succeeding in reunification.” 

Nothing new here – a permanent war footing is all part of the deal in the Great Socialist Nation – but "rubbery American imperialists" is a phrase to cherish.