[Sosa]

This was hard to watch, especially when he starts begging for his life towards the end. Walks in with is head down in shame.

"I have been very impressed by the Korean governments humanitarian treatment of severe criminals like myself"

Looks like political propaganda to shame the U.S.A. and portray it as weak - similar to what happened when the 10 US soldiers in Iran were captured, put on their knees, and forced to apologize.

I think this kid could seriously be facing a death sentence. Why else would he react this way.

[nomadbrah]

Background who is he, why was the there, why did he get caught?

[Phoenix]

(11-08-2012 05:35 PM)RASER Wrote:  

I seen the [female] guides are cute, as are the female traffic wardens, seeing the whole country is staged, anybody had a North Korean flag in North Korea, now THAT is brag rights!

(02-24-2013 04:34 PM)MidWest Wrote:  

Something about captruing a communist North Korean flag really intrigues me.

(04-11-2015 01:42 PM)flaghunter Wrote:  

Has anyone or does anyone know anybody who has their NK flag?
Great advice about going to the Pyongyang restaurant chain in Cambodia or Naam to get the flag, I'm gonna give it a crack next time I'm there!

(04-11-2015 01:49 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Wow a forum of international playboys and no one has the NK flag.

(09-15-2014 01:59 PM)MrXY Wrote:  

On the bright side, he's got a shot at the coveted North Korean flag

(01-02-2013 06:44 AM)Mage Wrote:  

I guess a race for a NK flag would start on this forum.

We did this.

So long, whoever you are, brave voyager of the flags.

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

[The Beast1]

Press Conference was a total shame and the statement given sounded like some poorly translated English a Chinese person would try to come up with. His crime was removing a slogan from a statue at his hotel.

[Patriarch]

I feel terrible for the guy, but I can't help but think this was naivete run amok, and the consequences of the millenial mindset. I also saw an article that said he "took the banner for a member of his church who promised him a used car worth 10k, because his family was doing poorly financially." The fuck? His family is poor but he's on vacation in North Korea? This story stinks to the core.

[porscheguy]

Am I the only one who feels no sympathy for this clown?

Are American students still so brainwashed with "hope and change", and "yes we can" that some lone dipshit thinks he can go to an openly hostile country, engage in shit stirring, and not end up in this position?

[HushedAssassin]

This guy tried to steal a North Korean banner with a political slogan which was hanging from the walls of his Pyongyang hotel.

No Sympathy.

[kaotic]

Idiot, plain and simple, don't go into your host country, and deface their shit.

You're a fucking moron for going to NK first of all, secondly, you try to steal some shit ?

Then you cry like a little bitch ? That's your fucking problem.

This dude's making up any excuse he can to get the fuck out of that shithole.


Don't Bang North Korea.

[draguer]

I think they've made a deal: he makes himself look weak and produces some good propaganda content and eventually he'll be released.

[Phoenix]

Wait... he literally tried to get an actual North Korean flag? That's not what we meant. That's not what we meant at all.

[Chrome]

No First World native English speaker calls legal procedures "fair and square" or prays "to the heavens". No doubt under duress. He is quite eloquent and measured in his speech, though. Must have rehearsed it a thousand times with his life on the line.

[crudeloyalist]

(02-29-2016 11:15 AM)nomadbrah Wrote:  

Background who is he, why was the there, why did he get caught?

From CNN website...

Quote:

North Korea accuses Warmbier of surfing the Internet to study different North Korean political slogans and plotting to steal one by folding it up on a thin rectangular metal sheet, and concealing it in his suitcase.

The official says Warmbier put on "quiet shoes" he brought from the United States, and just before 2 a.m. on January 1, 2016, he entered the staff-only second floor of the hotel intending to steal a sign or banner with a political slogan.
Otto Warmbier is originally from Ohio but had been studying at the University of Virginia.
Otto Warmbier is originally from Ohio but had been studying at the University of Virginia.

"The slogan was bigger than he had thought. So he couldn't take it away and turned it upside down and deserted (it) on the floor when he had pulled it from the hangers," the official said.

Warmbier, a third-year business major at the University of Virginia, originally was detained on January 2 as he was about to board a plane and leave the country, according to Young Pioneer Tours, the China-based travel company that organized his trip.

A North Korean official with direct knowledge of the case tells CNN that Warmbier is accused of meeting last year with a member of the Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio -- a small suburb of Cincinnati.

The church member "emphasized that North Korea is an anti-Christian communist state and that communism should be ended," said the North Korean official, whom CNN has agreed not to identify.

According to the same official, the church member allegedly encouraged Warmbier "to take an important political slogan from North Korea in order to weaken the ideological unity and motivation of the North Koreans" and promised to give him a "$10,000 used car" if the "mission" was successful.

CNN spoke with the church's Senior Pastor Meshach Kanyion, who did not know the purported church "deaconess" named by North Korean officials. He said Warmbier is not a member of the church, which has a congregation of around 500 people.

"I've never met his family. Clearly there are some people who know him and went to school with him. If his family went to our church, we would've been much more involved" in pushing for his release, Kanyion said.

Very foolish if it's true, although I do have some sympathy for him. No doubt the press conference was completely staged.

[nomadbrah]

Americans should probably not go to North Korea, pretty stupid if you ask me. North Korea brainwashes children from birth with anti-American hate worse than the arab countries.

[Samseau]

(02-29-2016 12:49 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  

Wait... he literally tried to get an actual North Korean flag? That's not what we meant. That's not what we meant at all.

FUCK, unintended consequences!
U
C
K

Things are not going in the direction we were hoping for...

[Comte De St. Germain]

There was a banned member who claimed to have gotten the flag. Granted this member got banned for being an idiot.

Source: thread-21055...#pid590939

(11-30-2013 05:39 PM)Steve Derekson Wrote:  

North Korea is the best place in the world for marriage. If the dictatorship ever dries up, I make a promise to go there and marry one of these girls.

I have been there, many long conversations with locals in Korean and an important bond (over a few weeks) with guides, and here is what I found:

Looks: Better than South Korea. They have moon-like faces, and are dressed in 1920's style attire. They are very graceful in the way that they move, feminine, and far more expressive than any other Asian group (in huge contrast to S. Korea). The prettiest girl I've ever seen was a waiter in Wonsan.

Personality: Sweet and humble. If humility is your things, then North Korea is the place. The humility of these girls surpassed that of even Poland. My female guide was quite sexually-minded, and sex was no taboo topic. The government there wants more people, and sex is heavily encouraged, so people have very positive and natural views towards it, much unlike S. Korea. Flirting is 1950's style, and there is a huge male-to-female polarity, more than anywhere else I have been. The girls are trained to be warm to others, and in the villages they all get together and cook for the neighbours every weekend. Women there are expected to take care of their husbands, and my first-timer female guide was shocked, almost angry, to hear my stories about Sweden. But, these girls truly make you feel like a man, just being around them is pleasant, again unlike S. Korea.

I did manage to get an N.K. flag in Seoul, as when I was living there I was heavily involved in N.K. activism, and I met a defector who became my girlfriend until I left. This was before ever going to N.K., and the reason I went. She took 6 dates to crack, and sex was normal, but her femininity was out of this world. Cooking for me was common, but what really got me were her manerisms, the sheer feminine energy. The North Koreans are much unlike the rest of Asian groups in that they have very bubbly personalities, and are full of emotions. When you speak to them they are very expressive and warm, and more importantly, humble. This girl appreciated flowers, and the old 1950's dating, and I felt like the boss dating a girl this way without it being wierd or unappreciated.

After going to North Korea I realized it has a very human side. While people are afraid of touching political topics, anything else will yield and incredibly human conversation. There are no social barriers, no bullshit like in the West, things are very real. Before I went the first time, I expected my guides would be some kind of state-robots, but I was amazed by their humanity. My male guide, who I had swam with in the sea several times and has countless conversations on the women of the world (great topic to bond with men) cried when I hugged him goodbye at the airport. I jokingly said I'd come back so we could go and visit Europe together, but I did feel truly bad about leaving them there in a country they can't escape.

Best people on Earth, worst government.

[El Chinito loco]

People need to understand that when you fly into another country that you're not just going to a place where people have funny accents and funny culture. It's not some theme park.

When tourists screw with their cultural shit they will face real consequences and no one can help them. People think the embassy or the rep of their nationality is a free pass to do whatever. You are nothing in the scheme of things. This isn't a hollywood movie. The embassy doesn't give two shits about you unless it becomes a major political inconvenience to them.

You see people behave like twats all the time in even friendly tourist destinations and they break down like this dumbass when they realize that long jail sentences with rice gruel or a severe beating or even death awaits.

North Korea is an abhorrent place but I also think Saudi Arabia is a shithole too but you'd have to be a real moron to go to either place and violate their rules too.

[RIslander]

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner. Dumbass kid gets a few months in what is probably a decent jail, is publicly humiliated and then released. +1 North Korea.

[Centurion]

(02-29-2016 10:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner.

How sure are you?

[RIslander]

(02-29-2016 10:36 PM)Centurion Wrote:  

(02-29-2016 10:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner.

How sure are you?

93.6%

[DarkTriad]

(02-29-2016 10:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner. Dumbass kid gets a few months in what is probably a decent jail, is publicly humiliated and then released. +1 North Korea.

I doubt there is a "decent jail" in all of North Korea. Regular Joes over there are starving to death and living in terrible conditions, what do you think the prisoners are living like?

[El Chinito loco]

(02-29-2016 10:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner. Dumbass kid gets a few months in what is probably a decent jail, is publicly humiliated and then released. +1 North Korea.

Maybe. They've done way more for less. It's hard to say what North Korea will or won't do.

They threw journalist Lisa Ling's sister into a dank prison with a 1 year sentence for hard labor for pretty much nothing until Bill Clinton with the U.S. government stepped in to personally bail her out.

Hard Labor in North Korea is pretty scary.

This guy is less than that. He's literally nothing. They will parade him around and try to get some kind of economic concessions out of it. If they can't they'll probably hold him for a long time while he busts rocks or something.

[RIslander]

Ling's sister was charged with filming refugees fleeing NK and for entering the country illegally... thats way more of a crime then petty theft. She served one of the 12 years and was accommodated in a guesthouse.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_impri...orth_Korea

Quote:

Because the United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, the contact was handled through the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang, Mats Foyer, who also visited the two reporters.[20][21] Han Park, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, went to North Korea to negotiate their release, but Hillary Clinton refused to say whether Park traveled on behalf of the U.S. government. Park stated that the two journalists were staying at a guest house and had not been transferred to prison.

[El Chinito loco]

(02-29-2016 11:40 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

Ling's sister was charged with filming refugees fleeing NK and for entering the country illegally... thats way more of a crime then petty theft. She served one of the 12 years and was accommodated in a guesthouse.

There's more than a few problems with those charges. They were sketchy at best and North Korea was looking for reasons to detain U.S. citizens at the time for leverage against sanctions.

The point is that North Korea really doesn't need a good reason to do anything. They don't operate on any kind of normal reasoning and will go to drastic lengths.

This is a country where the current leader murdered his own uncle with an Anti aircraft gun.

[samsamsam]

(02-29-2016 10:40 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

(02-29-2016 10:36 PM)Centurion Wrote:  

(02-29-2016 10:30 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

They're not going to kill him or sentence him to prison for stealing a banner.

How sure are you?

93.6%

I ran the calcs and I think you are off. I got 93.49837214% every little bit helps.

[porscheguy]

(02-29-2016 11:51 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(02-29-2016 11:40 PM)RIslander Wrote:  

Ling's sister was charged with filming refugees fleeing NK and for entering the country illegally... thats way more of a crime then petty theft. She served one of the 12 years and was accommodated in a guesthouse.

There's more than a few problems with those charges. They were sketchy at best and North Korea was looking for reasons to detain U.S. citizens at the time for leverage against sanctions.

The point is that North Korea really doesn't need a good reason to do anything. They don't operate on any kind of normal reasoning and will go to drastic lengths.

This is a country where the current leader murdered his own uncle with an Anti aircraft gun.

And all of this is precisely why we should feel no sympathy for any foreigner with any western connection whatsoever, who goes there, makes a wave or two, and then finds them self in a rather fucked up situation. Why do these idiots who venture in to N Korea think we need more proof that the place is fucked up? That's about as smart as jumping off a building to prove that gravity exists when you can just as easily go over to bestgore and watch 100s of videos of people doing the same thing only you won't end up dead or crippled at the end.