【英语国际】朝鲜《劳动新闻》刊发李明博“死讯”

North Korea's Rodong Shinmun appears to have learned a lesson from the terrible capitalists gossip sells!

On Sunday, North Korea's biggest newspaper reported that 'the buzz' in Pyongyang was that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak 'dropped dead.' People started clapping and dancing in 'subway stations, bus stops and many villages nationwide,' the newspaper said.

'Our editorial department is getting numerous calls from people who clearly want to confirm the news,' the paper also wrote. 'We are not sure where the buzz came from, but one thing is sure is that it is the hope of people who love justice and hate injustice and a stern judgment toward the South Korean traitors.'

The Rodong Shinmun story was laced with a few profanities, and ended with the admission that it couldn't confirm that Mr. Lee was dead. But it used the opportunity to declare him 'virtually dead' and noted that South Koreans have even protested Mr. Lee's presidency.

The story, which also appeared on the newspaper's Korean-language Web site, was picked up by some South Korean media on Monday. It wasn't translated into English, however, nor condensed and re-transmitted by the Korea Central News Agency. On Monday, KCNA produced a short item of public reaction to the Rodong Shinmun story, saying the rumor had driven people to 'an ecstasy of joy.'

On Saturday, KCNA sent out a re-written version of another Rodong Shinmun story about a nickname that Mr. Lee's political opponents in South Korea have used for him since he took office in 2008.

The nickname 2MB is a variation of Mr. Lee's initials, LMB, that uses the Korean-language letter for 'L,' which looks like the Roman number 2. Mr. Lee's opponents have called him 2MB to suggest that he isn't very smart since 2 MB (megabytes) of computer processing power or data storage is quite small these days.

Rodong Shinmun, though a bit late to the party, thought this was very clever. '2MB is indicative of a very small memory capacity that can hold two minutes of songs in MP3 and about 10 seconds of video,' the newspaper wrote, according to the KCNA account in English. 'Traitor Lee earned this disgraceful nickname for his abnormal thinking power.'

North Korea’s propaganda campaign against the South Korean government, particularly Mr. Lee, has been particularly aggressive since the start of the month.

Creative and entertaining, too. The North’s media has taken to quoting citizens lashing out in colorful language. From one dispatch earlier this month: Jang Jong Suk, a woman in Jungdok-dong, Phyongsong City, South Phyongan Province, said, “Being a woman, I am good at killing dogs. I wish I could go to Seoul and kill the dog called Myung Bak.”

On March 4, the North’s authoritarian government staged a huge rally in Pyongyang where soldiers held signs that threatened Mr. Lee with death. North Korean media spent days criticizing reports that a group of South Korean soldiers used a picture of Kim Jong Il during a target practice. Then, it released photos and video images of its own troops shooting at drawings that purported to be Mr. Lee.

Some analysts speculate it’s an effort by the North to create some anxiety in South Korea and assert some influence in South Korea’s parliamentary election next month. (If Mr. Lee’s conservative allies lose power, the ruling liberal parties may open up the aid and money spigots to the North.)

Another potential reason is that South Korea and the U.S. are engaged in one of their twice-yearly joint military exercises, a period when North Korea routinely steps up its verbal barrage.

Another theory holds that the new government of Kim Jong Eun is responding to graffiti criticism that’s been reported in several cities in North Korea since last September. In those instances, according to reports on North Korea defector-related Web sites, citizens painted or spray-painted phrases that variously praised Mr. Lee or disparaged the passage of power to another generation of the Kim family.

Mr. Lee hasn’t directly responded to the North’s propaganda campaign. But in a meeting with Korean newspaper editors on Monday, he rebuffed critics who claim his North Korea policy has weakened Seoul’s position with Pyongyang. He noted that North Korea has, for instance, stopped seeking extreme increases in payments for the Kaesong industrial complex and has recognized that it hasn’t been able to create a wedge between U.S. and South Korea.

Evan Ramstad

朝鲜报纸《劳动新闻》(Rodong Shinmun)似乎已经从可怕的资本家那里学到了一课：八卦有市场！

Reuters/KCNA3月4日朝鲜民众在平壤举行反韩集会。右边的标语牌写的是“打倒李明博”。周日，朝鲜国内最大的报纸《劳动新闻》报道说，平壤城内热议的话题是韩国总统李明博(Lee Myung-bak)“暴毙”。《劳动新闻》说，朝鲜人民在地铁站、公交车站和国内许多村庄击掌跳舞，以示庆贺。

《劳动新闻》同时写道，我们编辑部接到很多读者的电话，他们显然希望我们能证实这一消息。我们无法确定消息的来源，但有一点是可以肯定的，那就是李明博的下场是热爱正义、厌恶不公正的人们所希望看到的，它是这个南朝鲜叛徒应该受到的严厉判决。

《劳动新闻》的报道有一些不敬言语，报道最后承认它无法证实李明博暴毙的消息。但报道利用这一机会宣称李明博“事实上已经死亡”，并说韩国人甚至抗议李明博继续担任总统。

同时出现在该报朝鲜语网站上的这则报道周一被部分韩国媒体转载。朝鲜中央通信社(Korea Central News Agency, 简称：朝中社)没有将这篇报道翻译成英文，也没有对报道进行压缩和转发。周一，朝中社刊发一篇短消息，描述了朝鲜民众对《劳动新闻》这篇报道的反应。文中说，这则传闻让朝鲜人民欣喜若狂。

上周六，朝中社刊发了经过改写的《劳动新闻》另一篇报道。报道说的是李明博在韩国的政治对手自其2008年上台以来一直用来取笑他的绰号。

李明博的绰号2MB可以看作是其英文名首字母缩写LMB的变体，因为朝鲜文中的“李”这个字看上去就像罗马数字里的2。李明博的政治对手称其为2MB是想暗示外界，李明博并不聪明。因为在今天看来，无论电脑的处理器主频还是存储容量，2MB(2兆字节)都太小了。

虽然对这一绰号的反应晚了一些，但《劳动新闻》却认为这一叫法实在高明。从朝中社翻译的英文稿来看，该报说，2兆字节的内存容量实在太小，只能存储两分钟的MP3格式的歌曲或10秒钟左右的视频。叛徒李明博因为他不正常的思维能力赢得了这一不光彩的绰号。

朝鲜针对韩国政府、特别是李明博的宣传攻势，本月以来尤其显得咄咄逼人。

这些宣传也富有创意和娱乐性。朝鲜媒体已经开始引用老百姓骂人的下流话。本月早些时候的一篇报道引用平安南道平城市Jungdok-dong妇女Jang Jong Suk的话说，作为一个女人，我擅长杀狗；但愿我能到首尔去杀了那条叫明博的狗。

3月4日，朝鲜政府在平壤举行大规模集会。军人们在会上举着对李明博发出死亡威胁的标语。而针对有韩国士兵拿金正日画像打靶的报道，朝鲜媒体一连几天都在抨击。然后朝鲜媒体又公布照片和视频，显示朝鲜部队朝着据称为李明博的画像开枪。

一些分析人士猜测，朝鲜这是要在韩国制造一种紧张气氛，从而对下个月举行的韩国议会选举施加一定影响。（如果李明博领导的保守联盟失去权力，那么开明的执政党派就有可能允许援助物资和资金重新流向朝鲜。）

另一个可能的原因是韩国和美国正在举行一年两次的联合军事演习，在此期间，朝鲜常常会加强语言上的火力。

还有一个假说则是，金正恩新政府在回应去年9月份以来据报道发生在朝鲜多座城市的涂鸦式批评。据脱北者相关网站报道，涂鸦者用各种各样的语句赞扬李明博，对金氏家族继续家天下表示轻蔑。

李明博没有直接回应朝鲜的宣传攻势。但在周一会见韩国报纸总编时，针对有人说他的对朝政策削弱了首尔在平壤前面的地位这一指责，李明博反驳说，朝鲜已经不再寻求极大地增加开城工业园的收费，并且已经认识到它未能离间美国和韩国的关系。

Evan Ramstad

（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）