UnNews:Cognac and iPod ban for North Korea
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27 January 2007
WASHINGTON, Saturday (UNN) — The US has banned exports of iPods and cognac to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as part of the punishment for the country's nuclear bomb test last year. The sanctions are said to be targeted at North Korea's elite, who reportedly enjoy luxuries despite the country's desperate poverty.
"We realise it could be taken as escalation, but ten thousand surplus Zunes are on their way now," said Richard Mills of the Commerce Department division of White House, Inc. "And five hundred crates of Thunderbird."
Other moves include supplying AltaVista for Internet searches, shipping thousands of 486 computers loaded with Windows Vista, restarting the 1959 Ford Edsel production line for export and setting up local branches of Fry's Electronics, staffed by customer service representatives who would otherwise have been fired even from the US stores. "They're trained to say 'Would you like a box of floppies with that?' to every customer. EVERY customer."
Pyongyangologists say they can detect rising dissent in the wording of Kim Jong Il's recent speeches. "Upper-class North Koreans used to wearing an iPod Shuffle are up in arms about the weight of the Zune on their shirt collar," said Mills. "The tortured interface and frequent crashes are really pissing people off. They just can't believe someone would make an MP3 player that crashes."
However, not all technology exports are held back. "We've said they can't have Ubuntu Linux Dapper or Edgy, but they can use Feisty instead. Hey, it's up to its second alpha! And if they can get it to work, they still have to download fifty meg of updates a day over the dialup line the country uses for its net connection. We've had several reports of PCs being thrown out the windows of the fifties Soviet tower blocks. MuWAAhahahaha," Mills cackled.
Sources[edit | edit source]
- John C. Dvorak "You lucky North Koreans don't know how good you have it" Computer Shopper, January 27, 2007