N. Korea Exports Cuddly Creatures

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea is known for producing
ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapons programme. But cuddly cartoon
characters?

"Empress Chung" will be the first major feature
animated entirely in communist North Korea to enjoy a wide release in
a capitalist country when it opens in South Korea on Friday.

It opens
in Pyongyang on August 15, the day the Korean peninsula was liberated
from Japanese colonial rule but also divided into North and South by
the Alied forces.

North Korea’s impoverished economy is desperately in
need of hard foreign currency. The reclusive state is shunned by most
of the world for its highly authoritarian rule and is currently the focus
of a multinational effort to curb its nuclear ambitions. Animation has
been one of the few things that North Korea — branded by the Bush administration
as being an "outpost of tyranny" — has been able to sell to
overseas investors.

Look for "Empress Chung" at the Harvard Square Theater
by Labor Day.

from Reuters