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About North Korea


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official state ideology, replacing Marxism-Leninism, when the country adopted a new constitution in 1972. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, North Korea lost a major trading partner and strategic ally. Combined with a series of natural disasters, this led to the North Korean famine, which lasted from 1994 to 1998 and killed an estimated 800,000 to 3,500,000 people. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il adopted Songun, or "military-first" policy in order to strengthen the country and its government. In 2009, references to Communism (Chosŏn'gŭl: 공산주의) were systematically removed from the country's constitution and legal documents altogether.

Many outside organizations describe North Korea as a totalitarian, Stalinist dictatorship with an elaborate cult of personality around the Kim family and one of the lowest-ranking human rights records of any country, though the North Korean government denies this. As a result of its isolation and authoritarian rule, it has sometimes been labelled the "Hermit kingdom", a name once given to its predecessor, the Korean Empire. In 2011 North Korea had the lowest Democracy Index of any nation on earth. North Korea is one of the world's most militarized countries, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. It is a nuclear-weapons state and has an active space program
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