America sure as hell isn’t all that popular in many parts of Asia, and that’s especially true in North Korea.

It’s easy to watch on as the drama unfolds and see why there is such tension between Kim, Donald and the rest of the crew, but the animosity goes way, way back.

CNN put together a quick two-minute explainer, and it just about covers what has led us to all this talk of “fire and fury”.

Time to unpack the conflict:

Heads up – stopping a North Korean missile won’t be easy (HERE).

That video should get you up to speed, but I’m guessing there might be a few other questions you’re keen to have taken care of.

Vox have an excellent article titled “9 questions about North Korea you were too embarrassed to ask“, so let’s see if they can answer yours.

We’ll start basic:

What is North Korea?

North Korea, known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a small country sandwiched between China and South Korea in Northeast Asia. It is home to an estimated 25 million people, nearly 3 million of whom live in the capital city of Pyongyang…

Despite some modest reforms to the economy under the two younger Kims, the country is still far, far behind the rest of the world. The CIA ranks North Korea as the 211th-poorest country out of the 230 it tracks, and its people live on about $1,800 a year.

North Korea is almost solely reliant on China as a trading partner, with most of its money coming from the millions of tons of coal it exports to China every year. It also sends iron ore, seafood, and clothing to the Chinese. This is why the news that China had suspended its coal imports from North Korea back in February was such a big deal, even though China’s overall trade with North Korea has increased.

And we have to touch on the propaganda and how many of the country’s citizens actually believe it:

North Korea, it’s fair to say, is a world-class innovator when it comes to propaganda. This country continues to roll out new messages and slogans, including 300 to mark the 70th anniversary of its founding in 2015…

A lot of North Korean propaganda comes in music form, as we’ve seen. It’s a tool the state uses and blasts over the loudspeakers throughout the day, including the song “We are the Happiest in the World,” which I’m going to guess is untrue…

Given how little access outside journalists and academics have to North Korea, it’s really hard to know with any certainty how many North Koreans truly believe the regime’s propaganda and how many just pretend to believe it in order to survive. But North Korean defectors estimate that only about 20 to 50 percent of North Koreans today buy what the regime is selling.

This steady loss of support has been going on since the Great Famine of the 1990s that starved around 23 million North Koreans and killed around 10 percent of the population. The country was and remains an agricultural society. The problem is North Korea’s climate is tough: It’s a mountainous region with harsh winters. Plus, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and with it the help it provided North Korean farmers.

As a result, farm yields dwindled, and the government asked its citizens to “eat only two meals a day!” (Yes, with an exclamation mark.) It also didn’t help that in 1995, a big flood took out about 15 percent of North Korea’s arable land. As the food went away, so did a lot of the support for the government’s propaganda.

They might not believe it, but you’re brave (and perhaps foolish) if you talk out against the regime. How hectic is this:

North Korea abides by the “three generations of punishment” rule. Basically, if the government thinks you committed a crime, you, your children, and your grandchildren have to suffer the consequences too.

Those consequences would be imprisonment in forced labour camps, which are run by the state. Crimes like murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, and other sexual violence are run of the mill inside those camps.

If you were feeling a little down after Tuesday’s vote of no confidence flopped, just remember that at least we have the right to shout down our ‘Supreme Leader’.

[sources:cnn&vox]