10 Hilarious Lies North Korea Told The World

North Korea is an amazing country: not because of its bountiful resources and dedicated efforts towards humanitarianism, and nor because of the opposite of those things. It is amazing because it is about as close to the fictitious dystopia that Orwell wrote about in 1984 as you can get in this world.

The Ministry of Plenty ensure that the average Korean earns around $1000 per year and that the food shortage only ever affects 99% of the population. The Ministry of Peace is in a perpetual war with the American Imperialists. The Ministry of Love build concentration camps as penal facilities and even coerce people into loving their leader - but more on that later. 

Then we have the Ministry of Truth, or the Korean Central News Agency as it is more commonly known. This news station provides all of the media that is distributed anywhere in the country and also controls what comes out. The country lies to the world; the government lies to the country and the people lie to each other. 

Seriously, North Korea is an amazing country. Especially if you choose (or are forced) to believe their occasionally ludicrous spin...

During the Brazil 2014 World Cup there was a lot of noise in the press about North Korea claiming to have won the competition after a dramatic final victory over Portugal. Sadly, this was all a giant hoax started by a fake news website. North Korea didn't broadcast that it had won the competition, in fact, the nation generously broadcast the actual World Cup to its people, albeit 24 hours after the games had taken place.

There were, however, a few audacious claims made during the 2012 Olympics. Gold medallist, Om Yun Chol, claimed that the spirit of previous leader, Kim Jong-il, had somehow affected his body and helped him to lift 3 times his bodyweight in the clean and snatch event during his interview with the British press.

North Korea actually ended up 20th in the medals table at London 2012, collecting 4 golds and 2 bronze medals along the way. And at one point the 'naughty' Koreans even found themselves as high as 5th in the rankings table. 

But in North Korea only the Supreme Leader can be glorified, and so the propaganda machine set to work. Broadcast throughout the country was very little about the athletes who had proven themselves the best in the world, instead their achievements were attributed to how great the support and leadership of Kim Jong-un, or his deceased father, were.