North Korea suspends non-Korean news for a day

North Korea not publishing news in any language but Korean for a day was enough to make the news a few days ago. Looking at their site they are publishing in multiple languages again so this was not really anything worth noting. On the other hand, it does make one wonder how many news agencies need to rely on other languages besides Korean for their news on what North Korea is thinking at the moment. Even official agencies can mistranslate their own statements, sometimes purposely, giving a different impression in another language. Ahmadinejad's "Israel should be wiped off the map"-type comment (اسرائیل بايد از صفحه‌ی روزگار محو شود) was apparently translated in the "wiped off the map" way by an Iranian news agency, don't remember which one. And even the most prominent news agencies sometimes come up with some pretty nonsensical translations when it comes to North Korea.

New York Times needs a new translator: has translated 독기어린 치맛바람 as "venemous swish of skirt". reddit.com/r/worldnews/co…
— Dave MacLeod (@mithridates) 14. März 2013

That venemous swish of skirt "translation" was either: 1) bad enough that the translator needs to find a new job, or 2) done intentionally in order to make the statement sound comical. Either way, it does a disservice to the reader.