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Gunning for science and power

It was built at lightning speed -- just over 10 months using soldier labour -- looks impressive, and is almost eerily empty

The Science and Technology Center in Pyongyang was built under the direct orders supreme leader Kim Jong-Un

"The young students enjoy it," said the assistant, picking up a model rifle and aiming it at the familiar table of elements projected on a screen about 10 feet away.

A hit on Po brings up an explanation of Polonium -- its discovery, properties and uses.

The shooting range is one of a number of teaching aids housed in the Science and Technology Center, a vast complex built in the shape of an atom on a river islet in Pyongyang.

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Opened earlier this year, the centre shares characteristics common to other grandiose projects constructed in the showcase capital under the direct orders of supreme leader Kim Jong-Un, using scarce money and resources siphoned from North Korea's threadbare economy.

It was built at lightning speed -- just over 10 months using soldier labour -- looks impressive, and is almost eerily empty.

The complex reportedly receives several thousand visitors a day, but on a recent Saturday afternoon, only a few dozen of the more than 3,000 computer console study stations were occupied -- several of those by members of staff.

Like other prestige projects, the centre is as much a symbol of intent as anything else.

Wealth and power

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In numerous speeches and statements, including a keynote address to a rare party congress in May, Kim has put science and technology front and centre of the effort to build a "rich and powerful fatherland."

The power element is firmly focused on national defence, and a science-based weapons system ranging from cyber warfare to a sophisticated nuclear deterrent.

The country's nuclear and missile scientists are treated as national heroes, feted with personal congratulations from the top leadership and rewarded with modern high-rise apartments in Pyongyang and multiple other benefits for themselves and their families.

The Sci-Tech Center's main structure is built around a large mock-up of the North's Unha 3 rocket -- a satellite launcher seen as a prototype for an eventual inter-continental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the mainland United States.

Pyongyang insists the rocket's uses are purely scientific and space-based.

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On the cyber warfare front, the North has already proved its technical capabilities, launching a damaging attack on South Korean banks and broadcasters in 2013 and blamed by Washington for an audacious hacking assault on Sony Pictures the following year.

'World-class' cyber warriors

In testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee in April, the newly-appointed commander of US forces in South Korea, General Vincent Brooks, said the North's elite cyber units "are among the best in the world and the best organised."

This in a country where access to the full internet is the privilege of an elite few.

The Sci-Tech complex's computer consoles are segregated, with those in the main hall only capable of accessing a home-page hosted on an internal server with a limited menu of subjects ranging from children' cartoons to educational material.

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Users over the age of 17 and with the required permission, can surf the North's tightly-controlled, closed-network intranet system, allowing access to state media and some officially approved sites.

There are also links to North Korean university e-libraries and large wall posters boast -- or at least suggest -- the availability of well-known Western scientific databases like Elsevier and Springer.

The intranet runs on an indigenously developed Linux-based operating system, Red Star.

Niklaus Scheiss and Florian Grunow, two German researchers who downloaded and conducted an exhaustive analysis of Red Star, described it as the "wet dream of a surveillance state."

Keeping tabs

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The system notes and reacts to any attempt to tinker with its core functions and creates tabs, or "watermarks," on the files of a computer or any USB stick connected to it.

The purpose, Scheiss and Grunow told a conference in Hamburg last year, is to track any user who created, possessed or opened any particular file.

It's a powerful tool in a country where unauthorised material, including foreign films, news articles or music are often shared illicitly using USB sticks or other data cards.

Visitors to the Sci-Tech centre are issued temporary ID cards that allocate and log them in and out of a specific console.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720"It's a good place to study and I work here during my lunch breaks," said Ri Yong-Hwa, a college student with a part-time job at the centre.

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"I wanted to put into action our Dear Leader's words to place our country at the forefront of science and technology," Ri told AFP.

Ordinary North Koreans usually express only officially-sanctioned views when questioned by foreign news organisations.

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