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NK NEWS BRIEF | APR 11, 2015
POSTED April 11, 2015
NKorean co-operative farm workers prepare fields for rice transplanting. Pyongyang relies on support from foreign aid organisations, but has recently expelled two humanitarian aid workers. | Photo: Reuters
NK INTERNAL
- Daily NK: The April 9 SPA session, not attended by KJU, saw talk of improving the people’s quality of life but failed to offer specific plans or economic policies to achieve it.
- Yonhap: Hwang Pyong-so has been promoted to a member of the politburo presidium of the KWP.
- Daily NK: Farming practices and equipment remain outdated, to the dismay of some NKorean farmers and party cadres. Gangwon source: “Spring farming season has brought with it the ‘tilling battle’ but most equipment required for the project is nonfunctional… Party cadres in the farming sector have even chimed in, lamenting how things seem to be ‘going back in time.’”
- Daily NK: Private tutoring in dance choreography is booming in major cities, and some students are secretly learning to dance to SKorean pop music. “The dance instructors use their homes as studio spaces, teaching students the basic steps before moving on to instruct them in the actual choreography… More than 80% of female students in major cities are learning South Korean dances from private tutors.”
- Daily NK: Reforestation efforts are going ahead with insufficient consideration of the location of farmlands. Yangkang source: “In time for national mobilization for land management, forest protection agents announced at inminban meetings that residents using individual plots near the road or on the slopes of mountains will have to manage trees planted there while cultivating the land… The major problem here is that they were ordered to abandon that land after four years and stop farming there. This has seriously upset a lot of people.”
- Daily NK: Taking selfie photos is on the rise in NK. N Pyongan source: “Mobile phones were previously just a business tool crucial to people’s livelihoods, but more recently they are also being used for entertainment purposes as well… Performance and features vary between models, but almost all phones have a camera so taking ‘selfies’ is one practice pretty much everyone engages in.”
ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY
- Daily NK: As the NK govt has reneged on its promises to distribute student uniforms, tailors and other private entrepreneurs are meeting the demand instead. S Pyongan source: “Uniforms were distributed to first graders in some elementary schools, but there are exceedingly more cases of those who received nothing… As soon as rumors began circulating that the state would produce new uniforms, the tailors with the keenest business sense sprang to action, importing swathes of fabric from China ahead of the directive.”
- Daily NK: There has been an increase in mobile phones being stolen and sold in NK. “There are a lot of pickpockets on the train who target mobile phones… they’ll use the opportunity during meals or temporary power outages on the train to steal the mobile phones.”
- Yonhap: China rejected for the second time the anthracite coal export from NK for not meeting Chinese standards of mercury emissions.
- Reuters: The UN called for 111m USD to fund humanitarian aid for NK this year, which it said remains drastically underfunded. The latest UN report also states that about 70% of NKoreans are food insecure and almost 1/3 of children under five are stunted.
BORDER SECURITY & HUMAN RIGHTS
- Phoenix TV via Yonhap: The relatives of Chinese victims killed in a NKorean soldier’s attempted robbery rejected PY’s compensation of 1,500 USD per victim, and appealed to the Chinese authorities for state compensation.
- Daily NK: Rapid Reaction Forces are being dispatched to crack down on illegal travel towards border regions. Source: “RRF like these have conducted intense searches in trains bound for Pyongyang since around 2005 under the pretext of ‘protecting the capital,’ but now they’ve widened their scope to encompass trains headed for border areas… Those caught by these units are automatically taken to a ‘travelers collecting point,’ where they are forced to perform manual labor for a period of one to three months as punishment.”
- Yonhap: PY has again denied allegations that the ‘Laos 9’ young NKoreans who were repatriated have been executed or put in prison camps, saying that some of them have become college students.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY
- Yonhap: One of NK’s deputy PMs, Roh Du Cheol, is expected to visit Moscow on 13 April in what could be part of preparations for a visit by KJU next month.
- Yonhap: PY threatened to respond “with blows of fire” against SKorean activists who have recently resumed launches of balloons laiden with anti-PY leaflets and DVDs of “The Interview”.
- AFP: The American founder of Wheat Mission Ministries, an organization that provides food aid and medical technology to NK, has been deported from the country for allegedly producing anti-NK videos and photos. This comes on the back of the unexplained expulsion of the country director of a German aid group.
- Yonhap: PY fired 4 short-range missiles into the West Sea. ROK JCS: “[It] appears to be the North’s provocations in opposition to the ongoing Seoul-Washington joint military exercise and civic groups’ move to launch anti-Pyongyang leaflets.” US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter: “It’s just a reminder of how tense things are on the Korean peninsula, that’s the reason I’m going.”
- NYT: A ship owned by the Ocean Maritime Management Company, a NKorean company sanctioned by the UN, has been detained in Mexico. NK’s deputy UN ambassador: “This ship is totally a peaceful and legitimate commercial ship which sails under the direction of the Ministry of Land and Sea Transportation… We will take necessary measures to make the ship leave immediately.”
- AP: The US Congress is working on a new bill to restrict NK’s dollar transactions. Ed Royce: “By shutting down North Korea’s illicit activities, we deprive the Kim regime of the money it needs to pay the generals and to conduct nuclear weapons research.”
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