NK NEWS BRIEF | August 14, 2013

North Korea’s new “Arirang” phone | AFP Photo / KCNA via KNS

NK INTERNAL

• KCNA on KJU’s visit to a factory “producing” Arirang Android clone phones: “After learning about the performance of a touch hand phone, he said that a hand phone is convenient for its user when that part of the phone is sensitive… After being told that “Arirang” hand phones which the factory started producing a few days ago are high in demand among people, he said he was also pleased as they are liked by people… How nice to see hand phones being successfully produced with indigenous technology, he said, adding it is of educational significance in making people love Korean things. He said that only when the quality of products is improved while boosting their production, people will like home-made things and they will be in high demand.”

• NK Tech’s Williams suspects the Arirang phones are actually produced in China.

• NK Tech investigation on NK’s Samjiyon tablet identifies it as also made in China. Review here.

• N Korean authorities have revised the “Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System”, leaving the basic structure in place, and adding KJI’s name. The Ten Principles were created in the 1970s by KJI, and designed to lay down core tenants of the Kim dynasty during power during the transition from KIS.  

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• UN FAO: NK has been able to secure 290,600 tons of various grains from abroad from November 2012 through June of this year. The total is equal to just 57% of the 507,000 tons the North needs to secure by October to prevent a food shortage for its people.

• SKorean diplomat in Beijing: NK’s H1 trade with China fell 6% to 2.95b USD compared to 2012 H1. Exports to China rose 6%; coal increased by 18%, accounting for 54.8 of total exports to China. Meanwhile imports dropped 14%; inc. 15% decrease in crude oil imports, 65% decrease in food imports.

• Official figures show that US exports to NK amounted to 5.1m USD in H1, down 25% from last year. There were no US imports from NK. 80,000 USD worth of meat and 11,000 USD worth of fabric were exported in June, with the remainder being free aid such as food and medicine, a majority of which was also sent in June.

• NKnet: KJU recently ordered the construction of roller-skating rinks in several areas around the country. Roller-skates are now a common sight in the markets, but the price range of 120-150 RMB (equivalent to around 25kg of rice) is prohibitively expensive for average NKoreans, making them a status symbol.  

• Park Sang-kwon, president of SK’s Pyeonghwa Motors Corp: NK is developing six special tourist zones and converting three military airports to civilian use in order to spur economic growth through the tourism dollar.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• The USG’s NKHR envoy Ambassador King will travel to China, SK, and Japan August 19-29 for regular consultations with senior govt officials and civil society groups on a range of human rights and humanitarian issues.

REFUGEES

• Daily NK: The NKorean authorities have transferred the duty of tracking down and repatriating defectors from the National Security Agency to the General Bureau of Reconnaissance, with GBR agents in their teens and early twenties being dispatched to the field in an attempt to improve defector capture rates. Source: “They hide their identity until the last moment, then, just before the defectors are due to head for Thailand or Laos, they seize and repatriate them… They are also using defector families to try and lure defectors back to North Korea. It will be hard to avoid them.”

• Daily NK: Concern has been growing recently within the defector community in SK over suspicions that the National Security Agency is seizing defectors when they visit China and taking them back to the North. This is because of a rising number of instances in which contact with defectors is lost once they are in China.

• SK PM Chung Hong-won, speaking to young defectors: “As future leaders in the era of the reunification, elite North Korean defectors can vividly describe (to the North) the circumstances here, especially what freedom and happiness mean.” The audience consisted of young defectors (mostly university students) who are members of a new Reunification Leaders’ Academy, a govt-sponsored educational program on diverse inter-Korean issues including reunification and security issues.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• NK and SK reached a five point agreement on reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex after a seventh round of talks, including agreement that the complex would not “be affected by inter-Korean situations under any circumstances” and agreement to internationalise the complex, including by developing “systems in relations to labor affairs, tax, wage and insurance, which are applied in the complex, into international-level ones.” Chronology of KIC talks since the beginning of the shutdown in April.

• Gallup Korea survey (n=1,200): 50.4% of SKoreans wanted the KIC to be kept in operation. 52.3% believe the PGH administration is doing a good job on NK policy, up from 34.3% under the LMB administration. 52.3% favored SK acquiring nuclear weapons of its own to counter the NK threat, compared to 19.8% opposed.

• The ROKG has okayed a visit by SKorean aid monitors to NK, the first such approval for a visit outside Kaesong and Kumgang Mountain since PGH came to power.

• The SK-US annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint military exercise will run from Aug 19-30, and will include about 50K SKorean and 30K US troops.

• As progressives in SK protest the involvement of the NIS in the December 2012 presidential elections, Uriminzokkiri stated its support for the candlelight vigils.

• According to the Police Policy Institute (a private SKorean think tank), NK has established a team of about 200 agents who post comments on major SKorean portals and disguise their identity using personal information stolen from SKoreans. The United Front Department wages its cyber psychological warfare through some 140 sites with servers based in 19 countries. In 2011, NKorean agents posted 27,090 items of propaganda materials against the South, and in 2012 some 41,373.

• Yonhap: NK is seen to be increasing its diplomatic outreach to African countries in a bid to break out of its international isolation.

• Detained US citizen Kenneth Bae has been transferred to hospital after his health deteriorated, and he called for a high-ranking USG official to travel to NK to seek his pardon.

• Former USG officials met with current NK foreign ministry officials for Track II discussions in Switzerland.

• Panama has finished searching the NKorean vessel. Cargo included equipment for launching missiles, a variety of weapons systems and live munitions. UN experts will assess whether the shipment violated sanctions.

• In a Chinese language commentary, China’s state-run Global Times said China should treat NK as an “important defense shield” and “The main factor for the friendship between China and North Korea is a geopolitical issue.”

ANALYSIS AND OPINION

• Snyder: “The bottom line: expect more nuclear and missile tests and/or other North Korean provocations sooner or later, because Kim Jong-un’s legitimacy and his prospects for survival may depend upon it.”

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