NK NEWS BRIEF | June 12, 2013

Small commerce: People in a truck buying from a woman peddling goods from the back of her bicycle | Photo: Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt via Twitter ‏@ska_kongshan

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK: Minister of People’s Security Choi Bu Il was repromoted to the rank of “General” after being demoted earlier this year, signaling how the leadership is conferring ranks and awards to officials in order to ensure loyalty.

• Daily NK: NKorean authorities are on the lookout for two men who beat a Ministry of People’s Security officer to death. Source: “This incident might look like an unprovoked incident, but people are suffering a lot, and the more the security services crackdown so the more people have issues with them. This case emerged from those complaints.”

• A new industry has risen up around “the art of returning damaged (foreign) currency to a usable state” through skilled ink techniques. After the 2009 currency reform RMB and USD became even more popular, but no-one wants to keep their money in a bank so money is stored at home resulting in the degradation of the bills.

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• Korea Herald: A number of individuals with suspected connections to NK are operating ghost companies in international tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands.

• The UN WFP has approved a 2 year operation worth 200 million USD, aimed at the most vulnerable populations in NK, about 2.4 million people consisting of children along with pregnant and nursing women. WFP Spokesman: “WFP remains very concerned about the long-term intellectual and physical development of young children in particular who are malnourished due to a diet lacking in key proteins, fats and micronutrients.” Nearly 28% of children under five in NK suffer from chronic malnutrition and 4% are acutely malnourished, according to a UN survey last year.

• KCNA: NK enacted a new law on economic development zones that outlines the laws for setting up an economic development zone while also permitting foreigners and overseas Koreans to invest and set up businesses within them.

• IFES “NK’s release of this information regarding the new economic measures to AP and other foreign media after it gained the confidence to properly manage the new economic measure from the successful pilot projects of the new economic measures. However, information released to the foreign media is still limited and changes in other areas including banking and finance sectors remain unknown.

• NK’s Mansudae Art Studio, “the world’s largest art factory” that is known for artistic projects in the classical and Social Realist style for “Kim-family deification” is a source of revenue for the country. Source: “Senegal’s 164-foot-tall African Renaissance Monument was built by Mansudae artists for about $70 million in 2010.

REFUGEES

• Daily NK: SK is set to clarify the status of the “Laos defection route” by which a significant number of NKorean refugees seek to escape to SK. MOFA is working to schedule a meeting between SKorean Minister Yun Byung Se and Laotian Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation meeting in Indonesia on June 13th and 14th. In addition, head of SKorea-Laos parliamentary committee Kim Jae-won, is set to lead a special delegation to Laos where officials will discuss the repatriation case and future policy governing similar issues.

• Choson Ilbo: The South Korean Embassy in Laos is now sheltering about 20 North Korean defectors, including some children, people with physical disabilities, and cancer patients. Activist: “We fear that it’ll take some time for the 20-odd defectors in the embassy to make their way to South Korea because Laos still hasn’t articulated its position on defectors from North Korea.”

• KCNA’s on the Laos repatriations: “The South Korean authorities sent flesh traffic dealers under the guise of religionists to the northern border area of the DPRK to lure and abduct dozens of youngsters of the DPRK and detain them in a secret hide and commit all kinds of evil acts against them…” The ROKG wrote off the accusations as “absurd and groundless”.

• Yonhap (Korean): The nine young North Koreans repatriated from Laos have reportedly been filmed by NK state media visiting amusement parks in Pyongyang, raising expectation that a propaganda package will soon be released to the outside world.  

• Daily NK (Korean): Interest in the case of the Laos 9 has suffered as a result of the sudden rise in expectations on official N-S talks. Human rights activists and defector lawmaker Cho Myung-chul have urged the SK gov’t to raise NK human rights and refugee issues with the NKorean officials.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• AP: NK’s crackdown on attempted defections and illegal border crossers has swelled the prison population since KJU came to power. ROKG statement: “From defector accounts, it appears prison camps are still being operated, and control on society, including the flow of information, is toughening,”

• Shin Dong-hyuk on the UN Commission of Inquiry on NK : “Maybe they can make the impossible possible… They need to do it from a long-term perspective and in a very systematic way… I will do my best, whether it is giving testimony or having other interactions with them.”

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• NK reopened the official Red Cross hotline with SK. However on Weds morning the NK side was not picking up the phone.

• NK made a proposal to hold talks for the first time in 28 months to normalize inter-Korean ties, including reopening the KIC and the Mount Keumgang resort, to which SK accepted. However after working-level talks NK cancelled ministerial-level talks due to disputes over composition of the delegations.

• President Obama and President Xi Jinping agreed to push for the denuclearization of NK. White House National Security Advisor: “They agreed that NK has to denuclearize, that neither country will accept NK as a nuclear-armed state and that we would work together to deepen cooperation and dialogue to achieve denuclearization.”

• South Korean President PGH’s state visit to China will be June 27-30, where the leaders are expected to discuss peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and expanding trade (including a free trade agreement).

• SK plans to activate its indigenous preemptive missile defense system no later than 2020. Source: “The system involves spy satellites, surveillance drones for monitoring and attack systems, including missiles, fighter jets and warships.”

• Asashi Shimbun: In 2011, China may have knowingly shipped large lumber transportation vehicles to NK capable of carrying and launching ballistic missiles, a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Go Myong-hyun: “The Chinese trade data shows that the North Korean economy is not only changing in terms of quantity, but in quality as well. The composition of imported items is more sophisticated and diverse than before South Korea and the United States cut aid and trade in 2008/9. North Korea is using more and better fertilizers than before 2008/9,11 which might have resulted in increased food production. If the curtailing of aid and trade after the 2008/9 period was the biggest negative external shock to the North Korean economy, the sudden explosion of trade with China has certainly made up for it, judging from the national nutrition surveys since 2009 and the 2012 FAO/WFP report.”

• Snyder on the effect of China-US relations on NK-SK relations.

• Sokeel Park: “The current heightened crackdown on North Korean refugees should give President Obama the urgency to lead the international community in voicing concern for these vulnerable people, and suggest that the Chinese government’s actions will affect interpretations of what kind of superpower China aims to be, in terms of their emphasis on acting according to international law, humanitarian principles and in the interests of global human progress.”

MISC

• Last year Choson Exchange, a Singaporean non-profit, organized for five young North Koreans (aged 25-39) to intern in Singapore, a “rare chance to see life outside their native North Korea.” Choson Exchange seeks to promote dialogue and trust between the “emerging leaders” of North Korea and the outside world through business exchanges and educational opportunities.

• NK defector Park Ji Woo, author of “North Korean in New York” writes about her experiences travelling in the United States, including Disneyland — her first amusement park.

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