NK NEWS BRIEF | March 26, 2014

A specimen from the new fleet of Pyongyang taxis. There are now reportedly over 1000 taxis in PY | Photo: Choson Exchange

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK: Land investments are becoming increasingly popular among officials in NK. Source: “Apartments used to be thought of as the best choice among all the housing options, but this has now shifted to houses. Powerful folks have come down to single-storey homes; they’ve all become ddangjjigi [owners of significant areas of land].” A single-storey house near a public market can be bought today for around $5,000, while the advance purchase of an apartment in the vicinity of a railway station is $20,000. Therefore, an increasing number of people are seeking to buy the former in order to tear it down and replace it with a new structure. Construction companies are reportedly recording good profits as a result.

• Chosun Ilbo on the widening PY-provinces divide: ROKG source: “In recent years, we’ve witnessed the rise of a socialist aristocracy. They live in apartments that cost between US$30,000 to $100,000 filled with imported home appliances and furniture and they have maids to do the cleaning, spending between $500 and more than $1,000 a month.” One home in a high-riser currently under construction in Pyongyang recently sold for some $350,000. The cream of NK society feed their babies SKorean formula and drink imported coffee and bottled water, keeping dogs and working out at the gym. Intelligence official: Around 1% of NK’s population, or 240,000 people, are believed to own between $50,000 and over $100,000 in assets.

• Choson Exchange: “A new fleet of taxis can be seen around town. We’re told that the ranks of taxis in Pyongyang have now swelled to over 1000 cars, a dramatic increase in less than a year… There are also new red taxis… but we’re told those are not a new company, just upgrades for older fleets. Competition appears to [have] dragged the older, established players to improve their service.”

• Chosun Ilbo: NK textbooks teach students that SK is a “fascist, military dictatorship” dominated by “foreign powers” and filled with “poverty and starvation.” Textbooks also describe SK as a country where US soldiers “fire guns in broad daylight, plunder homes and rape women.” However according to Kim, a former high-ranking official in NK: “In the past, information was blocked and propaganda and brainwashing were used to maintain the regime, but such ideological education no longer works now that practically every NKorean has seen SKorean TV series.”

• Chosun Ilbo: A top military academy reportedly hung up signs with KIS quotes saying that China is a “turncoat and our enemy.” They also reportedly urge soldiers to take a “proper view” of China and to incite revolution on the Korean Peninsula without outside help. KJU reportedly ordered the sign to be displayed again after China joined UN Security Council sanctions last year. Source: “The position of the North Korean regime is to use China, but not trust it.”

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• Daily NK: An increasing number of NK factories and enterprises are leasing out parcels of farmland to private individuals to increase production. Source: “On average they agree to divide up production 70/30, but in cases where lessees have already shown the ability to generate good returns on their own private plots it can be as high as 50/50.”

• RFA: NK is set to earn $5 million for producing two statues of Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe.

• Daily NK: Textile and clothing enterprises that dramatically raised the wages of employees in September 2013 are still paying the same high wages. Source: “Quite a few workers returned to work in the factory when they heard about the wage increases, but because of the tough work here they are trying to find ways to get out again. The wage rise isn’t enough, as 300,000 won is still less than what the average market trader can make in a month. So, they want to move to other places.”

• NK Econ Watch: The rice price has fallen 42% and the won has appreciated 13% (against the USD) in the last year. In 3/2013 rice cost 6,900 won/kilo and in 3/2014 it cost 4,000 won/kilo.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• A UN Human Rights Council resolution drafted by the EU and Japan is likely to call on the UNSC to bring NK to an “international criminal justice mechanism,” such as the ICC or an ad hoc UN tribunal. A UN official hailed the draft resolution as the most effective and firm resolution to emerge from the HRC. PGH urged Beijing not to veto the COI report, saying that doing so would “impact” the international calls for human rights in NK.

• Uriminzokkiri: “Chosun is a human paradise where the Lord would have nothing to do even if he came… On the shores of liberated Chosun, Great Suryeong comrade Kim Il Sung, for whom the people were of the utmost importance, firmly rejected the sophistries of ‘let’s establish socialism along the lines of other nations’ and ‘let’s create a bourgeois republic,’ and instead founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in accordance with the nature of the people and their ardent desires.”

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• Yonhap: An official meeting of directors from NK and Japan is expected on the 30th to the 31st, but the NKorean spokesman claims that the NK kidnapping issue is all settled. (Korean).

• Yonhap: Seoul is concerned that the diplomatic re-engagement between PY and Tokyo could come without any progress on denuclearization.

• NK News: NKorean officials have reiterated their demand for compensation for Japanese use of Korean “Comfort Women” during World War II.

• Daily NK: NK’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN declared the recent firing of short-range missiles as “self-defensive exercises as part of a normal training regimen.” Ri: “If the US raises the pressure stakes against the North through its joint military exercises with the South, analogous retaliatory measures may be taken. […] The US is causing a ridiculous commotion about human rights as part of its new hostile policy toward the North.”

• JoongAng Daily: PGH and President Xi presented a common stance on NK, and vowed to step up “communication and cooperation” toward peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. Xi stressed that China “clearly objects to North Korea’s nuclear possession” and is trying to maneuver NK in the direction international society wants it to take. PGH’s remarks raised the specter that six-party talks may be resumed.

• Korea Herald: Seoul demanded PY pay back loans and interest totaling $86 million, in installments. PY has ignored Seoul’s repeated calls for paying back food loans ($5.83 million for the first installment in July 2012 and $5.78 million for the second installment last July). Under the agreements for the food and light industry loans, NK is to pay back a total of $961.53 million to the South by 2037. In 2008, NK repaid 3% of light industry loans in the form of zinc worth $2.4 million.

• Hankyoreh: The MOU adopted a positive message on the resumption of tourism at Mt. Keumgang in its 2014 Unification White Paper, suggesting they may work towards restarting the tours.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Foster-Carter: “A year after Park Geun-hye took office as President of the Republic of Korea, I can’t for the life of me fathom what her policy towards North Korea really is. Her government has said many things and done rather fewer. But they don’t add up to a coherent whole. In fact, they seem to pull in contrary directions.”

• Noland: TNS polling of SKoreans shows a perception of improved relations between NK and SK over the last year.

NK News Brief acronyms.

Sign up to receive the NK News Brief by email here.

Donate

Your generous donation will rescue and support North Korean refugees.

Donate

100% funds programs.