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NK NEWS BRIEF | July 10, 2014
POSTED July 10, 2014
NKorean women cheer their team at the 2003 Daegu Universiade Games in Daegu, South Korea. NK is expected to dispatch another cheerleading squad to the Asian Games in Incheon in September | AP
NK INTERNAL
- Daily NK on the recent popularity of SKorean period drama Jeongdojeon in NK, partly because of its portrayal of a different Koryo Dynasty-era historical narrative than that taught in NK. “When it comes up, people who have watched it react and those who haven’t, don’t; because they have no idea what the others are talking about. Those who have watched it can enjoy talking about the drama and history for hours.”
- KCNA reported that KJU expressed “satisfaction” during his visit to the Songdowon International Children’s Camp in Wonsan, Gangwon Province with the new facilities including a speed water slide, a mirror house and an aquarium.
- Yonhap: Key NKorean nuclear program developer Gen. Jon Pyong-ho died of a heart attack at the age of 88.
- Yonhap: KJU led a national memorial service in PY on Tuesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of KIS. BBC: Rare footage of KJU limping as he attended commemorations was aired on state TV.
- Daily NK: “Expert opinions vary… but estimates contend that the embalming process cost around $1 million USD, with annual upkeep thought to be approximately $800,000 USD. It is unclear whether North Korea receives a discount since both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are housed in the same location.”
- RFA: NK issued an order to stop its trade officials abroad from using the Internet. Source: “The order discouraging trade workers abroad from using the Internet by the NKorean government is actually a warning to not [disseminate] outside information.”
- RFA: NK stepped up measures to counter the use of illegal cell phones operating on China’s telecommunications networks by deploying jamming and wiretapping equipment along their border. Source: “It is not easy, but Chinese cell phone users are able to make a phone call if they travel to rural areas [near the border]. Yet, if the jamming signals continue to spread, people soon won’t be able to use the phones anywhere along the border.”
ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY
- Yonhap: A US report said China donated US$1 million to the WFP to help feed malnourished NKorean children and pregnant women. VOA: The donation will be used to provide food to around 1.8 million NKorean babies, children and expectant mothers.
- NK News: Babson on PY’s pursuit of foreign investment and trade, through larger projects like special economic zones (SEZs) and smaller-scale policy adjustments.
- Daily NK: With the relationship between Tokyo and PY improving, the Korean-Japanese community hope for sanctions to go and trade to restart. If Japanese products begin circulating widely in NK the Korean-Japanese community could again be a viable economic competitor for the hwagyo – overseas Chinese living in NK. 38 North: If recent outreach between Japan and NK bears fruit, Wonsan could undergo a 21st century revival.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY
- The Japanese government denied press reports that a list of 30 Japanese abduction survivors including was handed over by PY in a July 1 meeting in Beijing.
- Japan Times: Former NK abductee Hitomi Soga says Japan has the best chance in a long time to settle the abductee issue once and for all and expressed her hope for the safe return of other kidnapping victims. Soga: “It was tough to wait.”
- Yonhap: NK will dispatch a cheering squad and its athletes to the upcoming Asian Games at Incheon in September. KCNA said the purpose is to improve inter-Korean relations and to show PY’s commitment to unification. China supported NK’s decision, urging both Seoul and PY to make “joint efforts” to promote peace and stability in the region.
- Yonhap: The ROKG gave permission to a Christian humanitarian aid group to visit NK to discuss the resumption of joint agricultural projects.
- Telegraph: PY took its complaint against the movie, “The Interview” to the UN, saying that allowing a comedy about an assassination bid on KJU to be made constitutes “the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism.”
- WSJ: Following the latest rocket launches, KJU was quoted by state media as saying, “However fair-minded and just we are, we may become a bargaining chip for the strong and our precious history inherited with blood will loose [sic] its shine in a moment if we are weak,” seemingly in response to recent regional diplomacy that has excluded PY.
- USG’s Kerry in Beijing: “The United States and China agreed on an important urgency of achieving a denuclearized, stable and prosperous Korean Peninsula, and we discussed specific ways in which we think can advance that goal.”
- Yonhap: China and SK succeeded in bolstering cooperation on economic and other bilateral issues but the Xi-Park summit also revealed their fundamental differences on how to deal with NK.
- Yonhap: NK has nearly doubled the number of ‘elite hackers’ (from around 3,000 to 5,900 personnel) over the past two years in an effort to step up cyber-attacks, reportedly outnumbering US (900) and Japan (90).
- Daily NK: TheUK govt donated 660,000 USD in ODA to NK last year. 342,000 USD went on British Council English language education in PY, and smaller amounts went to the Chosun Red Cross Society, training for NKorean officials and the participation of a NKorean athlete in the Paralympics.
ANALYSIS & OPINION
- NK News: Lankov on the the living conditions of NKorean city-dwellers.
- CNN video: Defector Yeonmi Park explains how, unlike her parents’ generation who received everything from the regime, her generation had to survive by themselves through market activities. To this ‘market generation’, the regime is seen as an obstacle for private businesses.
- Independent: “It’s a golden age for information, but also for misinformation. The infantile rumours [about NK] can run away with themselves, collecting an authority on the web which is hard to ever fully dispel. It creates a pleasant chimera, highlighting the ridiculous at the expense of the horrendous. It’s easier to laugh at something (and more enjoyable too) than consider the implications behind it.”
- Babson: “The irony here is that the marketization of North Korea is bottom-up. It’s largely unregulated and, in that sense, it has one of the freest, unregulated market economies of the world. (This is) because the government’s unwillingness to regulate changed the system, but the fact that the market economy is growing and the new dynamics mean that it’s even more unregulated than Hong Kong or Singapore.”
- Choson Exchange: “Since the initiation of its Women in Business (WIB) program in 2012, Choson Exchange (CE) has been training more than 130 female North Koreans in business, finance, and law… The WIB program focuses on women because ambitious female professionals in the emergent small and medium enterprise sector (SME) are increasingly driving economic change in the DPRK.”
- WSJ: Chinese views of the Koreas: SK = Dramas, plastic surgery, and shop signs with characters that look like wheels. NK = “a poor relative.”
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