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NORTH KOREA EVENTS

2008

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2008 :

NORTH KOREAN EVENTS

January 2008

N. Korea's shrinking oil imports reflect economic hardships (Jan 2008) North Korea's crude oil imports in 2006 amounted to merely 3.8 million barrels, a steep fall from about 18 million barrels in the early 1990s, a South Korean government report disclosed on Sunday said, indicating the difficulties faced by the communist state in reviving its economy amid a prolonged nuclear stalemate. According to the National Statistics Office's report, the 3.8 million barrel import marked the smallest amount of oil imported by the impoverished communist state in a five-year span ending in 2006.

The six-party denuclearization deal, signed last year, calls for providing the North with 1 million tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in aid. North Korea imported as many as 18 million barrels of crude oil in 1990, nearly five times its imports in 2006. Crude imports hit their lowest mark when the North brought in 2.3 million barrels in 1999, signaling its deteriorating economic conditions. North Korea's 2006 oil imports accounted for only 0.43 percent of South Korea's imports in the same year. (Source: Yonhap News.)

IFES NK Brief on 16 Jan reported that DPRK imports of crude petroleum in 2006 appear to have dropped to the lowest level in recent years, dipping almost to the level imported during 1997~1998, the worst point in the DPRK's economic difficulties. According to a book of figures recently published by the National Statistical Office, 'Comparison of North and South Korean Socio-economic Circumstances', the DPRK's crude imports over the past several years bottomed out at 2,325,000 barrels in 1999, then rose to 4,244,000 barrels by 2001. Since 2001, imports have steadily fallen until only 3,841,000 barrels were imported in 2006, recording the least imports in the last five years. This level of imported crude is similar to the 3,709,000 barrels imported in 1997 and 3,694,000 barrels in 1998, in the midst of mass starvation and the 'arduous march'.


DPRK Heavy Fuel Oil (Jan 2008) RIA Novosti on 14 Jan reported that Russia will supply 50,000 tons of fuel oil to the DPRK on January 20-21 in line with a six-nation deal to resolve the country's nuclear problem, a deputy foreign minister said. "I think we will complete the delivery on January 20-21," Alexander Losyukov said after talks in Moscow with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. Losyukov said: "North Korea cannot use this [the delivery of Russian fuel oil] as an excuse to drag its feet on denuclearization process any longer." Russia has also offered the DPRK a number of energy deals and the possibility of writing off part of Pyongyang's Soviet-era debt if it continues to fulfill its commitment to complete nuclear disarmament.


DPRK undergoing Restructuring (Jan 2008) Donga Ilbo on 16 Jan reported that the DPRK has been undergoing a "major restructuring" of its party, government and military organizations since the New Year. DPRK leader Kim Jong Il instructed on Dec. 29 that all of the regime's institutions, including the Workers` Party, the cabinet, the military and national security agency, reduce their bureaucracies and the number of senior officials by 30 percent beginning in 2008, according to a well-informed source on Pyongyang's internal affairs. Although detailed plans for the restructuring have not been announced, speculation is rife among high ranking officials that the first target of the reform will be each institution's agencies linked to earning foreign currency, given that an excessive number of those agencies had been established. (SITE NOTE: There may be concerns amongst the elite that this "restructuring" might cause them to lose their jobs or force their retirement. Little is known but restructuring during these times of a weak economy may have other reasons.)


DPRK Population Hits 23.6 Million in 2004 (Jan 2008) Chosun Ilbo on 21 Jan reported that the DPRK's population reached 23,612,000 in 2004, according to a 2007 almanac released by the Korean Central News Agency. According to the yearbook, the country's population grew by about 1.5 million, or around 200,000 per year, from 22,114,000 in 1996. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimated the DPRK's population in 2004 at 22,697,553.

Seoul to Fund N.Korea's Census (Jan 2008) The Unification Ministry will donate US$4 million from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to a population and housing census North Korea plans to conduct in cooperation with the UN this year. It will be the first census of the entire North Korean population since 1993.

The ministry on 29 Jan said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) in December last year to donate $4 million to the census. This accounts for 72 percent of the estimated total $5.55 million needed, but South Korean census takers are unlikely to take part since, according to a ministry official, the North opposes it. (SITE NOTE: So what does this mean? How can you do a census of North Korea if the North Koreans oppose South Korean participation? Thus the North will have their own census takers and can everyone be assured that the results -- good or bad -- are true?)

Seoul is to receive the questionnaires and results of the census from the UNFPA on a priority basis. The ministry said the results “will be of great help to understanding the people's lives and various social phenomena in North Korea. We decided to help the North's census from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund since the results will serve as basic materials for us to work out medium and long-term North Korea policies." (SITE NOTE: If the census is questionable because only North Koreans -- refusing to have outside observers present -- then what can be said about any conclusions or policies based upon this data? Garbage in, garbage out. Of course, the Roh administration has always trusted the word of the North -- whether on counterfeit money or meeting the Nuclear Declaration deadline.)

UNFPA technical advisors have been in the North since the second half of last year. They will start the census-taking in October, with the results due out in 2009. The Hong Kong-based Chinese language newspaper Wen Wei Po in December last year reported North Korea has dispatched five researchers to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with the UN fund, where they were to undergo a month’s training in methods of census-taking and statistical analysis of survey data. (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)


Vaccine Diplomacy (Jan 2008) The Joongang Ilbo on 14 Jan reported that the International Vaccine Institute, a Seoul-based international organization that develops and produces vaccines for developing countries, will begin innoculating an estimated 6,000 DPRK children against bacterial meningitis and Japanese encephalitis later this month, John Clemens, the director general of the institute, said. "One thing people commonly do not recognize is that malnutrition is a problem not only of not enough food. Infectious diseases, especially diarrheal diseases, are a major exacerbator of malnutrition in children," he said. "Because vaccines are non-controversial and non-political they are an ideal mechanism to bring people together," he said. "So we feel in a very small way that our work with North Korea is also an example of vaccine diplomacy, and we have a very good and trusting relationship with our North Korean colleagues in our joint efforts to vaccinate North Korean kids."


N. Korea is No. 1 in disaster deaths: report (Jan 2008) North Korea has had the largest number of people in the world killed by natural disasters over the past decade, the international Red Cross said in its latest annual report. Over 458,000 people died in the natural disasters that hit North Korea from 1997 to 2006, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in its World Disasters Report 2007 released on 22 Jan. (SITE NOTE: The North has used its natural disasters to bleed the South dry of supplies -- that were sent unmonitored to the North raising questions as to how much was diverted to the Army. In addition, the UN was very slow to act on some of these disasters because of the reluctance of the North to ask for help because it would have to grant free access.)

The figure accounts for about 38 percent of some 1.2 million natural disaster-caused deaths reported in 220 countries across the world during the same period, the report said. The figure was more than double the number in Indonesia where 181,977 people died in natural disasters. Pakistan and Sri Lanka ranked third and forth.

North Korea, meanwhile, ranked second in disaster deaths from 1987 to 1996, when 153,458 North Koreans died in natural disasters, according to the report. The North ranked slightly behind Bangladesh, top of the list, where flood and other natural disasters caused 156,074 deaths. The report also said the number of North Korean defectors has decreased after rising to a peak of 101,700 people in 2003, citing statistics from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. The number was 100,000 in 2004, shrinking to 51,400 in 2005 and then 34,000 in 2006, the report said. (Source: Yonhap News.)


See N. Korea used UN-linked accounts for arms sales: US probe (Jan 2008) for details of Senate Report that UNDP was used to transfer monies for weapons transactions.


North Proposes Cut in Kaesong Rail Traffic (Jan 2008) North Korea has proposed cutting down cross-border railway services at this week's military talks with South Korea, citing a lack of cargo, a South Korean military official said on 26 Jan. The two Koreas held one-day working-level military talks Friday, the first dialogue between the two countries this year, at the truce village of Panmunjom on the inter-Korean border. Later on 31 Jan a compromise was worked out whereby empty cars would be removed from the train and the daily runs will continue. (SITE NOTE: What is interesting is how the Roh administration rushed through the agreement to start daily railroad runs to Kaesong for cargo deliveries to illustrate the success of the opening of the railway line -- but less than a month later, the North proposes "cutting down" on the service because of lack of cargo. In other words, shipments from Kaesong for export is not all that its vaunted to be -- especially with word in Jan 2008 that tariffs from foreign countries on Kaesong products have affected export growth. High tariffs limit the export of products made by South Korean companies in the joint industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong, a state-run think tank said 20 Jan. The Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) said in a report on the industrial complex just north the of demilitarized zone, that as of September 2007, only US$47.2 million worth of Kaesong goods were exported.)


February 2008

NKorea in Dilemma Over Aid From Seoul (Feb 2008) North Korea is facing its worst food shortage in years, yet its rich southern neighbor has yet to hear the usual cry for help. Instead, the communist regime is silent, and most experts see a connection to the election of a new South Korean president, conservative Lee Myung-bak, who wants concessions from North Korea in exchange for aid. Lee's Grand National Party has argued that South Korea's previous two presidents gave too much unconditional aid to buy reconciliation with the North. The party was a regular target of North Korean criticism. Now Pyongyang finds itself having to work with someone it dubbed a ''philistine'' and ''traitor.'' That makes it hard for the regime to make the opening pitch for aid ''because that could be seen as an expression of its weakness,'' said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

The World Food Program predicts North Korea will fall some 1.4 million tons short of its food needs this year, because of flooding triggered by the heaviest rainfall in 40 years. The floods, which left some 600 people dead or missing, also destroyed more than 11 percent of the country's crops, according to North Korea's state media. Past crop failures have led to famine, and North Korea usually makes its requests for fertilizer aid between mid-January and mid-February for the spring planting season in March. South Korea typically provides 20 percent to 30 percent of it -- between 200,000 and 500,000 tons.

In the past, Seoul never rejected those demands except once, when tensions over North Korea's missile and nuclear programs led to a temporary suspension of deliveries. The fertilizer aid, along with rice, has become a fixture in North Korea's agricultural planning, analysts say. It ''may not look big, but its absence can considerably affect the North's economy,'' said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University. Kim expects Pyongyang to wait as long as it can before asking for fertilizer, and to do so through an unofficial channel. ''For the North, the issue of fertilizer aid will be the first negotiation project with the incoming government,'' Kim said. ''It cannot but take a cautious approach.''

At the Unification Ministry, a government department charged with fostering harmony between the two halves of the Korean peninsula, an official said fertilizer was an urgent issue for the North and he expected a request would ultimately come through. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, the official said North Korea likely would make the request through a non-governmental channel because it would lose face if a formal request to the new president was rejected. (SITE NOTE: The request through the Unification Ministry slated by the Lee administration for termination would cause some hiccups if the Lee administration referred the request through the Foreign Ministry.) (Source: NY Times.)


Japanese Police Say Amphetamine Confiscations Rose 160% In 2007 (Feb 2008) Bloomberg on 7 Feb reported that Japan's National Police Agency seized a 160 percent increase of stimulant drugs from a year earlier. The increase followed of a major organized crime drug route from the DPRK being cut off, police said. Japan has been one of the biggest buyers of DPR Korea- made stimulants. From 1997 to 2002, for example, 40 percent of the confiscated stimulants in Japan came from the DPRK, police said. The smuggled stimulants in 2007 were seized in 65 criminal cases, including 30 that involved shipments from PRC, 11 via Hong Kong, and seven from Canada, police said


DPRK Crackdown on Trading Offices Finds Corruption (Feb 2008) IFES NK Brief on 5 Feb reported that it appears that from the end of last year through this January, DPRK Party, regional, cabinet and People's Committee officials have been carrying out inspections of trading companies, ordering massive layoffs and closings of companies where mis-management or other abnormalities are found. According to the source, over 100 trading companies are registered in Chungjin, South Hamkyung Province, but after the current housecleaning measures are enforced, only around 15 will remain in operation, with practically all problematic offices being closed down. The goal of these inspections appears to have been the restoration of public order, just as the recent measures preventing women under the age of 45 from working in markets was a reaction to diminishing public discipline. In the future, price controls, regulations on export goods, or other government regulations regarding international trade are likely to be strengthened.

North in Midst of Anti-Corruption Drive (Feb 2008) North Korea is in the midst of a massive anti-corruption drive which has already resulted in the arrest of one of its top officials handling business with South Korea, informed sources in Seoul said 9 Feb. The campaign, ordered by leader Kim Jong-il, was prompted by widespread allegations that some top party and administration officials took bribes as they pushed business projects with South Korean industrialists, said the sources well versed in North Korean affairs.

"The probe was launched as National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il said there was a lack of supervision over the United Front Department, although lots of suspicions were raised over the department's corruption," one source told Yonhap News Agency. Kim, 65, rules North Korea in his capacity as head of the National Defense Commission which controls the communist country's 1.1-million-member military. The United Front Department is a key party organization that supervises inter-Korean affairs.

According to the sources in Seoul, the North Korean leader was enraged after getting a report that some party and government officials allegedly pocketed bribes and diverted food and other aid from South Korea to black markets. "Even those who have eaten for free 1 gram of flour from South Korea should cough it up," one source in Seoul said, quoting its North Korean sources whom it did not identify.

Also under investigation is the National Economic Cooperation Council, a government body that handles business with South Korean entrepreneurs, the sources said. The Council's chief, Jeong Woon-eop, remains under arrest pending investigation into allegations that he took "huge amounts" of bribes, said the sources, who wanted to remain anonymous.

With its economy in shambles, North Korea has been relying on outside aid help fee its 23 million people since the mid-1990s. South Korea has so far been one of the biggest donors for its communist neighbor. (Source: Hankyoreh News: Yonhap.)

$20m Found in NECC Chief Residence (Feb 2008) The North Korean law enforcement authorities found US$20 million at the house of Jung Un Op, head of the National Economic Cooperation Committee (NECC) and the National Economic Cooperation Federation (NECF). Jung has reportedly been subject to the authorities’ intense interrogation for the past several months.

A Chinese source, who is familiar with North Korean affairs, said, “Lee Jeh Kang, vice director of the Organization and Guidance Department, an inspection agency under the Workers` Party of North Korea, has taken the lead in questioning Jung and some 80 people regarding where the money came from and how it was going to be used.” “Due to the high intensity of the authorities’ investigation, the phone was out of the service for days recently between the NECC’s branch office in China and its headquarters in Pyongyang,” the source said. “Most of its staff in China and Russia were repatriated for questioning.”

Experts in North Korean affairs said the money might be funds to carry out the communist regime’s legitimate overseas businesses, such as the affiliates of the NECC, but some of it may turn out to be bribes that Jung took from South Korean businesses participating in the inter-Korean economic projects or has been raised by selling humanitarian aid goods to the domestic and international markets. “Keeping cash for operation is a common practice for powerful government agencies in the North where financial institutes are underdeveloped,” one expert pointed out.

“However, we cannot rule out the possibility that Jung embezzled or redirected inter-Korean economic cooperation funds or aids.” Meanwhile, Cho Bong-hyun, a senior researcher at the IBK Economic Research Institute, claimed that the NECC, which was an affiliate of the North’s Cabinet, was recently transferred to the United Front Department of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party. “The primary goal of the NECC is revitalizing the economy. Considering that the Cabinet affiliate has become a party affiliate, it illustrates that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s willingness to supervise inter-Korean cooperation projects directly and strengthen its control over ideology,” Cho said.

North Korea carried out a systematic and proactive inspection on all of its influential agencies last year. Facing serious economic problems, the communist regime launched intensive investigations into the inter-Korean economic cooperation projects of the United Front Department and foreign-currency earning operations of the party and the military. (Source: Donga Ilbo


NKoreans Offer Bribes to Work at Kaesong (Feb 2008) Associated Press on 4 Feb reported that North Koreans are paying bribes to officials to get jobs at the Kaesong industrial complex, where they can make 30 times more than ordinary workers. Reports from North Koreans visiting Dandong, PRC say some pay up to US$350. An official at the ROK's Unification Ministry said he heard from South Korean businessmen operating in Kaesong that some lobbied government officials to work there, however, he had no knowledge of bribes being paid.

Kaesong Workers Recoup Stolen Wages on the Black Market (Feb 2008) According to One Free Korea blog, "With all the questions about how much pay Kaesong workers actually collect, we’ve always suspected that their earnings must be far more than most of their North Korean neighbors. For one thing, the workers are hand-picked loyalists; the regime must want to keep them relatively content. Yet no one really believed that the workers received the “official” wage of around $60 a month, after “voluntary” deductions and the bite of the inflated official exchange rate.

I figured it was just a matter of time before the Daily NK told us the real deal, and finally, we have a few answers. As suspected, the regime gets almost all of the cash. The workers receive ration stamps, or ”commodity provision tickets,” which convey the right to buy scarce food items and consumer goods at special shops for “official” prices. Because those prices are much lower than ordinary black-market rates, Kaesong workers then score a tidy profit reselling what they don’t consume.

Currently, the official salary for laborers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex is around 60 USD, a small amount of which is distributed as cash and the rest in the form of “commodity provision tickets.” In the Kaesong Industrial Complex, there are several shops that can only be frequented by Kaesong laborers and the prices at these stores are at inexpensive compared to prices in the jangmadang. Laborers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex use their “commodity tickets” to purchase products at a cheap price and can make a huge profit by selling the goods, giving the difference to middlemen (currency traders who mediate deals). Recently, there have even been cases where the middlemen had specific orders for certain items from the Kaesong laborers, asking them to procure a certain amount of rice, oil, and so on. The middlemen can easily make an exorbitant amount of money by selling these goods at the jangmadang. Kim also said, “Among the laborers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, there are a lot of people who take an item here and there. Then they conspire with bus drivers and hide the goods in the vicinity; once the quantity is fixed, they hand over the goods to middlemen in exchange for money.” [Daily NK]
"No wonder North Korean workers pay hefty bribes to score jobs there — sure, the workers are exploited, but this is a far more privileged form of exploitation than they’re used to. If North Korea itself is a vast prison, Kaesong sounds like the prison laundry.

"Kaesong also turns out to be something of a laboratory in capitalism after all, though not exactly in the way its South Korean designers must have intended. And while the North Korean authorities probably either designed or choose to overlook this de facto marketization, they may be less pleased if the workers are exposed to South Korean consumer goods, or the abundance in the chow line at lunchtime. At the same time, some of our worst suspicions are confirmed: we have no idea how Kim Jong Il is spending all that cash, and if the workers are essentially paid in food and have no say in the terms of their employment, how are they not slaves? (Source: Joshua: One Free Korea.)


N.Korea May Have Diverted Cash Aid (Feb 2008) In March last year South Korea gave US$3.8 million worth of aid, including $400,000 in cash and building materials, to North Korea to build a center for inter-Korean video-link family reunions in Pyongyang. But North Korea has not even started construction on the site, it was known on 10 Feb.

The donation violated a ban on cash aid to North Korea, but South Korea's Ministry of Unification said at the time that there would be no room for suspicious dealings because the North agreed to inform the South where the money was spent and the South agreed to visit the construction site to find out whether the money and materials were used properly. It has been almost a year since the aid was delivered, but it is not clear what the North has done with the cash and building materials. The South Korean government has demanded that it be allowed to visit the construction site, but the North has brushed off the requests, saying it will show the site "next time" or after the center is dedicated.

Explaining the cash aid at the time, the South Korean government said the money was to be used to purchase LCD monitors and computers which are needed for the video reunion center but cannot be shipped to North Korea according to U.S. Export Administration Regulations.

But many experts believe that argument was just an excuse to give Pyongyang the cash. Seoul could have solved the problem by consulting with the U.S. as it did with the Kaesong Industrial Complex, or it could have bought the equipment for Pyongyang in China.

Song Dae-sung, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a private non-profit think-tank in South Korea specializing in security, national unification, and foreign affairs, said, "The cash aid sent to the North may have been used for three purposes -- slush funds for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, funding for the North Korean Army or funding for the North Korean Workers Party. It may also have been used to fund clandestine North Korean operations in South Korea or for military purposes."

On eight occasions from early April to late August last year, South Korea delivered to the North building materials such as cement, iron bars, electric cable, tiles, drills, adhesive glue, interior furnishings, elevators, and air-conditioning and heating equipment. It also sent 10 buses and six Rexton SUVs.

When sending the materials, Seoul demanded five times that the North allow South Korean officials to visit the construction site and provide details on where the materials were used. All such demands were rejected.

However North Korea reportedly showed South Korean officials a vacant lot in November last year, indicating that construction still had not begun. An official with a construction firm said, "North Korea must have already used the cement, iron bars and cable for other purposes since they become useless five to six months after leaving the factories." (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)


S.Korea Knew Its Rice Feeds N.Korean Military (Feb 2008) South Korean military authorities have known since 2003, when the Roh Moo-hyun administration was inaugurated, that North Korea has transported rice supplied by the South for humanitarian purposes to frontline units of the North Korean Army. The South Korean military has admitted it found no fewer than 200 South Korean rice sacks transported to North Korean Army units on about 10 occasions to the demilitarized zone including Gangwon Province between 2003 and recently.

This is the first corroboration by the South Korean military of testimony by North Korean refugees that the food aid provided by South Korea is being diverted for military purposes. But despite their knowledge of this fact, neither the South Korean government nor military authorities protested to North Korea or asked it for an explanation, apparently for fear of provoking Pyongyang.

A senior government source in Seoul on Wednesday said South Korean sentries "repeatedly detected North Korean soldiers unloading rice sacks bearing the logo of the Korean National Red Cross and the letters "Daehan Minguk" (Republic of Korea) from trucks or stacking them up in their units in the eastern and central frontline areas including Gangwon Province. South Korean military authorities have reportedly taken several photographs of such scenes.

That the sacks contained rice appears even more probable since they were stocked up alongside North Korean-made sacks of rice. A source familiar with the frontline area said, "In December last year, our sentries in a frontline unit detected rice sacks printed with the letters 'Daehan Minguk' being stacked up alongside North Korean-made sacks of rice in a North Korean Army unit in the Inje area of Gangwon Province."

The source said that puts North Korea on the spot, since it is now confirmed that its army used the rice sacks at least in setting up encampments in the frontline areas. By intercepting North Korean Army communications, the South Korean military has further confirmed the North Korean Army's use of rice the South supplied.

The Roh administration has made no issue of this matter in inter-Korean ministerial talks or inter-Korean military talks. Yet the Committee for Democratization of North Korea, a coalition of North Korean refugees, conducted a survey of 250 North Korean refugees who have settled in the South in December last year, and only 7.6 percent of the respondents said they had received rice supplied by the South. Some 60 percent said they believed the rice provided by South Korea is distributed to the North Korean Army on a priority basis.

Experts urge the government to lodge a strong protest with the North and increase monitoring in fairly distribution of rice to North Korean residents who need it most rather than the military. Baek Seung-joo, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said, "We need a system that links the transparency in food distribution with the amount of food aid we provide for the North." (Source: Chosun Ilbo.) (SITE NOTE: This is not news. Everyone has said as such, but the Roh administration -- especially from the mouthes of the Unification ministers -- has consistently denied this in the press. But it was only the conservative elements who were ignored as naysayers. In other words, the Korean people have known this was happening, but have consciously chosen to ignore it because of their enrapture with rapproachement. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2001 said most of the food aid provided to North Korea was being diverted by the military, intelligence agency and the government.` And when international aid groups stepped up monitoring of food distribution, North Korea told them to leave. The survival of its people is only a secondary concern for the North Korean government. The South Korean government was not even willing to check whether its aid to North Korea is being used properly. Even though pictures have been published showing North Korean soldiers moving rice bags marked "Republic of Korea", South Korea's unification minister says we "should not presume" that the rice is being diverted to the North Korean military.)


North Korean Cheering Section Demands Leave Football Match in Limbo (Feb 2008) Chosun Ilbo on 13 Feb reported that Pyongyang is scheduled to host on March 26 a third regional preliminary between the two Koreas for the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa. But the DPRK says it will not allow the visit of an ROK cheerleader team, the public display of the ROK's national flag and the playing of the ROK national anthem. Instead the DPRK demands that the ROK replace its national anthem and flag with the traditional folk song "Arirang" and a flag representing the Korean Peninsula "for the sake of unity and harmony." (SITE NOTE: The FIFA should have already considered this would happen with the unpredictable North. Under the regulations of the Federation Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, flying national flags and playing national anthems of the participating nations are normal events. What has happened is that the North as a host has decided to interject politics into the sport by making the conditions. It has tried to resurrect the reunification fever that has been squelched since Lee Myeong-bak was elected. Though foreigners were outraged as reflected by internet comments, the reaction in the ROK seemed rather muted. More than anything else, the North's decision to allow the United States to play its anthem, while rejecting South Korea, shows its hypocracy. If the North does not change its attitude, the two Koreas will inevitably hold the match in a third country.)

Red Devils Fans Skip World Qualifier (Feb 2008) Donga Ilbo on 14 Feb reported that the ROK soccer fan group Red Devils will not attend the March 26 World Cup qualifier between the two Koreas in Pyongyang. On its official homepage, the group said Wednesday that it decided not to go citing the inability to use the cheering method of its choice. "Using our national symbol is a must for us and at the core of our Red Devil tradition. If another country threatens to dictate our tradition, there is no point in us taking a long journey for cheering," a member of the Red Devils' operating committee said. Later the head of the ROK Soccer Association condemned the act saying the national flag and anthem should be allowed.


North Jamming Radio Broadcasts (Feb 2008) One of the key tenets of bringing change in North Korea is by fighting the information war. Radio broadcasts serve as a means to counter all the anti-US propaganda that North Koreans are fed on a daily basis and the effectiveness of these radio broadcasts can be proven by how some North Korean defectors, such as Kang Chol-hwan decided to defect after listening to these broadcasts.

Reporters Without Borders, an international organization of journalists, said Thursday that North Korea strengthened jamming of radio broadcasting from outside in May of last year. The organization said in an annual report that the jamming had been weak since July 2006 due to the North's power shortages, but that it became stronger on May 11th, 2007. The group said that due to the strengthened jamming, signals from five radio broadcasts toward North Korea, including Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, are being jammed. (Source: KBS Global.)

N. Korea intensifies press oppression (Feb 2008) North Korea executed a state-run company's director last year for having made phone calls abroad without government permission, an international journalist group said in its annual report released on 17 Feb. The case reflects a marked increase in executions for the offense of communication with people outside the totalitarian country, Reporters Without Borders said. (Source: Yonhap News.)

Report: N. Korean Executed for Making Int'l Call (Feb 2008) A new report says the head of a state-run firm in North Korea was executed last year for making an international call without permission from authorities. Reporters Without Borders said in its annual report that the number of such execution cases is sharply increasing. The international organization added that a magazine secretly designed by North Korean journalists was published for the first time last November. The magazine, entitled "Im-jin River," seeks to relate real stories from the reclusive state in close cooperation with Japanese wire services. The report added that North Korea strengthened jamming of outside radio broadcasts in May of last year to counter expanded coverage on the North by international media. The group said that as a result, signals from five radio broadcasts toward North Korea, including Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, are now being jammed. (Source: KBS Global)


22 N. Korean drifters executed after return home: source (Feb 2008) A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, a source here said on 17 Feb. Two fishing boats carrying the 22 North Koreans, including 14 women and three teenagers, drifted into the western waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Feb. 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention to defect, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release on 16 Feb. The North Koreans were residents of Kangnyeong County, North Korea's southern coastal province of South Hwanghae, who went to sea to collect clams and oysters without authorization from the North Korean maritime agency, the intelligence service said.

A source well-versed in North Korea told Yonhap News Agency, however, that the drifters were all executed immediately after returning home early last week. The provincial branch of North Korea’s National Security Agency shot and killed them secretly, the source said. Of the group, 13 were extended family members and nine others were their neighbors, according to the South Korean intelligence agency.

“A rumor spread in South Hwanghae Province that (the security agency) secretly executed the 22 people immediately after they were returned,” the source said. “People in the province are shocked by the fact that all of the 22 people were shot and killed without exception, such being sent to a prison camp,” the source said. South Korean intelligence officials, contacted by Yonhap News Agency, said they were not aware of the rumored execution and would try to verify it.

Another official, requesting anonymity, said, “It was beyond imagination to repatriate a North Korean defector at a time when the new government comes in with its North Korea policy set on the human rights condition in the country.”

South Korea is set to revise its decade-long sunshine policy toward North Korea as the incoming conservative government of Lee Myung-bak plans to take a tougher stance on North Korea with calls to improve its human rights condition and dismantle its nuclear weapons program. (Source: Yonhap News.)

(SITE NOTE: The original story said two wood boats. Another news story said "The 22 North Koreans were rescued by the South Korean Navy while drifting on a rubber boat in South Korean waters February 8. But a Seoul official said they all said they wanted to return to the communist country." (KBS Global). Later, the Chosun Ilbo story changed it to two rubber boats towed by a motor launch that then let them drift when it went to rescue other boats.)

More Information Emerges (Feb 2008) Twenty-two North Koreans who were turned back by South Korean authorities earlier this month after their fishing boats drifted into South Korean waters were executed last week and may have been seeking to defect to the South, sources said.

Authorities here triggered speculation when they made no formal confirmation of their repatriation. According to the Navy and the National Intelligence Service, the 22 were found drifting on Feb. 8 after catching crabs and oysters off Hwanghaedo Province, North Korea. They told investigators they wanted to return to the North and were sent back overland, but rights activists argued that Seoul sent them back to an uncertain fate under pressure from Pyongyang. A government source told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday that North Korean authorities had requested that the group, who were said to have been fishing for oysters, be repatriated. "The North requested rescue and repatriation," the official said. "They were just in distress and wanted to be sent back to the North, where their families live," an NIS official said. The NIS sent the North Koreans back to the North through the Panmunjom truce village at 6:30 p.m. on the same day.

The group consisting mostly of workers from a fishery unit and cooperative farm in Dungam-ri, Gangryeong County, Hwanghae Province included three teenagers. According to the NIS, they set off aboard two rubber boats towed by a motor boat on Feb. 7, the Lunar Near Year, but were cast adrift on their way home while the motor boat went to rescue other boats the same afternoon, and were found by South Koreans in the early hours of Feb. 8. Thirteen of them were members of six families and nine others were their neighbors. "They were just in distress and wanted to be sent back to the North, where their families live," an NIS official said. Of the 22, 13 were related to one another. "Even in South Korea," Do Hee-yun, the secretary-general of the Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees. said, "it is taboo for an entire family to board the same boat to go near the border. It is not only to prevent defection but also due to the risk of losing an entire family in an accident." Do also said the interrogation was too quick. "It takes at least 20 days to fully question a defector," Do said. "Processing 22 people in several hours is absurd."

Lee Gwang-il, a North Korean refugee who served as a maritime guard in the North, said no North Korean youngsters would be allowed to sail off in a boat even if they bribed officials. "Given that youngsters were involved, the chances are that they were attempting to defect to the South,” Lee said. He said controls are particularly tight in Hwanghae Province because it is near the South. He said rubber boats are not used by ordinary citizens and the group probably stole them from the military to defect. Kim Eun-chol, another North Korean refugee who lived near the coast in Sinuiju, on the border with China, agreed that a group including teenagers is unlikely to have been out fishing.

The Yonhap News Agency on Sunday quoted a government source as saying the 22 were executed early last week. "A rumor spread in South Hwanghae Province that the National Security Agency secretly executed the 22 people immediately after they were returned," the source was quoted saying. "People in the province are shocked by the fact that all of the 22 people were shot and killed without exception [like] being sent to a prison camp," the source said. The NIS said nothing has been confirmed.

Meanwhile, North Korea was in a festive mood, celebrating the 66th birthday of its leader Kim Jong-il on Saturday. In the North, the Lunar New Year is called a folk festival but Kim's birthday "the Greatest National Festival." According to the North Korean media, various commemorative events including athletic meetings are held in major cities including Pyongyang, which is decked out in colorful flowers, flags and neon decorations

Song Dae-sung, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a private non-profit think-tank in South Korea, said "Had the North Korea purchased rice and grain with the money spent on celebrating Kim Jong-il birthday, a considerable portion of the food shortage of the residents would have been resolved.” (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)

(SITE NOTE: It is speculated that they may have been punished for not obtaining a fishing license, but other state that it appears they were defecting. The agency admitted that the illegal fishing could have prompted punishment. On their way back home, the boats drifted South, the spy agency said. At the time of the rescue, the spy agency said fishnets and six sacks of oysters were found on the boats.

HOWEVER, this then brings the question of how come they were sent back by the South Koreans. North Korea requested the repatriation of 22 North Koreans whose boats drifted into South Korean waters in the West Sea on Feb. 8, a South Korean government official admitted Monday. The government has been under pressure to explain why it turned the 22 back to the North the same day they arrived in the South, without interrogating them individually even for just a few hours. After questioning, the group was sent back to the North via the truce village of Panmunjeom on Feb. 8. "When a North Korean expresses the wish to return home, it has been South Korea's consistent position to make a quick repatriation based on humanitarian principles and not make the matter public," the intelligence service said, rejecting criticism that its action was covert. South Hwanghae Province residents were shocked that none of the 22 was sent to a political prison and all of them were shot to death, whether they were young or not," Yonhap News reported, quoting a source.

The second thing that was strange was the group arrived during Solnal -- a holiday in the North as well. Also the group contained women and children which are not normal on fishing vessels. They were returned via a land route. One Free Korea blog stated, "Upon finding the North Koreans adrift in South Korean waters, the South Koreans took them to Incheon and interrogated them. Of the 22 "crew members," 14 were women and three were teenagers between 15 and 17. According to the Chosun Ilbo (via the IHT), the seas were too calm to blow not just one, but two boats out to the open ocean and across the world's most contested international maritime boundary. Tides in the area are notoriously high, but if the 22 were collecting clams, a rising tide should have pushed them north, not south." South Korean intelligence claims that these people "went to sea to collect clams and oysters without authorization" and drifted off course. It claims that both boats were blown off course, yet stayed together. It claims that when questioned, the 22 said they didn't want to defect. Of course, it didn't bother to mention any of this until the Chosun Ilbo broke the story. Those claims are absolutely implausible. But given what we know about South Korea's policy of discouraging mass defections, it is plausible that the South Korean authorities (a) lied about the intentions of these people, who in fact did want to defect, or (b) intimidated or forced them into returning to the North.")

N.Korea Asked for 22 Boat People to Be Sent Back (Feb 2008) According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea contacted the South through the international standard radio frequency for commercial vessels around 8:20 a.m. on Feb. 8, asking the South to send back two drifting North Korean vessels. At that time, the 22 North Koreans were being transferred from their rubber boats to a South Korean ship. It was about three hours after they were first spotted at 5:10 a.m.

To prevent armed clashes between the two sides in the West Sea, patrol boats from both Koreas have exchanged radio messages using the international standard radio frequency traditionally used between commercial vessels since June 2004. A South Korean government official said, "At the time, our military authorities could have turned them back immediately. But there were too many of them, so military authorities transferred them to a South Korean naval vessel to find out whether they wanted to defect to the South."

South Korean authorities told the North via the international standard radio frequency that the South will handle the group “from a humanitarian standpoint," the official said. It was around 10 a.m. the same day that the South Korean boat carrying the 22 North Koreans finally left the scene in the West Sea. "Apart from the latest incident, the North often asks us through the international standard radio frequency to send back any ships in distress. We turned the 22 North Koreans back not just because of the North's demand for their repatriation."

The Grand National Party decided to find out the truth by convening a session of the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee. In a briefing at the National Assembly, GNP spokeswoman Na Kyung-won said, "The 22 North Koreans came out to the sea on unpowered rubber boats on Lunar New Year's Day after breaking through the North Korean authorities' surveillance cordon. But the National Intelligence Service announced that the North Koreans had no intention to defect to the South. The truth has not been found out, and there is much we do not understand from a commonsense point of view. After finding out the truth, our party will work out a response. The GNP has asked parliament to convene a session of the Intelligence Committee on Friday, but no schedule has been set, as the GNP has yet to consult with the United Democratic Party, the majority party in the house.

Groups for human rights in North Korea demanded a thorough investigation. The Committee for Democratization of North Korea, a coalition of 21 civic groups led by Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party, issued a statement. "There are signs that North Koreans are now taking the West Sea as their new defection route in replacement of the North Korean-Chinese border,” it said. “To prevent this, the Kim Jong-il regime must have established a strategy so that the Roh Moo-hyun regime would turn North Korean boat people back to the North under the pretext of humanitarian repatriation, and the Roh regime must have followed this strategy in the latest incident."

The statement said refugees from North Korea who have defected through the sea told the group that NIS investigators “usually attempt to leave defecting North Korean refugees in fear and make them feel as if they should return to the North, instead of treating them warmly. We must include civilian experts in investigation processes to prevent the intelligence agency from acting tyrannically any longer."

The Association of North Korean Human Rights Organizations, another federation of 47 domestic and foreign organizations, urged the government “to demand the North find out immediately whether the North Koreans have been executed or are safe. The National Assembly should form a fact-finding mission to find out the truth and release results of its investigation as soon as possible."

Pointing out that 13 of them said they were members of six families and the nine others their neighbors, the association said, "We suspect that they intended to defect to the South. Why didn't you immediately reveal details about how authorities discovered the North Koreans and repatriated them?" (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)

N. Korea Denies Executions (Feb 2008) Yonhap on 21 Feb reported that the DPRK blasted rumors that its citizens who crossed the sea border into the ROK and who were returned by ROK authorities earlier this month have been executed, claiming that the people are currently living normal lives, and that the rumor is an "anti-North Korea plot" by the ROK's extreme conservatives. "Our people, who drifted due to high seas, flatly rejected an enticement (by the ROK) that they would be guaranteed a wealthy livelihood if they defected to the South, and now live normal lives in their homes after returning," said a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a mouthpiece for the DPRK's ruling Workers' Party that is monitored here.

Spy Agency 'Broke Rules' in Questioning N.Koreans (Feb 2008) The 22 North Koreans found drifting in South Korean waters in the West Sea on Feb. 8 were interrogated by South Korean intelligence agents in groups of five or six, rather than one at a time as regulations require, it was learned on on 26 Feb. It was also learned that the North Koreans were returned to their home country after only four or five hours of questioning. North Korea demanded twice that the 22 be returned, it was confirmed.

The National Assembly's Intelligence Committee on 26 Feb grilled the National Intelligence Service on suspicions of irregularities involving the return of the North Koreans. In a briefing after the committee's closed-door meeting, Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Hyung-keun said, "Rules require that refugees be interrogated one by one. Some committee members found fault with (intelligence authorities') interrogations of the (22 North Koreans) in groups -- by fives or sixes each time -- for four to five hours." Another committee member said, "The NIS interrogated them in groups of five at first, but later switched to individual interrogations to find out if they intended to seek asylum in the South. According to intelligence rules, refugees must be questioned one by one to find out if they intend to defect. Group interrogations are against the rules."

North Korean defectors' organizations claimed that South Korean investigators have used threatening tactics when questioning refugees, and that refugees have been browbeaten in group interrogations into returning to the North. They demanded that it be ascertained whether the investigators used intimidating methods in the latest case.

Rep. Chung continued, "On the morning of Feb. 8, North Korea asked the South twice, via the international standard radio frequency designed for commercial vessels, to quickly send the North Koreans back. Some committee members suspect that the intelligence agency investigated the North Koreans hastily in order to comply with North Korea's request." Regarding rumors that the 22 have been executed since they were returned to North Korea, the NIS said it's impossible to confirm the rumors, nor is it possible to confirm the returnees' whereabouts. (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)


N. Korea boosts air force drill to 13-year high (Feb 2008) North Korea's Air Force launched its fighter jets on over 100 missions on a single day last month, breaking its 1995 record of sorties per day, a military official here said on 21 Feb. The official refused to reveal the exact number of sorties flown or when they were flown, but noted the communist nation had restrained itself from any major military drills since late 1990s, perhaps due to a chronic shortage of energy. (SITE NOTE: Where did they get the jet fuel with the fuel shortage that has hit the North? For the past year operations were curtailed, but this extravagance either means they have a windfall in fuel or someone has diverted fuel to them.) (Source: Yonhap News.)

North Korea has stepped up air force and armored troops exercises recently in an apparent attempt to show its warfare capability, a military expert and sources here said on 21 Feb. In a column for the Korea Defense Daily, Professor Yun Kyu-sik said the North had also increased its number of light infantry divisions and multiple-launch artillery guns. Yun is part of the Army Training and Doctrine Command.Last month, the North Korean Air Force increased daily sorties of fighter jets to the highest level in 13 years. This is an exceptional phenomenon for the Norths air force when we consider that it has usually refrained from flight drills due to fuel shortages, Yun wrote.

Military sources said North Korean fighter jets recorded 170 daily sorties in the middle of January. The trend was evident in the Norths currently ongoing nationwide military exercises, they said. The North holds annual wintertime military drills across the nation from December to April. As part of the drills, the North practiced quick deployment of fighter jets to the frontline three times last month. It was the first time the communist country had performed such exercises since 2005, Yun said.

According to military sources, the drills included IL-28 bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons. The movement of the IL-28s was often made in the night, putting the South Korean Air Force on alert, the sources said. Mechanized units, the Norths key forces for mobile raids, are currently engaged in intense maneuvers and artillery drills, unlike past years, according to Yun. Frontline ground force corps last month conducted a series of long-range mountain road marches. The communist country also expanded participation of missile units, mobilizing its Scud and Nodong missile arsenal, Yun said. The Scud and Nodong missiles, which have respective ranges of 500 kilometers and 1,300 kilometers, can strike anywhere on the Korean Peninsula.

The Norths paramilitary groups also conducted intense drills for base occupation and scout missions in border regions close to China. In the border city of Hoeryung, North Hamgyeong Province, the North Korean military last month issued an emergency order for the mobilization of residents and paramilitary members, and checked their war readiness. After the inspection, the paramilitary groups conducted base occupation and scout drills to a much stronger degree than in previous years, Yun said.

In addition, the North Korean military upgraded several light infantry brigades to divisions through troop augmentation, while increasing the number of multiple-launch artillery guns by 200. Yun analyzed that such a move by Pyongyang appears to be military grandstanding in the face of an enhanced South Korea-U.S. alliance and the allies imminent annual drills. He said it could also be interpreted as a warning against Lee Myung-bak, whose policies call for the North to comply in the denuclearization process. (Source: Korea Herald.)


RUMOR CONTROL: Clapton invitation means Kim Jong-il has chosen his heir (Feb 2008) Kim Jong-chul is the chosen one. First son from the Dear Leader's fourth marriage, he is said to love the music of the American guitar player. Since last year he is deputy chairman of a leadership division of the Korean Workers' Party, the same post his father had before taking over.

North Korea's'Dear Leader' Kim Jong-il seems to have picked his successor, Kim Jong-chul, first son from his third marriage. The invitation to Eric Clapton to give a concert in Pyongyang is the last clue as to the choice; the younger Kim loves "slowhand" to the extent that he followed him on a European tour, this according to a variety of websites run by North Korean dissidents who follow the doings of the Kim dynasty.

For some political refugees, the dictator's eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, designated heir till 1999, found himself out in the cold in 2000 after a private meeting with the country's leadership in which he tried to push for Chinese-style economic policies and a more open foreign policy. Other sources suggest instead that the eldest son fell into a trap set by his step-mother Ko Young-nee, who discredited him in the eyes of his father to ensure that her sons, Jong-chul e Jung-woon, would succeed the "Dear Leader" on his death.

According to some analysts the Clapton invitation is clearest signal possible. The North Korea Daily, an online paper that closely monitors events in the country, wrote that if Jong-nam had been chosen his father would have invited Euro Disney characters. In 2001, Kim Jong-nam was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport, apparently to visit Tokyo Disney Land, raising his father's ire. Clapton's coming could by contrast mean that the country's future lies with Jong-chul.

Kim Jong-chul was born in 1981. After first studying in Pyongyang, he attended an international school in Berne (Switzerland) where he registered under an assumed name (this is one of two photos known to be of him from his time studying in Switzerland). In 2007 Kim Jong-il appointed him deputy chairman of a leadership division of the Korean Workers' Party; the same post to which his father was appointed by the latter's own father, Kim Il-sung, and which is the first step in the succession process. (Source: Asia News.) (SITE NOTE: Eric Clapton has flatly denied that he has any intentions of playing in North Korea -- after the NY Philharmonic scored a "soft diplomacy" hit in Pyeongyang.)


March 2008

N. Korea demands US$100 annual fee per S. Korean (Mar 2008) North Korea has demanded that every South Korean resident in the North's Kaesong industrial park, built with South Korea's investment under a 2000 inter-Korean summit agreement, pay an annual registration fee of US$100, a Unification Ministry official said on 2 Mar. About 800 South Koreans, mostly government officials and businessmen of South Korean companies that invested in the Kaesong complex, work in the industrial complex. One of the most conspicuous inter-Korean rapprochement projects, the complex is located just north of the Demilitarized Zone, which has divided the Korean Peninsula for the past half century. "North Korea has informed us that they will block the entry of any South Koreans who fail to pay the registration fee from Feb. 11," the official said. "The North set the fee unilaterally, and we are negotiating to make it more reasonable, although the amount is not excessive."

The North also set at US$35 a registration fee for South Koreans staying in Kaesong less than 90 days, according to the official. North Korea promulgated regulations in 2003 for imposing registration fees on South Korean residents in Kaesong. (Source: Yonhap News.)


Alleged Executions: North Koreans 'shot at frontier' Thousands of North Koreans try to cross into China in search of food (Mar 2008) North Korea has executed 15 people in public for trying to flee or help others to escape across the border into China, according to an aid group. Good Friends, based in South Korea, said the 13 women and two men were shot on a bridge in the north-eastern town of Onseong on 20 Feb by firing squad. Onseong is a northeastern town on the border with the PRC and Russia. The aid group said those executed had been trying to get economic help from relatives already in China. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are thought to be in hiding in China. In a newsletter, Good Friends said residents who witnessed the shooting were shocked at the harshness of the punishment. Some were crying at the scene, it reported. The group quoted a woman as saying: "Everyone is anxious about a lack of food. The shooting has made people angry."

A local North Korean official is also quoted in the newsletter. "It has become a daily routine for a few residents to disappear and illegally cross the border to visit relatives in China," he is reported as saying. "We shot them to send a warning to people over this." There has been no official word from North Korea on the executions and South Korea's Unification Ministry said it could not confirm the report. Acute food shortages have led to thousands of North Koreans fleeing their homeland through China.

Many hope to make their way to South Korea - the Unification Ministry in Seoul says more than 12,000 North Koreans have fled to the south since the 1950-53 Korean War. Others cross the border into China with the intention of returning with food supplies. North Korea received hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food aid last year, more than half of it from Seoul. An unusually dry and mild winter has raised fears of worse shortages to come. Associated Press carried the story on 5 Mar. (Source: BBC News.) (SITE NOTE: Onseong, in the northernmost point in North Korea , used to host the #12 Concentration Camp until 1987, when a large-scale riot erupted after an angry prisoner beat to death a security agent for inflicting extreme torture. Out of 15,000 prisoners, 5,000 were killed. The rest were transferred to Yodok. (Source: Free Republic.)


U.S. Officials at Odds Over N.Korea Human Rights Report (Mar 2008) An annual U.S. State Department human rights report on conditions in North Korea has "sparked internal tussling," the Washington Post reported on 5 Mar. According to the newspaper, diplomats at the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs disagreed with officials at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) over the tone and nuance of the report. DRL officials tend to be hard-line human rights advocates, the newspaper said, while those at the regional bureau prefer a more diplomatic approach, so as not to irritate North Korea.

Because of this, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who must deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, is apparently having a hard time trying to mediate between the two groups of officials. The Washington Post wrote, "On Friday, Glyn Davies, the principal deputy assistant secretary in the East Asia bureau, sent an e-mail to Erica Barks-Ruggles, a deputy assistant secretary in the DRL bureau, regarding some changes in the introductory language of a report on North Korea." According to the newspaper, Davies said in the e-mail, "I know you are under the NSC [National Security Council] gun," apparently to get the report done so the NSC can review it, "but hope given the Secretary's priority on the six-party talks, we can sacrifice a few adjectives for the cause." As a result, the words "the repressive North Korean regime" in a draft report were replaced with "the North Korean government," and the sentence "Reports of public executions were on the rise" was replaced with "Reports of public executions continued to surface," the newspaper wrote. (Source: Chosun Ilbo.) (SITE NOTE: This is not the first time the State Department and Human Rights aka Lefkowitz "tussled" over statements when Lefkowitz raised the point that the human rights issue should be included in the six-party talks, but Rice said basically that Leftkowitz knew nothing of the mechanics of the six-party talks and should just butt out.)


Child Thieves Whipped Severely (Mar 2008) Good Friends on 20 Mar reported that on March 10 a group of DPRK child thieves were killed. A group of approximately 20 kids were whipped by freight men while stealing from a train bound for Pyongyang. Some of the children beaten with clubs fell down and immediately died. The freight men left the dead bodies outside the station and just neglected them. Among the child-thieves were two girls of age around 10.


In N. Korea, food shortages growing more severe (Mar 2008) The food shortage in North Korea is reportedly growing more severe due to a triple blow from a recent spate of dry weather, a regular season of spring food shortages and higher prices of crops overseas. In a recent newsletter, the Good Friends, a South Korean aid group, said that only those people in North Korea with relatively good living conditions have managed to live on daily meals, while poorer people have been on the verge of starvation in advance of spring, typically a season in which food shortages are at their most severe.

The aid group cited the story of a military equipment factory in North Korea’s Eundeok country, North Hamgyeong Province, as an example of the North’s worsening food shortages. When the factory manager visits the homes of factory workers because they have been away from work, most of the workers say, “I couldn’t go to work because food ran out at home.”

North Korea’s agricultural production fell by 11 percent last year, after it was hit by floods in August. The country has also been in the grip of a new drought that, with little rainfall registered, is destroying crops. On March 4, the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported that abnormal weather conditions this winter have made it difficult for farmers to grow wheat and barley. “This winter, there were abnormal weather conditions that haven’t been seen in the past,” the North’s official news agency said. In particular, no rainfall was registered in Pyongyang, Pyeongseong and Sariwon in January.

The World Food Program estimates that North Korea’s food shortages will reach 1.4 million tons this year. That volume can feed six million people a year. Soaring prices of agricultural products overseas are also weighing on the North’s food shortages. Kwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher with the South’s Korea Rural Economic Institute, said, “North Korea must spend more on grain imports as international grain prices have surged and shipping rates have risen by two or three times.”

As international grain prices jumped, the Chinese government began introducing quota and tariff systems on its exports of major grains to stabilize grain prices at home. These measures have placed a financial burden on South Korean aid groups, which have traditionally sent corn and soybeans to North Korea after having purchased them in China. “Since last year, it has been difficult to buy soybeans in China even with cash,” said an official at the South Korean aid group Okedongmu. “While our budget for soybean purchases is limited, the pace of the increase in grain prices is too steep,” the official said.

Kwon said, “Aid groups say the extent of this year’s food shortages in North Korea could be similar to that of the mid-1990s, when widespread famine caused many to die. The Lee Myung-bak administration needs to take a flexible attitude toward humanitarian aid for North Korea, including food and fertilizer,” the researcher said. (Source: Hankyoreh News.)


Kim Jong-il fears coup, strips military of power (Mar 2008) A North Korean government source says a major shift is underway in North Korea’s military-first policy. Decisions are overturned and funds for the armed forces are cut by 30 per cent to prevent the generals from taking over. Secret police is strengthened.

North Korea’s decades-old “military-first” policy is changing as the power of the Communist regime’s army is reduced in favour of the Ministry of People’s Security. Some experts suggest the shift is related to the ongoing battle over the succession to the ‘dear leader’ who fears a generals’ coup. The report comes from a source inside the government in Pyongyang, anonymous for security reason, who spoke to the South Korean daily Dong-a Ilbo.

The source said on 11 Mar that “Kim Jong Il has ordered the military to transfer its foreign operations to his cabinet and is implementing a radical reform of military authorities.” Kim ordered a cut to the armed forces by 30 per cent, including the number of soldiers. The changes should be announced before the end of March, but the source noted that officers in the chain of command including the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, the National Security Council, the Ministry of State Inspection and the General Staff Department began retiring in January.

The Ministry of People’s Security is instead being strengthened. Funds taken from the military are said to have already been given to the “secret police” which will now be able to probe the military, hitherto protected from outside interference. According to the source the shift shows how much Kim Jong-il is afraid of the power vacuum that his death might cause, and that he is convinced that his dynasty has the right to rule over the country. For this reason he does not want the military to come forward in a power struggle. (Source: Asia News.)


DPRK Food Shortage Worse (Mar 2008) The Associated Press on 21 Mar reported that the DPRK's chronic food shortage has worsened to affect even some of the country's elite citizens in the capital, a ROK aid group said. The DPRK has not given rice rations to medium- and lower-level officials living in Pyongyang this month after cutting the rations by 60 percent in February, the Good Friends aid agency said in its regular newsletter. The food situation is more serious in rural areas, with residents in many regions in the country's South Hwanghae province living without food rations since November, the aid group said. Some collective farm workers in those regions have not come to work citing the lack of food, and their absence is causing problems with farming preparations in the spring planting season, it said. (SITE NOTE: Other reports state that workers at a food collective did not report for work claiming lack of food the reason.)

US Official Visits Korea to discuss N.K. Food Aid (Mar 2008) Korea Herald reported on 21 Mar that a US State Department official visited the ROK to assess the DPRK's food situation amid reports of a worsening food shortage in the DPRK, a government source here was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. Mark Phelan, an analyst in food security at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, spent two days in Seoul for talks with related Unification Ministry officials and aid activists, the source said. Washington reportedly intends to send 500,000 tons of food aid to the impoverished DPRK in line with a six-party agreement on denuclearizing the DPRK signed in February last year.

Women and Police Clash in DPRK Markets (Mar 2008) IFES NK Brief on 22 Mar reported that recently, the DPRK passed a measure prohibiting women younger then 49 from selling goods in markets, leading to clashes between police enforcing the rule and younger women wanting to work in markets. The March 19th newsletter from 'Good Friends', an organization providing aid for the DPRK, reported that on February 5th in Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, women who were not allowed to enter the local market and so were selling goods on a nearby corner physically clashed and police. This reportedly led to the arrest and detention of 9 people. According to Good Friends, "Just like other cities, Haeju City has received absolutely no food rations since March." The newsletter also reported, "On March 3, in Chungjin City, North Hamkyung Province, organized protests by women prevented from market activities by the new regulations broke out, and Chungjin City authorities are now allowing all women, with no exception, to sell goods in markets."

Apprehension for Mass Death from Hunger in DPRK (Mar 2008) The Peace Foundation on 25 Mar carried an article by the economic security research team leader at SERI who wrote that there are rumors that 1kg of rice is sold at 1700 DPRK won in the market as the food supplied to market in DPRK is on absolute shortage. Considering the past behavior of the DPRK which made a deal with the world concerning the food problem with DPRK people as the hostage, the previous method of food supply needs to be changed. Fertilizer shall be loaned after negotiation and the food will be given for free. As food supply is a matter of humanitarianism, having conditions for the supply changes the original meaning. However, a more intensive inspection can be asked. In addition, the ROK should take a leading role in organizing solidarity among neighboring countries to prepare for possible food problems in the DPRK and together provide the humanitarian supplies. The supply method should follow the global rules.


NK Expels S. Korean Officials From Kaesong Park (Mar 2008) In a sign of tense inter-Korean relations, North Korea on 27 Mar expelled most of Korean officials from the Kaesong Industrial Complex. The turnaround of the North's stance came in an apparent protest over the current Lee Myung-bak administration's tough policy in dealing with the reclusive nation. President Lee has said his government would pursue pragmatic policies by linking inter-Korean economic exchanges to the international efforts to resolve the lingering standoff over the North's nuclear development program. Lee's stance is in stark contrast with the previous two governments which had been seeking the reconciliatory ``sunshine policy'' engaging North Korea.

Officials said Pyongyang pulled out 11 of 13 South Korean officials working in the industrial complex near the border village of Panmunjom. Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said there would be no progress in inter-Korean relations without the North's efforts toward denuclearization. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the North expelled the officials by raising the issue with the South Korean government's ``challenging'' attitude in addressing the inter-Korean economic exchanges. (Source: Korea Times.)

S.Korean Firms in Kaesong Complex Carry On as Normal (Mar 2008) South Korean firms operating in the Kaesong Industrial Complex said the expulsion of 11 South Korean officials by the North will have no immediate significant effects on the project itself. But they expressed concern that inter-Korean conflict could further deepen and inter-Korean economic cooperation suffer as a result.

Currently, a total of 67 South Korean firms are operating, and some 180 others are building their plants in the Kaesong complex. Hwang Woo-seung, chief of the garment maker Sinwon Ebenezer's Kaesong unit, said, "North Korean workers don't know of the incident yet. They are working regularly or overtime as usual."

An executive of another firm said, however, "It’s true we're worried” that an agreement reached at the inter-Korean summit last year including easier communication, travel and customs clearance for South Korean businesspeople running businesses in North Korea might not be implemented properly. Hyundai Asan also continued its tour programs to downtown Kaesong and Mt. Kumgang as usual. A total of 1,200 South Korean tourists, 500 to Kaesong and 700 to Mt. Geumgang, visited North Korea on 27 Mar.

The operation of firms and construction of new plants continued as normal. A Hyundai Asan executive said, "The latest incident is unlikely to have serious effects on current inter-Korean projects, considering that it was caused by conflict between the authorities in the two Koreas.” The executive added, “But if the conflict persists, we could face real difficulties." (Source: Chosun Ilbo.)


North's nukes on attack radar: New military chief says plans exist for possible 'pre-emptive strike' (Mar 2008) The South Korean military is prepared to launch a pre-emptive attack on North Korea's nuclear installations if they become a military threat, Gen. Kim Tae-young, the newly designated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a hearing on 26 Mar. It was the first time the military has confirmed contingency plans for a pre-emptive attack on Pyongyang's nuclear facilities and comes as Seoul's new conservative government is being closely watched for signs of how it will approach North Korea.

Speaking at his confirmation hearing in the National Assembly, Kim said the military has kept its options and contingencies ready in case of a military attack from the North. "We would identify possible locations of nuclear weapons and make a precise attack in advance," Kim said when asked what he would do if North Korea were to develop the capability and intent to attack the South with nuclear weapons. Kim was the commander of the First Army and is a specialist in military strategy and tactics. "Our goal is to prevent North Korea's nuclear weapons from exploding in our territory," he told lawmakers.

In the past, officers designated to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not been subject to Assembly confirmation hearings, but that changed with recent revisions in the law on senior public servants. Kim also expressed his determination to resist any changes in the so-called Northern Limit Line, the Yellow Sea border between the South and North. He said the line, which has been the site of deadly naval clashes, is "as significant as the land border," and should be "protected at all costs." The line became controversial after former President Roh Moo-hyun agreed with Pyongyang to form a joint fishing area in the Yellow Sea to be used by both countries. (Source: Joongang Ilbo.) (SITE NOTE: The ROK picked up the responsibility when the US pulled its Special Ops troops with their special choppers out of Korea in 2008. However, according to Bloomberg, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have put out a statement denying that Kim said this.)

April 2008

DPRK Rhetoric Angry -- and Military Maneuvers Increase (Apr 2008) Yonhap News on 1 Apr reported that specialists interpret the DPRK criticisms of the the denuclearization, opening, 3000 policy of Lee Myung-bak as an anti-unification declaration as pressure for manifestation of a firm position of DPRK policies by the ROK government before the policies are connected to specific actions. Also, there are hints of DPRK ' s strategy of isolating the ROK in the six-party talks. There are also voices that support the current administration that claim we must not be anxious for there are inevitable labor pains.

Reuters on 31 Mar reported that the DPRK has sent jet fighters to test the ROK's air defenses and threatened to reduce its wealthy neighbor to ashes as it tries to push the new government in Seoul to back off from its hard line with Pyongyang. "These should be understood as the first actions signaling a freeze in North and South Korean relations ," said Yang Moo-jin, a specialist on the DPRK at the ROK's Kyungnam University. But analysts added that the PRC would lean on the DPRK to prevent the situation on the Korean peninsula spinning out of control.

Joongang Ilbo on 1 Apr reported that the ROK has scrambled jets at least 10 times in the five weeks since President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration because DPRK jets have flown closer than ever to the border, defense sources said. Still, experts say, such saber rattling is nothing new. They have repeatedly occurred at the beginning of past ROK administrations, possibly as a way to test how the new government would respond. Many experts in Seoul called it Pyongyang's classic routine. Provocative actions by Pyongyang have also happened during changes of administrations.

On 2 Apr South Korea urged North Korea to halt its recent verbal attacks against the administration of Lee Myung-bak, one day after the communist nation called the South Korean president a "traitor." The call comes as a reaction to recent hostility by Pyongyang which has threatened to suspend all inter-Korean dialogue, accusing Seoul of preparing preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities. In a radio message sent to Lt. Gen. Kim Yong-chol, the North's chief representative to inter-Korean military talks, the South's Defense Ministry said the North was intentionally interpreting Seoul's objectives and remarks by its officials in a malicious manner. "Our side has sincerely upheld the non-aggression agreement between the South and the North and this position will not change in the future," Seoul's chief delegate to North-South military dialogue, Maj. Gen. Kwon Oh-sung, said in the message.

The North Korean general on 29 Mar accused South Korea's new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Kim Tae-young, of making remarks that hint at possible preemptive strikes on the North's nuclear facilities and demanded Seoul retract Kim's remarks and apologize. The Defense Ministry refused to apologize and rejected the accusation, saying Kim's remarks, made at his National Assembly confirmation hearing late last month, only described the country's defense manual in case of an armed conflict. "We see it as inappropriate for your side to raise issues based on your own interpretation of remarks by one of our officials, and we deeply regret this," Kwon said in the message to his North Korean counterpart. "We urge you to immediately stop your recent activities, as such intentional slander and fostering of tension do not help ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," he said, adding Seoul is always ready to engage in dialogue with the North. Kim Hyong-ki, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, however, later said the government has no plans to call for military talks in the near future. "Dialogue will be possible when the atmosphere is right for both sides," he told reporters.

The North's official newspaper Rodong Sinmun on 1 Apr lashed out at Lee in the first direct offensive against a South Korean president in eight years. "His call on 'the North to dismantle its nukes first' is nothing but a declaration of confrontation and a war declaration," the newspaper said in a report carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency. The 2 Apr radio message only addressed the claims by the North's chief delegate to military talks, but the Defense Ministry spokesman said the message was drawn up while considering all the other hostility from the communist nation, including the one directed at President Lee. "You can say the military or the Defense Ministry is acting as the key coordinator among related offices because the North's official message came through the channel used for general-level military talks between South and North Korea," the spokesman said.

North Korea on 3 Apr said it will suspend all dialogue with South Korea and close the inter-Korean border to South Korean officials in retaliation for what it called Seoul's hostility, officials said. The latest threat came in a telephone message addressed to Seoul's chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks, Maj. Gen. Kwon Oh-sung, in response to Seoul's call made Wednesday for Pyongyang to halt its hostile rhetoric and actions.

On 3 Apr, North Korea issued warnings that it will take countermeasures to respond to "repeated incursions" of its territorial waters by South Korean warships. The warning, issued by the Navy and carried by the official (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), claimed that "unforetold actions" will be taken if surface combatants continue to operate in North Korean waters. The rhetoric was getting stronger as it appears that the fevered response it used to receive under the Roh adminstration is having no effect. The greatest worry is that the DPRK will initiate a military action along the NLL as the crab season is starting up with boats from both sides operating in the area.


North cuts food rations to Pyongyang (Apr 2008) North Korea's food shortages are so bad that even its elite citizens in Pyongyang will not get state food rations until September, a local relief group said yesterday. The Seoul-based organization Good Friends said the North has decided to suspend state food rations in the capital city for six months. The Buddhist group, however, did not reveal the source of that information.

Grim predictions are spreading throughout the country that there will be massive deaths from famine in provincial areas starting around May, the group also said. It indicated the decision is unprecedented, quoting some senior Pyongyang officials as saying the food distribution was not even suspended for such a long period of time during the country's worst food crisis in the late 1990s. The group said last month that the North suspended food rations in its main grain belts and reduced them in the capital in recent months due to the worsening food situation.

"The situation is far more hopeless than expected," it said in its weekly newsletter, quoting an unnamed senior official in Pyongyang. After suffering damage from flooding for a couple of years in 2006, the official said, North Korea is now experiencing its "worst-ever" food crisis due partly to a chronic shortage of fertilizer and the authorities' recent seizure of privately cultivated farmland. International aid groups, including the World Food Programme, have appealed for more state donations for North Korea this year, warning of the nation's worst food shortage in years because of last year's severe floods along with a winter drought and soaring international grain prices. North Korea has heavily depended on international aid to feed its 23 million population in recent years. (Source: Joongang Ilbo.) (SITE NOTE: Blogs specializing in DPRK affairs are starting to see cracks in the Kim Jong-il power structure as it moved away from the Military First policy -- but then was immediately followed by measures fostered by military hardliners to confront the South after the free giveaways (food, supplies, money) stopped with the entry of Lee Myeong-bak. The concern is that the food shortages are now starting to affect the "elite" who live in Pyongyang -- and the crackdown on corruption has stopped the avenues for making illicit money. These factors are causing some blogs -- more with wishful thinking -- to predict the beginning of the end for the DPRK.)

N.K. asks China for massive rice aid: report (Apr 2008) North Korea recently asked China to provide massive rice aid for its hungry people amid a flare-up in tensions with South Korea, a news report said 4 Apr. Pyongyang has also decided not to request rice and fertilizer aid from South Korea until Seoul moves to improve ties, the report by the vernacular daily Hankyoreh said. It cited a diplomatic source who is well informed about North Korea-China relations and an unnamed South Korean official who recently returned from a trip to Pyongyang. Seoul's Foreign Ministry said it did not hear of such a request.

The report came a day after North Korea threatened to cut off dialogue with South Korea, claiming the peninsula is on the brink of another war. "North Korea has recently requested massive rice aid from China, which means the North has no intent to make a request for rice and fertilizer aid from South Korea for the time being," the report said, quoting the diplomatic source. But Beijing has yet to respond to Pyongyang's request, the report said.

It also quoted the South Korean official as saying that a North Korean official from the Workers' Party Unification Front Department that he met during the trip defiantly said the North has no intention of requesting food and fertilizer aid from the South. The department is the North's top office on inter-Korean affairs.

South Korea is a key aid donor to North Korea, which has depended on outside aid to help feed its 23 million residents. The South has annually shipped 300,000 to 500,000 tons of rice and fertilizer to North Korea in recent years. Seoul plans to send this year's shipment if Pyongyang makes a request. The recent tension began last week when North Korea expelled all South Korean government officials from the joint industrial complex in Kaesong. The move came after South Korea's unification minister said it would be hard to expand the complex without North Korean progress on denuclearization. (Source: Yonhap News.) (SITE NOTE: Kyodo on 23 Apr reported that the PRC, the DPRK's major food and oil supplier, exported 85 percent more cereals and almost three times more crude oil in January-March than a year earlier, PRC customs figures showed Wednesday. The boost in exports comes after the DPRK suffered the worst cereal harvest in recent years in 2007 and continues to face a chronic energy shortage.)

N.K. facing 1.66-Mln-ton Grain Shortage: UN Agency (Apr 2008) Yonhap reported on 24 Apr that a UN relief agency has appealed for more international food aid for the DPRK, saying the impoverished country is 1.66 million tons short of the minimum it needs until this year's fall harvest. "With this low 2007 production, the cereal deficit for the 2007/2008 marketing year (November/October) is estimated at 1.66 million tons," said the report titled "Crop Prospects and Food Situation." The FAO said the country may again have to depend on external aid "as its capacity to import commercially remains limited by poor economic performance and the recent increase in world food prices." "By comparison to early 2007, current prices for both rice and wheat flour have doubled, while maize prices have also risen substantially," it said.

Peacemaking on 20 Apr carried an article by the secretary general of Goodfriends, who wrote that symptoms occurring in different contexts of DPRK society such as the skyrocketing of food prices are not promising. The conflict between the DPRK governments’ attempt to reinforce social restraints through regulation and the people driven to the verge of starvation is growing. Unless a revolutionary change in the international political situation or a change in the DPRK government’s position takes place, the people are expected to face mass starvation due to food shortages. It seems that DPRK citizens’ sacrifice and resistance for survival are inevitable.

Population Crushed by Famine, but the Regime Saves the Statues of Kim (Apr 2008) Thanks to the enormous waste ordered by the regime, a disastrous economic policy and an attitude of international isolation unequalled in the world, the famine that has struck North Korea this year risks killing millions of people. The charge is made by Tony Banbury, director for Asia of the World Food Programme of the United Nations, who says the situation is serious, and rapidly getting worse. At the moment, according to UN estimates, 6.5 million North Koreans (out of a total population of 23 million) have nothing to eat; the numbers could rise rapidly even within the next few days.

Entirely dependent on international aid, North Korea has closed its borders after the worldwide condemnation prompted by its atomic tests. This has created a shortage of supplies, which, because of last year's floods, continue to deteriorate. Prices in Pyongyang's food stores have doubled since last year, and the shelves are increasingly bare: "the WFP has long warned that last year's floods would exacerbate DPRK's (North Korea's) chronic food problem and we are now seeing the effects in the markets," says Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP's North Korea country director.

Tony Banbury adds that the WFP is taking the situation "very seriously", but "the WFP cannot solve the problem on our own". The North Korean regime, says the international agency, "needs to provide the necessary operating conditions for aid agencies so that donors have confidence that their donations will be used for the intended purposes. And donors need to do their part to ensure that the people of DPRK do not go hungry, or worse". North Korea has long been familiar with the drama of famine.

During the first half of the 1990's, more than two million people died of hunger after a series of floods and droughts. The government has never established a food policy based on the real possibilities of the territory, continuing to proclaim its independence but in fact surviving through South Korean and Chinese aid. But with the new president of Seoul, the conservative Lee Myung-bak, things have changed: without progress in the field of human rights, the newly elected president has said, there will be no humanitarian aid.

Instead of implementing policies of conservation and diplomatic rapprochement, Pyongyang has emphasised political propaganda and the cult of personality. North Korean dissidents who have fled abroad denounce the waste of millions of dollars, destined to preserve the myth of the founder of the People's Republic, Kim Il-sung ("eternal president" of the country, even if he has been dead for 14 years), and his son, the "dear leader" Kim Jong-il.

According to a report published by the Daily North Korea, which gathers testimonies from within the country, each year Pyongyang spends 800,000 dollars solely to preserve the body of the father of the country. This is cared for by seven Russian technicians - experts in the art of embalming - who rub the body twice a week with expensive chemical products that help to preserve the skin of the dead president.

Moreover, some satellite photographs, also published by the same group, demonstrate a fanatical new project of the regime: the construction of a series of subterranean tunnels connecting the bases of the statues of the two dictators spread around the country. These tunnels, which lead to a subterranean bunker, serve in case of attack to preserve the approximately 140,000 "works of art" present in North Korea. The cost of the project is around 890 million dollars, enough to buy 6 million tonnes of grain, which could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people crushed by hunger. (Source: Asia News.)


N. Korea denies report of abduction of women in 1970s (Apr 2008) North Korea on 24 Apr said a French daily's report that the North abducted and held at least 28 foreign women hostage, including three French, in the 1970s, is a "fabrication." On Wednesday, Le Figaro alleged the North abducted the women to use them to teach foreign languages to North Korean spies. In response to the report, an official at the North Korean mission in Paris said by phone, "There is no reason at all for us to kidnap French women or any other country's women." The official said on condition of anonymity, "They just point a finger at us whenever some people are missing since the Japanese have clung to this issue." Also among the group were three Italians, two Dutch and two from the Middle East, the French paper added, citing a testimony by a Lebanese woman who was released in 1979 after being held hostage by the North. (Source: Yonhap News.)


N. Korean population estimated at 23.48 million: CIA (Apr 2008) North Korea's population is expected to increase slightly to 23.48 million in July, according to a U.S. intelligence agency report. North Korea will see its population increase to 23,479,089 in July, up 0.73 percent from 23,301,725 a year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency said in its updated version of the World Factbook 2008. The report, available on the agency's Website, also estimated the average life expectancy for North Koreans at 72.2 years, 0.28 of a year longer than a year earlier. The average life expectancy had been on a steady rise from 71.37 in 2005, to 71.65 in 2006, 71.92 in 2007. The crude birth rate, or the number of newborn babies for every 1,000 people, was estimated to be 14.61, down from 15.06 a year earlier. The crude death rate was on the increase from 7.05 in 2005, to 7.13 in 2006, 7.21 in 2007 and 7.29 this year. No complete census has taken place in North Korea since 1994 when a U.N. agency helped the communist state conduct a national census. Pyongyang announced after the survey that its population was 21.21 million people. According to an almanac released Sunday by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's population increased gradually to 23.6 million in 2004 despite the chronic economic plight of the isolated communist state. North Korea is scheduled to hold the first nationwide census in 14 years with assistance from the United Nations Population Fund in October. (Source: Hankyoreh News.)


May 2008

Starvation begins: Dying of Starvation Yangduk, South Pyongan province: Good friends report (May 2008) In the farming areas of the township of Yangduk , Yangduk County and the vicinity in South Pyongan Province , instances of people dying by starvation due to a shortage of food rations are appearing. Currently, there are many individuals who have been so weakened by the lack of food that they are unable to move their bodies, and one or two deaths are transpiring in each village due to starvation. The Yangduk County Party has stressed the fact that more deaths by starvation will take place if emergency food rations are not supplied, but has not been able to take actions beyond that. Officials in the County party and the farmsare doing nothing more than intensifying ideological education and saying, 'All of us are facing difficult times, so let's tighten our belts and solve this problem. Everyone report to work.' Farmer Han Kyung-duk (56) appealed, 'Please give us something to eat. If you do that, we will report to work even if you tell us not to. We need to eat something in order to have the strength to work.' Currently, the southern regions of the country, starting with South Pyongan Province, are all facing the same situation, and citizens are increasingly worrying amongst themselves that 'If the price of food continues to rise and the government continues to do nothing about the food situation, there will be many more people who will die within the month.'

Food Shortage Rapidly Spread in Spring

With the start of the spring season, the food shortage is increasing rapidly all across the nation. Areas in South Hwanghae Province; counties in Kaesong City, such as Kaepung and Changpung ; Kumchun in North Hwanghae Province, counties in South Pyongan Province, such as Mundok , Yangduk , Sinyang ; and counties in Kangwon Province such as Kosan , Kumgang in particular are suffering greatly from the food shortage. Areas that are farmlands are suffering more from the food shortage, and the number of families that are subsisting on only one meal a day is rapidly increasing. Most families only eat one or two meals a day, and there are many families that eat noodles, porridge, grass, or mountain greens that have been boiled with salt. There are also many families that eat such little maize porridge that they are basically rinsing out their mouths with the porridge water rather than eating a full meal. In some of these households, people become very thin and die in their homes without even knowing the name of the diseases they have. (Source: Good Friends Report.) (SITE NOTE: The last time starvation hit NK, the people were scavenging in spring for millet (grass seeds) to make soup.)

Thousands may die from famine spreading in N.K.: group (May 2008) Famine has started to cause deaths in North Korea and hundreds of thousands of people may die by June, a local aid group said Friday amid warnings that the communist state faces its worst food shortage in years. People are already starving to death in such regions as Yangdok, South Pyongan Province and Sariwon, Hwanghae Province, the head of Buddhist aid group Good Friends, Ven. Pomnyun, told reporters in Washington. About 200,000 to 300,000 people might die of starvation in two months if there is no emergency aid from the international community, he warned.

Earlier on Thursday, Good Friends said in its weekly newsletter that a daily average of one to two North Korean residents died of hunger in recent days. However, it did not provide the source of the information. It quoted an unnamed senior official of the North Korean Workers' Party as saying that the North's food situation is as bad as one in the late 1990s when millions of people are believed to have died of starvation. North Korea has since depended on foreign handouts to feed its 23 million people. Massive deaths from famine are only "a question of time," the official was quoted as saying. South Korea should know "a formidable storm of famine-related death" is slowly moving northward in the neighbori