North Korean Economy Watch

According to Reuters:

North Korean trade officials visited Myanmar this week to discuss a possible deal to import Burmese rice to ease major food shortages at home, a government official said on Wednesday.

A meeting was held on Tuesday in the country’s biggest city, Yangon, but the terms of the agreement and how North Korea planned to pay for the rice were not known, the official told Reuters, requesting anonymity.

A North Korea-flagged cargo ship named Tumangang has been docked in the port city since Monday. Witnesses and a Reuters photographer said the vessel appeared empty and no cargo was seen being loaded or unloaded.

Myanmar was once the world’s biggest rice exporter and has shipped 450,000 tonnes of the grain so far this year, up from 440,000 tonnes for the whole of 2010. It exported 1.1 million tonnes in 2009, mostly to markets in Africa and the Middle East.

…

The Burmese official said the North Koreans who visited Yangon on Tuesday dealt directly with the military-owned Myanma Economic Holding Ltd (MEHL), one of the country’s biggest firms. MEHL enjoys a monopoly of many of the country’s most lucrative import and export produce.

A senior member of from the Myanmar Chambers of Federation of Commerce and Industry said it was likely North Korea would try to import more than just rice, noting that it previously bought Burmese rubber.

Ties between the two reclusive countries were restored in 2007 after a 24-year freeze that followed the failed assassination attempt by North Korea agents on then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during a visit to Myanmar.

The revived ties have worried the United States, which believes Myanmar’s military has sought to develop its own nuclear weapons technology using North Korean expertise.

The DPRK recently engaged Cambodia for a barter food deal.

Here is a compendium of stories related to the DPRK’s alleged food shortage this year.

Read the full story here:
North Korea seeking rice deal with Myanmar
Reuters
Aung Hla Tun
2011-8-10

By Michael Rank

During his visit to London earlier this year, President Obama declared, “We believe not simply in the right of nations, but the rights of citizens.” In North Korea, it is the opposite, with citizens having next to no rights that they are able to defend, and the state supreme in its defence of its own rights. Indeed, in North Korea human rights are so limited that it may come as something of a surprise that the government recognises the concept at all, but it does and is prepared to defend its view of them and the way citizens are supposedly protected from exploitation and degradation. Yet knowledge about the North Korean legal system is so hazy that a number of ambassadors in Pyongyang spent much time and effort in the 1970s puzzling out whether the country had any law courts at all, and never came to a definitive conclusion (North Korea Under Communism, by Erik Cornell, 2002).

Almost 40 years later, it is probably true to say no westerner has ever witnessed a trial in North Korea, and North Korean legal theory likewise remains terra incognita, so this book performs a valuable service in putting ideas of human rights in the DPRK in their historical and social context. This includes assessing the influence of Chinese Confucianism and traditional Korean social thinking as well as putting them in a Marxist and post-colonial perspective. “No [previous] attempt has been made to understand and interpret the official discourse of human rights in the DPRK, and I fill in this gap,” the author states in her introduction. The book is based on the author’s doctoral thesis from Cambridge University and relies heavily on Korean-language material, much of it available in digital form, thanks to the engagement policy between the two Koreas after the 2000 Pyongyang summit. That policy has of course since collapsed.

The author suggests that North Korean human rights discourse is based on “Korea’s deeply embedded traditional Confucian values in harmony and unity, the post-colonial right to self-determination, the Marxist antagonism against egoistic individualism, and various collective components of Juche Ideology by Kim Il Sung and ‘our style’ human rights by Kim Jong Il have all constituted collective ideas of human rights in the DPRK.” But Song stresses how human rights discourse in North Korea is by no means static, and criticises some conservative pressure groups, and the current government in Seoul, for “often dismiss[ing] the meaningful signs and important changes that have taken place inside North Korea”. She adds that “It is my belief that the growing number of market-oriented economic activities, and the creation of civil society, although relatively limited in comparison to external standards, can help form a civil society, resistant to the autocratic regime in North Korea.” At the same time, she questions whether western pressure groups are “ready to adopt a culturally sensitive approach approach in order to understand the influences of history, politics, and indigenous cultural traditions on the formation of human rights ideas in North Korea.”

In her discussion of the influence of Confucianism, she suggests that this traditionally incorporated a system of checks and balances but she finds that this no longer obtains in North Korea, and notes that despite the rise of the concept of “virtuous politics” under Kim Jong Il, the country was unable to provide that most basic of human needs, food, in the 1990s when famine stalked the land.

In any case, despite North Korea’s deep debt to Confucianism, it affects to despise this ancient philosophy. According to an official encyclopaedia, “Like other religions, Confucianism was also a heresy, somewhat like opium. Confucianism was used as an ideological tool of the feudal ruling class since it arrived in Korea and had a poisonous impact on the People’s ideology, psychology and ethics as well on economic culture and technological development.”

One of the main factors in North Korean thinking on human rights in the early years of the DPRK was the bitter memory of the Japanese colonial past and the need for nation-building, as well as identifying and suppressing the enemy within. “Distinguishing ‘People’ who are eligible for proper human rights from enemies who are not has been a constant ideational construction process in the DPRK since 1945, depending on changing domestic and international environments,” Song notes. The death of Stalin encouraged critics of Kim Il Sung to stress “the protection of human rights”, which resulted in a backlash, with Kim arguing that his critics were acting “to protect the interests of landlords and capitalists” while the 1956 Hungarian uprising had spread “bourgeois” ideas of human rights into North Korea.

This was the period when Kim was developing his Juche theory, which the author notes replaced Marxism-Leninism as the country’s guiding ideology in the 1992 constitution. For Song, the theory of rights in Juche is closer to Korean Confucianism and to the 19th century Sirhak and Tonghak movements than it is to Marxism, and she also notes how the positive right to subsistence embodied in Juche has been employed negatively to criticise capitalist countries and the poor material conditions of marginalised people in the U.S. and Japan.

Juche has in recent years been complemented by Kim Jong Il’s “‘our style’ of human rights” (urisik in’gweon), which the author, perhaps surprisingly, says “has shown some pragmatic approaches towards international society and left the door open for new departures in this area”. The main characteristics of “our style” human rights “are citizens’ duties and loyalty to the party and the leader in return for the protection of basic subsistence rights and security, and the conception that rights are granted, not entitled inherently when a person is born.” “Not surprisingly,” Song adds, “all [principles] represent the antithesis of individual and liberal concepts of human rights.”

Some North Korean theorists have some understanding at least of the evolution of human rights in the west, including Magna Carta and the French declaration of human rights, both of which serve the material interests of the “property-driven manipulative bourgeoisie”, and there is even some awareness of contemporary thinkers like Ronald Dworkin and Robert Nozick, who are said to represent the imperialists by emphasising a right to property and abstract norms such as freedom and equity. But “In practice,” Song says, “the ideological education of the DPRK focuses on the growing gap between the rich and the poor and human rights violations in Western countries.”

Song occasionally digresses gently away from human rights, and she has some interesting insights into the religious dimensions to the Juche philosophy and into the personality cult, noting that “Unlike the Stalinist cult, the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il clearly belongs to the realm of supernatural shamanistic phenomena.”

This book is absurdly expensive, and it is also dully designed. It includes some unremarkable black and white photographs and reproductions of North Korean propaganda posters that don’t have any great relevance, although I did like the one of a pilot playing an electric guitar, with the slogan, “I’ll show the People’s rock ‘n’ roll to imperialist bastards.”

If I were a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp reading this book (highly unlikely, admittedly) I would probably feel frustrated by its focus on theory rather than on the country’s gruesome practice, but that isn’t really the point. There have been a good number of reports on North Korean human rights practice in recent years, but this is the first study of the thinking behind the practice, and it is so thoughtful and well informed that I can recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in North Korea.

________________

Human Rights Discourse in North Korea: Post-colonial, Marxist and Confucian Perspectives, Song, Ji-young, Routlege, 9 December, 2010.
ISBN: 978 0 415 59394 6
Order at Amazon here.

Peterson Institute Working Paper WP 11 – 13
Stephan Haggard, Jennifer Lee, and Marcus Noland

Read the full paper here (PDF).

Theory tells us that weak rule of law and institutions deter cross-border integration, deter investment relative to trade, and inhibit trade finance. Drawing on a survey of more than 300 Chinese enterprises that are doing or have done business in North Korea, we consider how informal institutions have addressed these problems in a setting in which rule of law and institutions are particularly weak. Given the apparent reliance on hedging strategies, the rapid growth in exchange witnessed in recent years may prove self-limiting, as the effectiveness of informal institutions erode and the risk premium rises. Institutional improvement could have significant welfare implications, affecting the volume, composition, and financial terms of cross-border exchange.

JEL: P3, P33, F15, F36
Keywords: economic integration, property rights, institutions, transition, China, North Korea

Read the full paper here (PDF).

Andrei Lankov provides some anecdotal evidence and a taxonomy of the DPRK’s growing entrepreneurial class (perhaps one of the most interesting and least reported aspects of the DPRK).  He also gives us a glimpse of how the North Korean version of the “infant industry” mindset can impede economic reform.

Here is a great blurb from the article in the Asia Times:

Who are they – the North Korean new rich? The upper crust of this social group consists of high-level officials. Some of them have gained their wealth through illegal means, but many have seen their business activities permitted and even actively encouraged by the government. Most of the money is made in foreign trade, with China being by the far the most significant partner.

Many North Korean companies, despite being technically owned by the state, are effectively private and are run by top officials and their relatives.

That said, these people are not that frequently seen on the streets of Pyongyang. They live in their own enclosed world, of which not much is known.

But if we go one or two steps down, we will encounter a very different type of North Korean entrepreneur – somebody who has made his or her (yes, surprising many of them are women) money more or less independent of the state.

Complete independence is not possible because every North Korean businessman has to pay officials just to make sure that they will not ask too many questions and turn a blind eye to activities that are still technically illegal. In many cases, North Korean entrepreneurs prefer to disguise their private operations under the cover of some state agency.

Take for example Pak. In his early 40s, he runs a truck company together with a few friends. The company has seven trucks and largely specializes in moving salt from salt ponds on the seacoast to major wholesale markets. The company employs a couple of dozen people, but officially it does not exist. On paper, all trucks are owned by state agencies and Pak’s employees are also officially registered as workers of state enterprises.

Pak bought used trucks in China, paying the Chinese owners with cash. He then took them to North Korea where he had the vehicles registered with various government agencies (army units are the best choice since military number plates give important advantages). Pak paid officials for their agreement to “adopt” the trucks. This is so common in the North that there is even an established rate of how much fake registration of a particular type of vehicle costs at which government agency.

Kim was a private owner of a gold mine. The gold mine was officially registered as a state enterprise. Technically, it was owned by a foreign trade company that in turn was managed by the financial department of the Party Central Committee. However, this was a legal fiction, pure and simple: Kim, once a mid-level police official, made some initial capital through bribes and smuggling, while his brother had made a minor fortune through selling counterfeit Western tobacco.

Then they used their money to grease the palms of bureaucrats, and they took over an old gold mine that had ceased operation in the 1980s. They restarted the small mine and hired workers, bought equipment and restarted operations. The gold dust was sold independently (and, strictly speaking, illegally) to Chinese traders.

The brothers agreed with the bureaucrats from the foreign trade company on how much money they should pay them roughly between 30-40% and the rest was used to run the business and enjoy life.

One step below we can see even humbler people like Ms Young, once an engineer at a state factory. In the mid-1990s, she began trading in second-hand Chinese dresses. By 2005 she was running a number of workshops that employed a few dozen women.

They made copies of Chinese garments using Chinese cloth, zippers and buttons. Some of the materials was smuggled across the border, while another part was purchased legally, mostly from a large market in the city of Raseon (a special economic zone which can be visited by Chinese merchants almost freely).

Interestingly, Ms Young technically remained an employee of a non-functioning state factory from which she was absent for months on end. She had to pay for the privilege of missing work and indoctrination sessions, deducting some $40 as her monthly “donation”. This is an impressive sum if compared with her official salary of merely US$2.

The North Korean new rich might occasionally feel insecure. They might be afraid of the state, because pretty much everything they do is in breach of some article of the North Korean criminal code. A serious breach indeed – technically any of the above described persons could be sent to face an execution squad at the moment the authorities change their mind.

And before we all get our hopes up that this emergent entrepreneurial class will eventually push the leadership to adopt economic reforms, Lankov reminds us how they could just as well serve to prolong the regime’s life:

Paradoxically, the long-term interests of the emerging North Korean business class might coincide with that of the Kim regime. Unlike normal people in the North, both groups – officials and entrepreneurs – have an interest in maintaining a separate North Korean state. Unification with the South is bound to spell disaster for both groups.

A person who is now running a couple of small shops might eventually, if North Korean capitalism continues uninterrupted growth, become an owner of a supermarket chain. If unification comes, he or she would be lucky to survive the competition with the South Korean retail giants and keep the few corner shops they had.

The full story is well worth reading here:
The secret world of North Korea’s new rich
Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
2011-8-10

Pictured Above (Google Earth): Tynda Logging Camp in Russia. See in Google Maps here.

According to the Daily NK:

Kim, a defector who arrived in South Korea in 2008 after working for 30 years in the North Korean forestry sector, explained to The Daily NK on the 5th, “North Korea’s operations in Russia are now just enough to send timber to North Korea on the birthdays of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il; they provide little real benefit in terms of foreign currency earning.”

In essence, Kim went on, “North Korea is just running the Forestry Mission to maintain its relationship with Russia.”

Following a 1967 agreement between the two countries, logging has at times played a key role in North Korea’s hard currency earning efforts, with more than 20,000 North Korean laborers being involved in forestry operations in Russia by the start of the 1990s.

Under the agreement, Russia agreed to provide the trees, equipment and power, while North Korea would provide the labor, and both countries shared the timber.

However, the deal is no longer beneficial to the North Korean state, as Kim explained in more detail, saying, “At the moment, Russia takes 72% and North Korea 28% of what is felled by these North Korean laborers, but most of the money North Korea earns from selling it on to Chinese trade companies goes on the laborers’ wages, accommodation, food and administration of the Forestry Mission. Now that Russia is a market economy with constantly rising prices, there is hardly any hard currency left to send back to the North Korean authorities.”

“Recently, China has been offering the Russians more money for these felling operations, so the North Korean laborers have no choice but to go home,” Kim added, continuing, “In addition, the scale of the workforce and operations has been decreasing recently partly because those groups of workers who protest about wage delays and whatever else are all dispatched back to North Korea.”

“In the past there used to be trade missions in Tynda and Khabarovsk, but now they is only the one in Tynda, with seven logging businesses underneath it,” he said. “The Khabarovsk trade mission has recently been closed down, and there are now a total of just nine logging operations underway in all of Russia.”

The numbers of loggers has shrunk to “4,000 in Khabarovsk and 2,000 in other remote areas; a total that does not exceed 6,000,” Kim stated.

Even the remaining forestry mission in Tynda is not large, with a president, chief engineer and vice-director working in parallel with a Party chief secretary, organizational secretary and propaganda secretary. Although each secretary has two or three workers under him, even with the National Security Agency staff that keeps tabs on the activities of the workers included in the total, the mission remains small.

Elsewhere, however, there are actually tens of thousands of North Korean laborers in Russia working in fields including construction, agriculture and mining, including around 30% of the 6,000 nominally said to be involved in logging.

The activities of military-run enterprises are on the increase, too. Kim explained, “Following cooperation between the Russian Air Force and the North Korean Air Force Command, there are now farming operations going on around air fields. If you include the General Reconnaissance Bureau, North Korea has sent at least a few tens of thousands of people to Russia.”

Given the ever increasing number of laborers running away from their assigned workplaces, Kim speculated there could also be as many as 600 or more defectors residing in Russia.

“In 2006 the Ministry of Forestry sent some cadres all over Russia to try and lure defectors back home, but these people had grown accustomed to living in Russia and nobody listened. There were 598 at that time, so it’s probably even higher by now,” Kim said.

One other key reason why North Korea has been unsuccessful in its attempts to retrieve the defectors is that the Russian authorities take a sympathetic view of their plight. According to Kim, “Russia does not forcibly repatriate defectors in the same way as China, so they are able to marry and work there. The Russian police have been treating defectors as humanitarian refugees since 2005, aware that forcibly repatriated defectors risk public execution and that their families face punishment, too.”

Naturally though, surveillance and control of the laborers is as severe as it has always been at the logging sites. Every week the workers are forced to participate in Party-led activities including mutual criticism sessions. The authorities are trying to limit the number of defectors by encouraging them to spy on one another, and the NSA has an intricate system of investigation to maintain order. Nevertheless, workers are sufficiently unhappy with their situation that defections continue to occur.

According to the Russians, there were 32,000 North Koreans working in the country in 2010. Here is a link to the source of this number and previous posts on North Koreans logging in Russia.

Read the full story here:
Logging in Russia: Not What It Used to Be
Daily NK
Kim Yoinh-hun
2011-8-8

Last week the Nautilus Institute posted a paper on the DPRK mining industry written by Choi Kyung-soo.  You can see the full report here.  A couple of the mine locations were incorrectly reported, so I thought I would correct the record (as I understand it), as well as offer coordinates and satellite imagery of all the facilities mentioned in the paper:

Sangnong Mine (상농광산)
40°36’0.38″N, 128°43’35.40″E
Sangnong Worker’s District, Hochon County, South Hamgyong Province. According to the paper, the mine is located in the “Dancheon district of Hamgyeongnam-do”.

Holdong Mine (홀동광산)
38°52’18.15″N, 126°26’21.98″E
Holdong Worker’s District, Yonsan County, North Hwanghae

Hyesan Youth Mine (해산청년광산)
41°21’52.36″N, 128° 9’28.35″E
Hyesan City, Ryanggang Province

Komdok (Geumdeok) Mine (검덕광산)
40°55’9.41″N, 128°49’13.76″E
Kumgol-dong, Tanchon, South Hamgyong Province

Taehung (Daeheung) Mine (대흥청년영웅광산)
41° 4’24.63″N, 128°51’4.68″E
Taehung-dong, Tancheon City, South Hamgyong

Musan Mine Complex (무산광산련합기업소)
42°14’16.22″N, 129°15’59.70″E
Musan, North Hamgyong

Oryong Mine (어룡광산?)
42°18’13.59″N, 129°22’51.70″E (estimated)
According to the paper, the Oryong Mine is near Ryungchon-ri (42°20’18.19″N, 129°24’39.48″E) in Hoeryong and opened in 2007. The satellite imagery of the area is from 2006 and shows an area under construction near the village. Another source claims this mine is located in Obong-dong, closer to the city of Hoeryong and is a uranium mine.

Jongchon Graphite Mine (정촌광산)
37°55’7.23″N, 126° 6’49.34″E
Jongchon-ri, Yonan County, South Hwanghae.  The paper claims the mine is located in “Jeongchon-gun”, which does not exist.

2.8 Jiktong Youth Coal Mine (2.8직동 청년 탄광)
39°29’42.68″N, 126° 2’3.50″E
Jiktong, Sunchon, South Pyongan

Kogonwon (Gogeonwon) Mine (고건원탄광)
42°40’25.03″N, 130°12’47.28″E
Kogonwon Worker’s District, Saepyol County, North Hamgyong Province

Apdong Mine (압동광산)
38°25’6.96″N, 127°21’8.17″E
Apdong-ri, Phyonggang County, Kangwon Province

According to Yonhap:

The life expectancy of an average North Korean stands at 68.9, placing it 149th among 222 countries checked, a U.S. media report said Saturday.

According to Voice of America (VOA), which cited the latest findings by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the typical North Korean male born this year can expect to live 65 years, while the average female is expected to live 72.9 years.

The numbers are an estimation of how long babies who are born this year will live.

The VOA said that the original data did not elaborate on why there was a jump in the life expectancy of over four years. Last year, the CIA claimed North Korea’s life expectancy stood at 64.13 years.

The latest findings, meanwhile, said that as of July, there were over 24.45 million people in North Korea, with the U.S. Census Bureau predicting the population may grow by around 10 percent to 26.86 million by 2050.

The CIA periodically updates the data on its World Factbook (and changes the URLs), but because historical data is deleted and  the methodology for determining the findings is not publicly known, it is hard to know where exactly the numbers come from, why they have changed, or what it all means. With any change in data we could be looking at a new trend or we could be seeing corrections in previously flawed data.

The World Factbook’s “Guide to Country Comparisons” was the source for the statistics in this story.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea’s life expectancy ranks 149th in the world: report
Yonhap
2011-8-6

Pictured above: Mangyongbong-92 in the Wonsan Harbor.  See in Google Maps here.

UPDATE 1: The Mangyongbong-92 was used to take visitors from Rason to Kumgangsan at the end of August 2011.

ORIGINAL POST: According to Yonhap:

North Korea appears likely to use a ferry to try to attract foreign tourists, a source familiar with the issue said Friday, in what could be an attempt to earn much-needed hard currency.

For decades, the Mankyongbong-92 served as the only shuttle between North Korea and Japan, which have no diplomatic relations, and was mostly used by pro-North Korean residents in Japan.

The 9,700-ton ship was later used to transport cargoes before Tokyo blocked its entry as part of economic sanctions over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

The ferry has also been suspected of being used for trafficking drugs, counterfeit money and other contraband goods.

North Korea is now preparing to use the vessel as a cruise ship for Chinese and other foreign businessmen during an upcoming international fair in Rason, the country’s special economic zone near China and Russia, the source said.

The North plans to use the ship to take the businessmen on a sightseeing trip in waters off the economic zone at the end of the international fair later this month.

The move is widely seen as the North’s attempt to use the ship for its tourism project.

“It is meaningful in that the Mankyongbong-92 would set sail as a cruise ship for the first time,” said Cho Bong-hyun, a researcher at the IBK Economic Research Institute, noting the North seems to be revitalizing tourism in the economic zone and attempting to attract Chinese tourists to earn hard currency.

The North designated Rason as a special economic zone in 1991 and has since striven to develop it into a regional transportation hub, though no major progress has been made.

…

Read the full story here:
N. Korea pushing to use ferry to attract foreign tourists
Yonhap
Kim Kwang-tae
2011-8-5

Steve Park, president of Korea Pyongyang Trading USA which imports a North Korean Soju (see previous posts here), claims that he has signed a MOU with the DPRK over tourism in the Kumgang resort.  This claim has been picked up by numerous media outlets.  It might be true, but I have yet to see the MOU documentation or any corroboration in the DPRK media.

According to the Hankyoreh:

Park Il-woo, also known as Steve Park, who has long conducted business with the communist nation, said his firm recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the Mount Kumgang tourism business.　He is the president of Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A., which imports a North Korean liquor branded Pyongyang Soju.

The MOU stipulates that the company will be in charge of marketing, investor relations and tourist recruitment for what is said to be the most scenic mountain on the peninsula.　Under the agreement, the mountain area will be developed into a multi-purpose resort.

He said he plans to visit North Korea this weekend or next week to discuss concrete business plans. He expressed confidence that he will be able to attract substantial U.S. investment for the business. The North is also expected to select Japanese and Chinese business partners soon, he added.

According to another article in the AFP:

“I understand (the North) will also select Japanese and Chinese business partners soon,” said Park, whose company imports a North Korean liquor branded Pyongyang Soju.

No sooner had the deal been announced than the South Koreans raised the point that Mr. Park will need the permission of the US government to carry out his business plans. According to Yonhap:

A small New York-based company selected by North Korea to revive a stalled tour program to a mountain resort in the isolated country needs the endorsement of the U.S. government for its project, a South Korean official said Friday.

The U.S. Executive Order 13570 that took effect in April prohibits the importation into the United States, directly or indirectly, of any goods, services, or technology from North Korea.

Under the order, the envisioned tour program to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang by Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A. is subject to the U.S. government’s approval, the official said.

The company, headed by a Korean-American businessman, has yet to file an application with the U.S. government for approval of its proposed tour project in the North, the official said on the condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

U.S. State Department officials in Washington were not immediately available for comment.

The comments by the South Korean official came days after the New York firm signed a memorandum of understanding with the North on the tour program.

According tot he Donga Ilbo, Mr. Park has not yet submitted any paperwork to the US government:

Korea Pyongyang Trading USA is known to have not yet submitted an application to the U.S. government for business with the North.

Another South Korean government source said, “Considering the scale and situation of the trading company that was reportedly chosen as the new operator of the Mount Kumgang tour program and under the conditions of U.S. sanctions against the North and the executive order, we cannot confidently say the Mount Kumgang tour project will be implemented.”

These views by Seoul officials apparently reflect their internal judgment that they cannot accept Pyongyang`s unilateral revocation of Hyundai Asan’s exclusive right to the tours and appointment of a new operator.

The South Korean government understands that the North is taking steps to attract another foreign business other than the American company. Government officials in Seoul predicted, however, that the North is unlikely to find an operator due to U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang, limited demand for tours, and lack of infrastructure in the North.

A timeline of Kumgang stories from the shooting until now can be found here.

Koryo Link to become iPad friendly? In a recent KEI email update, Abraham Kim writes the following:

Finally, discussions with Koryo Link representatives revealed that 3G internet service via Apple iPad will be available this fall in Pyongyang via a special SIM card developed by Koryo Link. When asked whether the North Korean regime would be concerned about foreigners traveling around North Korea with internet service on their iPads, the representatives suggested that the government actually encouraged these latest technology developments.

___________

London to have its own Ryugyong? Koryo Tours makes the connection:

Koryo Tours has done a great job pushing the frontiers of the possible when it comes to the DPRK (they do a lot more than tourism).  Check out their web page.

Strangely, South Korea seems to have recently blocked the Koryo Tours web page.  This seems silly to me.  Censorship by a modern, liberal democracy is so 1960s.  Government censorship demonstrates weakness, not strength.

___________

Lankov on Rodong Sinmun: Andrei Lankov has written what is truly a funny and informative article about Rodong Sinmun (로동신문).  As someone who reads and watches too much DPRK propaganda, I was laughing the whole way through. Read the article here.

___________

Atlantic “Inside North Korea” photo series: About 20 people sent me the recent North Korea photo series in the Atlantic (thank you to all), so even though everyone has probably already seen it, here it is.

___________

More DPRK sand art! See it here.

___________

KFA posts two North Korean books for download: The Korean Friendship Association (KFA), a pro-DPRK organization based in Spain, has posted two North Korean books to their web page.  Both were helpful for my DPRK mapping project, so I thought I would share:

Book 1: Panorama of Korea (PDF)

Book 2: Panmunjom (PDF)

___________

DPRK publishes in ‘Comic Sans’ font…unaware of US imperialist connotations.  Here is a sample from a flyer purchased that the Fatherland Liberation War Museum:

Learn about how annoying Comic Sans is here.  Hat tip to a reader with a good eye.