North Korean Economy Watch

UPDATE 2: And also on Monday the South Korean government lifted the ban on South Koreans visiting the Kaesong Industrial Zone.

UPDATE 1: As of Monday, the DPRK has not retaliated against either the balloons or the ROK naval drill that took place on Yonpyong.  As a precaution, the ROK government has prevented South Korean workers from entering the Kaesong Zone.

ORIGINAL POST: For several years activists in the ROK have periodically floated balloons across the DMZ which contain cash, propaganda leaflets, and even radios. You can learn yet more about the leaflets here.

The DPRK has complained about these balloons on many occasions, and has at least twice threatened to cut off access to the Kaesong Industial Zone in retaliation.  The first time was in November 2008. The second time was in May 2010.

Well last weekend activists launched balloons from Yonpyong Island (recently shelled by the DPRK):

North Korea now claims it will fire at the South Korean islands used to launch these balloons.  According to Yonhap:

North Korea lashed out Friday at South Korea for allowing anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to be sent across their border, as activists vowed to send more from a South Korean island devastated by North Korean shelling last month.

The leaflets, often mixed with U.S. dollar bills, DVDs and radios, are sent in giant balloons across the 4-kilometer-wide Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas.

The North’s official Web site, Uriminzokkiri, said the bills are “nothing more than waste paper” and that the leaflets do little to undermine the pride of its people in the communist regime.

“Such confrontational madness will only snap up the extraordinary alarm and ire of our army and people,” it said in a commentary.

North Korea’s military has warned it would shell South Korean sites used to send propaganda leaflets and broadcasts. On Nov. 23, the North shelled the western South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two marines and two civilians in its first direct attack on an inhabited region in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea cited the South’s live-fire drills that day as a reason for its shelling, saying its territorial waters were infringed upon. The South denies shooting toward the North.

In a related development, a group of North Korean defectors have entered Yeonpyeong Island this week and are preparing to send about 200,000 leaflets denigrating the North Korean leadership.

Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for Free North Korea, told Yonhap News Agency that should wind conditions turn favorable, his group will send the leaflets as early as Saturday.

The South Korean military plans to hold one day of live-fire exercises on Yeonpyeong between Saturday and Tuesday despite the North’s threat of retaliation. North Korea says any shells fired from Yeonpyeong are bound to violate its waters because it does not respect the Yellow Sea border drawn by a U.S. general at the end of the Korean War, which ended in a truce.

In an act of support for the propaganda activities, Shin Ji-ho, a ruling party member, told Yonhap that he and other legislators plan to send 100,000 leaflets in “truth balloons” on Jan. 8, the date North Korea’s 20-something heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, was born.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea slams S. Korea over propaganda leaflets as activists vow to send more
Yonhap
Sam Kim
12/17/2010

According to KBS:

A new survey shows that more than nine percent of North Korean escapees living in South Korea are unemployed and are suffering from serious financial difficulties.

According to a survey of 12-hundred North Korean escapees between the ages of 20 and 60, 42-point-six percent of respondents were economically active, while nine-point-two percent of those who are economically active were unemployed.

Some 37 percent of the respondents cited physical problems as a reason for their lack of a job. More than 24 percent said they chose to remain unemployed in order to raise their children.

The survey was conducted by an organization supporting North Korean escapees.

It would have been helpful if the results were broken down by gender as well as a few other control variables.

Read the full story here:
Survey: 9% of NK Escapees are Unemployed
KBS
12/16/2010

UPDATE: The “tree” was lit December 21.

ORIGINAL POST: South Korea plans to construct a “Christmas tree” on a hilltop tower across the river from Jogang-ri, in Kaesong (37.752445°, 126.593120°).

According to Bloomberg:

South Korea will allow a local church to turn a 30 meter (100 foot) tower at its border with North Korea into a brightly lit Christmas tree as part of “psychological warfare” between the two countries, the JoongAng Ilbo reported.

The tower hasn’t been lit up since 2004, according to the Korean-language newspaper report. North Korea, which suffers from energy shortages and relies on outside handouts to feed its 24 million people, had demanded the tower be demolished, JoongAng said.

Here is a link to the original story in the Joong Ang Ilbo (Korean).

Read the full Bloomberg story here:
South Korean Christmas Tree to Provoke North, JoongAng Says
Bloomberg
Bomi Lim
12/14/2010

Pictured above (Google Earth): The NLL and the DPRK’s alternative maritime border in the West Sea

Evan Ramstad writes in the Wall Street Journal:

North Korea state media on Thursday issued a statement that claimed possession of all waters around South Korea-controlled Yeonpyeong Island, clarifying for the first time that its Nov. 23 attack of the island was motivated by a different view of the inter-Korean maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea than is widely held.

North Korea has said since the attack that it was motivated because shells from an artillery test South Korea conducted on the island that day fell into its waters.

Military officials in South Korea have said that its test-firing that day was routine and was directed into South Korean waters south of the island. South Korea has long understood the maritime boundary to be in several miles north of the island and, as a result, directs its tests southward.

But officials and analysts who have watched North Korea’s evolving statements since Nov. 23 have noticed that Pyongyang didn’t claim that South Korea fired northward, raising questions about just what territory North Korea was claiming.

The new statement carried by Korea Central News Agency wiped out the ambiguity.

“The above-said island is located deep inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side from the maritime demarcation line,” the statement said, using an acronym for North Korea’s full name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“If any live shell firing is conducted from there, shells are bound to drop inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side no matter in which direction they are fired because of these geographical features of the island,” the statement added.

North Korea has long disputed the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea, or West Sea, which was drawn up by the United Nations when hostilities in the Korean War ended with a ceasefire in 1953.

In recent years, North Korea has grown more vocal and belligerent in its claim of a different maritime border, one that runs many miles to the south of the one drawn by the U.N. and known in South Korea as the Northern Limit Line, or NLL.

In North Korea’s claim, five islands that have long been controlled by South Korea lie within its waters. However, North Korea has not claimed possession of the islands.

As it exists, the U.N.-drawn border forces military and fishing vessels from the North Korean city of Haeju and other points along its southern coast to make a coastline-hugging journey westward for 30 miles or more before they can reach open water.

Here is the DPRK’s statement in full from the new KCNA page (for those who do not want to visit the new page):

Pyongyang, December 9 (KCNA) — The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea released a detailed report on Wednesday laying bare the truth and nature of the Yonphyong Island shelling incident in the West Sea of Korea. It clarified internally and externally who was the provocateur and who was to wholly blame for it.

The report said:

The Yonphyong Island covers just 6.8 square km and it has nearly 18 km in circumference. But this small island has been fortified as such core military stronghold that the puppet forces call it “area for top class guard.” A brigade of the puppet marine corps and “K-9” self-propelled artillery pieces of more than one company are deployed on the island and it has a dense network of detection means and intelligence-gathering and communication facilities.

It was waters not far from Yonphyong archipelago that patrol ship of the puppet forces “Cheonan” sank in March this year. The puppet warmongers have persistently escalated the tension in this area, crying out for seeking “revenge,” and at last went the lengths of perpetrating direct shelling under the pretext of a military exercise.

The motive of the incident and the background against which it occurred make it clearer that it was a deliberate provocation of the puppet forces.

The above-said island is located deep inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side from the maritime demarcation line. If any live shell firing is conducted from there, shells are bound to drop inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side no matter in which direction they are fired because of these geographical features of the island.

The puppet warmongers fired as many as thousands of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK side after deliberately fixing those waters as a target of sighting firing. This reckless act was obviously a deliberate provocation to prompt the DPRK to take a military counter-action.

No matter what rhetoric the south Korean conservative group may use in a bid to shift the responsibility for the incident onto the DPRK like a thief crying “Stop the thief!” it cannot hide the truth.

The above-said incident was an inevitable product of the puppet conservative group′s vicious moves to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen and ignite a war.

The inter-Korean dialogues and visits which had been brisk since the adoption of the June 15 joint declaration were totally suspended and an atmosphere of reconciliation, unity and reunification rapidly got cool due to the puppet group.

The conservative authorities of south Korea have persistently mocked at the DPRK′s sincere efforts to improve the inter-Korean relations and turned away their faces from them.

Since the puppet warmongers′ seizure of power, they have staged an increasing number of exercises for a war of aggression against the DPRK and they assumed more dangerous nature.

They have staged more frequent military exercises in waters off Yonphyong Island, in particular.

When the puppet group′s all policies to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK and war moves against it proved totally bankrupt in face of the domestic and foreign public′s rebuff and condemnation, it orchestrated such hideous shocking incident as the Yonphyong Island shelling incident as its last-ditch effort.

While the conservative group of south Korea was the direct provocateur of the said incident, the U.S. was a wire-puller and chieftain of the incident as it egged the puppet warmongers onto the military provocation.

The above-said incident was triggered off because of the illegal “northern limit line” fixed by the U.S. in the West Sea of Korea.

Military clashes and disputes have not ceased in waters of the West Sea of Korea since the cease-fire due to this bogus line having no ground in the light of international law as it was unilaterally drawn by Clark, the then UN forces commander on August 30, 1953.

The U.S. sidestepped the DPRK′s fair and aboveboard proposal for fixing a military boundary line in the West Sea. And it instigated the puppet conservative group to totally scrap the June 15 joint declaration and the October 4 declaration, claiming that the setting up of a special zone for peace and cooperation in the West Sea would bring the “northern limit line” to naught.

The U.S. in league with the puppet warmongers have run the whole gamut of schemes to make the “northern limit line” an established fact at any cost.

Not only the warship “Cheonan” case in March but the recent Yonphyong Island shelling incident were cooked up according to this sinister scenario of the U.S. and under its backstage manipulation.

Since the above-said shelling incident the U.S. has massively supplied the latest weapons to the puppet group while zealously egging it onto carry out what it called “retaliation plan.” This fact goes to clearly prove that the U.S. was the arch criminal who orchestrated and wire-pulled the incident behind the scene.

Additional Information:
1. I have been keeping up with the Yonpyong shelling saga here.

2. Google Earth/Maps now has high resolution imagery of Yongpyong and the DPRK peninsula where the attack originated.  Check it out at 37°39’44.04″N, 125°42’9.71″E and 37°46’21.28″N, 125°36’16.97″E

3. Sorry, Josh, no “Brigandish” this time.  Josh Stanton (One Free Korea) gets credit for inventing the KCNA drinking game.  Every time KCNA mentions “Brandish” behavior, you take a drink.  For those who like to imbibe more frequently, here is a link to every single KCNA story that mentions “Briganish”–all 738 of them. This is courtesy of the indispensable STALIN search engine.

Read the full Wall Street Journal story here:
North Korea Claims Waters Around Shelled Island
Wall Street Journal
Evan Ramstad
12/8/2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

South Korea gave North Korea an astronomical US$2.98 billion during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations from 1998-2008, according to a government tally announced Thursday. That is 1.5 times more than the amount of aid China gave to North Korea over the same period, which totaled $1.9 billion.

The government and private businesses gave North Korea $1.84 billion through commercial trade, $544.23 million for package tours to the Mt. Kumgang resort, $450 million for an inter-Korean summit, $41.31 million in land use fees and wages for North Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and $30.03 million as part of various social and cultural exchanges, according to internal documents of the Unification Ministry and other government agencies.

Funds to Develop Nuclear Weapons

“North Korea is believed to have spent $500-600 million to develop long-range missiles and $800-900 million to develop nuclear weapons,” a South Korean government source said. “And the cash provided by South Korea could have been used to develop them.”

Former government officials during the previous administrations deny this. Lee Jae-joung, a former unification minister, said in a lecture in July last year, “It’s frustrating to hear claims that North Korea conducted nuclear tests using money that the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations gave. So far the government offered cash to North Korea only once.”

He claims that the government was not responsible for paying North Korea $450 million for the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 as that was provided by private businesses together with the cash for the Mt. Kumgang package tours and the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

However, the whereabouts of the cash payment of $400,000 Lee admits to is also uncertain. That was the money North Korea demanded in April 2007 to build a video-link center for the reunions of families separated by the Korean War. North Korea has yet to start construction. “I think they just extorted the money,” a South Korean government official said.

Hungry for Cash

“North Korea demanded money for every event,” said one Unification Ministry official who was in charge of humanitarian cooperation projects during the Roh administration. “We got the feeling that North Korea was trying to use the reunions of families separated by the Korean War as a means to make money.” The North even demanded that South Korea pay $1,000 for each video clip exchanged by families in addition to all of the filming and editing equipment as part of a project back in 2007 that would allow some separated families to stay in touch via video messages, the official said.

A National Assembly audit in 2006 revealed how North Korea made money off South Korean broadcasters. A key example is the W1 billion (US$1=W1,149) that state-run South Korean broadcaster KBS gave North Korea in 2003 to record a TV show about a singing contest in Pyongyang to mark Liberation Day.

In 2005, SBS gave W700 million in cash and W200 million worth of paint and other goods to North Korea for a concert in the North Korean capital by South Korean singer Cho Yong-pil, while in 2002, MBC paid the North W320 million in cash and provided 5,000 TV sets (worth W734 million) for two concerts in Pyongyang by South Korean singers Lee Mi-ja and Yoon Do-hyun.

North Korea also received sizable amounts from South Korean businesses and civic groups through unofficial channels or backroom deals. “Many business owners in the South had problems managing their companies because North Korea habitually made excessive demands for money,” said Cho Bong-hyun, a researcher at the Industrial Bank of Korea’s economic research center

This suggests that a considerable amount of bribes were paid. One South Korean owner of a garment company that was based in Pyongyang said, “Bribes South Korean businesses paid in the early stages to prevent any problems later became customary. After North Korean officials got a taste of the money, they ended up asking for bribes first.”

A Unification Ministry official said, “It’s impossible to estimate how much money was given to North Korea through unofficial channels. We can’t even trace the use of official government money given to North Korea, such as the $400,000 for building a video-link center for the family reunions, so there is no way of telling what happened to money handed over under the table.”

Read the full story here:
S.Korea Paid Astronomical Sums to N.Korea
Choson Ilbo
12/3/2010

According to Yonhap:

Once hailed as vanguards of reconciliation but now threatened by simmering animosity between the Koreas, a group of South Korean businessmen pleaded Thursday with senior lawmakers to safeguard their operations in North Korea against further political fallout.

Since North Korea mounted a deadly artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, these seasoned businessmen have had jitters over the fate of their factories built in the western North Korean border town of Kaesong.

Considered the last remaining symbol of reconciliation between the divided countries, the joint industrial complex houses more than 120 South Korean firms employing 44,000 North Korean workers.

Holding a commercial fair at the National Assembly, representatives from eight companies and officials from their association mingled with two dozen lawmakers and scrambled to tout their products as bearing the messages of hope and peace.

“We have achieved a level of quality that enables us to compete with any other industrial complexes in the world,” Bae Hae-dong, chief of the association of South Korean factories, said in a speech. “Yet, we remain easily affected by inter-Korean political circumstances. We especially deplore the situation that has arisen since North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong.”

The shelling of the small fishing community killed two marines and two civilians in the most indiscriminate attack on South Korean soil since the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce.

A travel ban imposed on North Korea a day after the attack remains in place, allowing only a limited amount of raw materials to be sent to Kaesong and hamstringing manufacturing operations there.

“We are suffering a 10-15 percent decline in production due to the ban,” said Kim Ssang-kyu, general manager at Pyxis Inc., which produces jewelry cases and other accessories.

Sung Hyun-sang, president of Mansung Corp., which makes women’s clothing, claimed the damage in production amounts to as much as 50 percent.

“We understand the ban is for the sake of our safety, but we’re sure the North Koreans won’t hurt us. They know how important we are” to their cash-strapped economy, Sung said.

“We can only worry and pray for now,” an official at Shinwon, which produces men’s suits, said, asking not to be named because his remark could be taken sensitively.

About 410 South Koreans remained in Kaesong as of Thursday, a drop from 760 on Nov. 23 when the artillery exchange erupted between the Koreas, according to the Unification Ministry in Seoul.

The Kaesong complex produced its first articles — kitchen pans — in 2004 even though the two Koreas had agreed four years earlier on the project in an effort to lessen border tension.

Combining South Korean capital and know-how with the cheap labor in North Korea, the park recently reached a total of US$1 billion in production. Supporters of the estate say its significance goes far beyond economic benefits.

“Kaesong has been a safety pin whenever the security on the Korean Peninsula sagged to a dangerous level,” Kim Choong-whan, a legislator with the ruling conservative Grand National Party (GNP), said in a speech.

Park Joo-sun, who is with the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and sponsored the fair, expressed hope that the park will survive the crisis sparked by the North’s shelling.

The fair was scheduled before the crisis, organizers said. The lawmakers who attended it included Park Jie-won, a DP lawmaker who led the organization of the 2000 summit, and Lee Sang-deuk, President Lee Myung-bak’s older brother who is a GNP legislator.

“Sir, please help us,” Bae told the influential lawmaker touring the booths set up at the fair.

Gently embracing Lee with his arm in a show of friendship, another businessman smiled widely and whispered to Lee, “This is the lifeline of peace.”

In a brief interview on the sidelines, Lee downplayed the economic damage the South Korean firms said they have incurred since the travel ban on North Korea came into effect on Nov. 24.

“They should and can withstand this. It is a risk they were willing to take,” he said as he stepped onto the elevator taking him to his office inside the building.

Vice Unification Minister Um Jong-sik, who admitted in a speech that the companies were suffering drops in production, would not say how long the ban will stay in effect.

“All things and situations must be considered before we can make a decision,” he said after a long pause, when asked if South Korean artillery drills planned for next week in the Yellow Sea would prompt the ministry to extend the ban.

“For now, we’re doing our best to listen to these companies and address their needs as much as we can,” he said as he left the fair with two bags full of clothing he bought from Mansun Corp.

South Korea and the United States ended their four-day joint naval drills mobilizing an American aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, a move they believed would intimidate North Korea into calling off further acts of provocation.

The U.S. has 28,500 forces stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War in which it led U.N. forces to fight against North Korea. Since a U.S. commander drew a line separating the waters of the Koreas at the end of the war, the North has denied its validity, triggering a series of deadly naval clashes there with the South.

North Korea says any further artillery drills by the South on Yeonpyeong, less than 10 kilometers from the North Korean coast, are bound to violate its waters because the Northern Limit Line is null.

The communist state maintains that it fired at Yeonpyeong because it had been provoked by South Korean forces shooting artillery shells at its side across from Yeonpyeong.

Read the full story here:
Businessmen plead for help as tension threatens their factories in N. Korea
Yonhap
Sam Kim
12/2/2010

Click image for larger version

UPDATE 70 (2012-3-6): According to Yonhap, the DPRK has replaced the KPA commander responsible for the shelling of Yonpyong:

The head of a North Korean army unit responsible for shelling South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in 2010 has been replaced by the country’s vice defense minister, the North’s state media confirmed Tuesday.

General Kim Kyok-sik, who headed the 4th Army Corps of the Korean People’s Army starting in February 2009, is believed to have led the deadly attack on Yeonpyeong that killed four South Koreans, including two civilians.

The front-line unit near the inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea is now headed by Pyon In-son, vice minister of the People’s Armed Forces, according to North Korean media reports of his appearance on state television Monday.

Kim has often been spotted at events unrelated to the unit since late last year, spurring speculation that he may have been replaced.

During the broadcast by the (North) Korean Central Broadcasting Station, Pyon was introduced as commander of the 4th Army Corps, in effect confirming the replacement. Pyon served as vice defense minister starting in December 2010, and was included in the North’s 232-member commission for the funeral of former leader Kim Jong-il last December.

“The hearts of my corps’ soldiers are boiling with hatred for the Lee Myung-bak group of traitors and determination to get revenge,” Pyon was quoted as saying on air. “Be it Cheong Wa Dae or Incheon, we will immerse them all in a sea of fire and not let a single member of the group of traitors survive.”

North Korea has frequently denounced South Korea’s conservative President Lee Myung-bak as a “traitor,” accusing him of aggravating inter-Korean ties.

UPDATE 69 (4/1/2011): A group of US lawmakers are working to add the DPRK back to the US list of state sponsors of terror.  According to Yonhap:

A bipartisan group of congressmen will soon submit legislation to re-designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism for its torpedoing of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean border island that killed 50 people last year, sources said Friday.

“I understand Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has almost completed drafting the legislation, and she is likely to submit the legislation as soon as possible,” a congressional source said, adding several other Republican and Democratic congressmen are expected to sponsor the legislation.

Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced similar legislation in May last year but it didn’t pass.

In June, she had wreaths laid at the tombs of the 46 South Korean sailors killed in the sinking of the warship Cheonan in waters near the western sea border with North Korea.

UPDATE 68 (3/31/2011): KCNA publishes statement by NDC.

UPDATE 67 (1/26/2011): Int’l Criminal Court asks North Korea for info in war crimes probe

UPDATE 66 (1/14/2011): Joseph Bermudez in 38 North discussing the island shelling.

UPDATE 65 (1/12/2011): DPRK opens Red Cross hotline to ROK

UPDATE 64 (1/6/2011): South Korea’s Military Lowers Surveillance Alert to `Normal,’ Yonhap Says

UPDATE 63 (1/4/2011): Japan, South Korea to discuss defense ties and N.Korea

UPDATE 62 (12/29/2010): ROK  to create joint forces command

UPDATE 61 (12/29/2010): ROK’s President Lee calls for return to talks.

UPDATE 60 (12/29/2010): North Korean Air Force increases training flights

UPDATE 59 (12/25/2010): DPRK airs television show about Yonpyong shelling. The LA Times has more.  They have reportedly also distributed other domestic propaganda.

UPDATE 58 (12/21/2010): North Korea makes gestures toward calm after South’s drills

UPDATE 57 (12/23/2010): Joseph Bermudez analyzes the attacks in the two most recent issues of KPA Journal: November 2010, December 2010.  Bermudez was also interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE 56 (12/22/2010): ROK prepares for largest ever artillery drill

UPDATE 55 (12/21/2010): DPRK deploys more missiles along west coast — including decoys.

UPDATE 54 (12/16/2010): Gordon Flake on the DPRK shelling of Yonpyong and LEU program: Part 1, Part 2

UPDATE 53 (12/21/2010): Yonpyong residents return home

UPDATE 52 (12/21/2010): White House Rejects New Talks With North Korea

UPDATE 51 (12/20/2010): DPRK agrees to allow nuclear inspectors back into country. A chronological listing of stories related to the DPRK’s LWR and LEU facilities is here.

UPDATE 50 (12/20/2010): South Korea concludes military drill.  DPRK does not immediately respond.

UPDATE 49 (12/20/2010): UNSC meeting deadlocked.  Russia distanced itself from China.

UPDATE 48 (12/18/2010): DPRK warns it will attack ROK if it test-fires artillery from Yonpyong.

UPDATE 47 (12/18/2010): UN Security Council Schedules Emergency Meeting on North Korea

UPDATE 46 (12/19/2010): Bill Richardson reports on his trip to the DPRK. KCNA reports he brought gift.

UPDATE 45 (12/16/2010): Andrei Lankov offers thoughts on the escalating tensions between the two Koreas. Here too.

UPDATE 44 (12/16/2010): South Korea announces new military drill

UPDATE 43 (12/16/2010): Bill Richardson goes to North Korea

UPDATE 42 (12/15/2010): South Korea Practices for worst-case attack

UPDATE 41 (12/14/2010): Victor Cha calls for increasing US troop levels

UPDATE 40 (12/13/2010): NDPRK threatens ROK with nuclear war

UPDATE 39 (12/13/2010): ROK’s army chief resigns

UPDATE 38 (12/13/2010): ROK resumes live-fire drills

UPDATE 37 (12/11/2010): DPRK made few concessions to Chinese envoy

UPDATE 36 (12/10/2010): NKorea sends top diplomat to Russia amid tensions.  DPRK announces 2011-2012 plan for exchange between the foreign ministries of the DPRK and Russia.

UPDATE 35 (12/10/2010): Gas Masks for All Residents in 5 West Sea Islands

UPDATE 34 (12/10/2010): China affirms DPRK ties with ‘candid’ official visit

UPDATE 33 (12/09/2010): S.Korea council plans to turn ruins of shelling into park

UPDATE 32 (12/8/2010): DPRK claims waters around Yongpyon

UPDATE 31 (12/6/2010): Victor Cha sees war as a possibility

UPDATE 31 (12/8/2010): Japan to raise armed forces mobility to boost defense

UPDATE 30 (12/8/2010): NK Fires Artillery Shells into Own Yellow Sea Waters

UPDATE 29 (12/7/2010): International Criminal Court (ICC) reviewing actions by DPRK

UPDATE 28 (12/7/2010): ROK to make islands near DPRK ‘fortresses’

UPDATE 27 (12/6/2010): ROK, US, Japan reject 6-party talks on DPRK

UPDATE 26 (12/6/2010): ROK to spend 30 billion won to support artillery-hit islanders

UPDATE 25 (12/6/2010): ROK government advised to expand military forces.

UPDATE 24 (12/6/2010): South Korea Begins Firing Drills Amid North Korea’s War Threat

UPDATE 23 (12/2/2010): US and Japan conduct joint military drills. More here.

UPDATE 22 (12/3/2010): SKorean jets will bomb North if it attacks again.  Apparently the South Korean army soldiers are terrible shots.

UPDATE 21: (12/2/2010): Kaesong businessmen urge support for the industrial zone.

UPDATE 20 (12/2/2010): Satellite imagery of Yonpyong.

UPDATE 19 (12/1/2010): Choe Thae-bok in China.

UPDATE 18 (12/2/2010): DPRK boosts military capacities near DMZ

UPDATE 17 (12/2/2010): ROK Military suggests counterfire caused ‘many casualties’ in N. Korea.

UPDATE 16: Lankov on the shelling.

UPDATE 15 (12/1/2010): UNSC unable to pass resolution condemning attack.

The standoff over what language on North Korea that China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — and South Korea and Japan — could accept highlights the way Beijing’s increasingly aggressive defense of its allies may lead nations to bypass the Security Council as a forum for action.

UPDATE 14 (11/29/2010): DPRK strengthens coastal battery

UPDATE 13 (11/29/2010): ROK government mulls making Baeknyeong a forward deployment base

UPDATE 12 (11/29/2010): After issuing warning, Seoul cancels artillery drill on disputed isle

UPDATE 11 (11/30/2010): 49 ROK trucks allowed to restock Kaesong Industrial Zone on 11/29.

UPDATE 10: ROK will abandon policy of not responding militarily to the DPRK’s activities.

UPDATE 9: DPRK accuses ROK government of using Yonpyong Island residents as human shields and deploys surface to surface missiles in the Yellow Sea as US/ROK military drills underway.

UPDATE 8: Yeonpyeong Island designated as ‘control zone’ for military.  Military pushes to increase budget for defending western islands.

UPDATE 7: China calls for summit of 6-party talk nations (CNN).  South Korea cool to proposal.

UPDATE 6: US response:

1. US calls on China to reign in DPRK

2. US sends aircraft carrier to the West Sea

3. US and ROK begin military exercises

UPDATE 5: South Korea’s response:

1. South Korean defense minister let go.  The new defense minister will have new duties.

2. South Korea reassesses its defenses

3. South Korea reassesses rules of engagement with DPRK

4.  Residents evacuate Yonpyong.  More from the Wall Street Journal.

5. South Korea retrieves DPRK aid from China.  You can read more about this aid here.

6 South Koreans photographed new construction of NK artillery site.

7. South Korea bans workers from entering DPRK

8. Moddy’s keeps ROK credit rating at A1

9. ROK bond buyers switching to corporate notes after yield on sovereign debt fell below inflation

UPDATE 4: North Korea’s response:

1. North Korean Envoy to the UN: They [South Korea] Started It

2. (KCNA) KPA Supreme Command Issues Communique

3. (KCNA) Statement Released by Spokesman of DPRK Foreign Ministry

4. Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un visited Ryongyon County just before shelling

5. Uriminzokkiri demands revival of Kumgang tours

UPDATE 3: Andrei Lankov offers his opinion in CNN:

This time, North Korean leaders merely reminded Seoul that they are capable of making a lot of trouble if their demands are ignored.

A week earlier, a similar message was delivered to Washington, albeit in a less violent manner: A group of visiting American nuclear scientists was shown a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment plant.

This is a reaction to the current U.S. policy which is known as a “strategic patience,” and to somewhat similar approach of Seoul.

…

In essence, the “strategic patience” policy implies that the U.S. will not provide any concessions until North Korea demonstrates its “sincere willingness” to denuclearize — something which is not going to happen, actually.

The right-leaning government of South Korea has adopted the same approach. It decided not to increase the amount of unilateral and unconditional aid to the North — which has grown dramatically under the earlier leftist-nationalist administrations — unless North Korea makes some concessions, too.

Washington and Seoul expected that sooner or later the international sanctions will start making an impact on North Korea, so it will have to accept their demands and become a bit more reciprocal. Otherwise, they were in no hurry to deal with Pyongyang.

However, Pyongyang leaders have grown quite impatient with “strategic patience.”

Sometimes this is explained as a testimony that sanctions are beginning to bite, but this seems to be a wishful thinking: If anything, the food situation in North Korea is better than it has ever been in the last 16 years (albeit still bad by the standards of the modern world), and the North Korean military is not short of money, as their new and shiny uranium enrichment facility demonstrated.

Nonetheless, it appears that North Korea would like to squeeze more aid from Washington and Seoul largely because they do not want to be too dependent on China which now is the nearly sole provider of aid.

So, North Korean strategists chose to hit the weakest spots of both major donors. Americans worry about proliferation, so they were shown that Pyongyang’s nuclear program is advancing fast.

The South Koreans have a different vulnerability. Their efficient but outward-oriented economy depends on the whim of the international markets. Incidents like Yeonpyeong Island shelling are likely to scare markets, which damages the economy, and voters are likely to eventually blame the government for this damage.

The South Korean voters are remarkably indifferent to North Korea, but they are not going to be happy about economic troubles, so a government must know how to keep North Korean regime reasonable or face problems during the elections.

It is often stated that the incident has a lot to do with the succession issue in Pyongyang. Perhaps, the unusually violent nature of shelling is indeed related to North Korea’s domestic policy. Kim Jong Eun, recently promoted to four-star general, needs the support of the old generals (real ones,) so this might be his way to show himself as a tough warlord, not a spoilt brat who spent his youth in Swiss schools.

However, this is not the major reason: The succession politics might have made the incident more violent than it would be otherwise. But something like this was bound to happen.

This fits well into North Korean established pattern of actions. When Pyongyang believes that more aid and concessions can be extracted, it first manufactures a crisis and then, when tensions are sufficiently high, suggests talks in order to get paid for returning to less dangerous behavior.

Will the crisis lead to a war or prolonged confrontation? Most certainly, not, and North Koreans know it. Neither the U.S. or South Korea are going to start a war. They will win, but the price – especially for Seoul — will be prohibitively high.

Surgical strikes against military installations will not help, either. The lives of common North Korean soldiers are expendable, and their death will have no impact on Pyongyang’s policy.

So, it seems that South Koreans will bite the bullet and, after a healthy portion of the face-saving rhetoric, return to the business of usual.

But it is also likely that in few months time the North Koreans will repeat the lesson. They want to show that “strategic patience” is not an option in the long run, and they seem to be right.

UPDATE 2: CNN publishes theories on why the DPRK has behaved in this manner.

UPDATE 1: BR Myers notes that this is the first artillery attack on a civilian population since the Korean War (NPR).

According to the Wall Street Journal:

North Korea fired artillery rockets at a South Korean island near a disputed western maritime border Tuesday, in a clash that killed two South Korean marines and set numerous buildings on fire.

A South Korean military unit on the island, called Yeonpyeong, returned fire, while military officials scrambled fighter jets. In addition to the deaths, at least 16 more were injured, military officials said. Three civilians were injured, and the island’s 1,200 residents were sent scrambling for bomb shelters.

“The whole neighborhood is on fire,” island resident Na Young-ok said from a bomb shelter about an hour after the shelling began. “I think countless houses are on fire, but no fire truck is coming. We have a fire station but the shots are intermittently coming.

Video captured by closed-circuit monitoring cameras on location showed people scrambling out of buildings as explosions rocked the island.

The attack comes after relations soured dramatically between the two Koreas over the past two years, as North Korea’s totalitarian regime became angered at South Korea’s decision to cut off economic assistance unless it ends its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The issue of North Korean nuclear weapons intensified over the weekend after the revelation that Pyongyang had already installed thousands of centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel at its Yongbyon nuclear facility

The exchange of fire also comes less than two months after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il began a process of transferring power to his son Kim Jong Eun, a process that analysts have said is likely to be volatile as the younger Kim grapples for authority over the North’s military.

“The attack is a sheer act of provocation. Moreover, shooting indiscriminately on civilians cannot be forgiven,” said Hong Sang-pyo, spokesman for South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. “Our military reacted immediately according to our combat rules. We will act sternly against any more provocation. North Korea should take the responsibility for this.”

North Korea’s official media late Tuesday said South Korea’s military fired artillery into water on the North’s side of the maritime border while conducting a drill, and that it fired the artillery at Yeonpyeong island in response.

The U.S. condemned the attack and called on North Korea to “halt its belligerent action.” “The United States is firmly committed to the defense of our ally, the Republic of Korea, and to the maintenance of regional peace and stability,” the White House press secretary said in a statement, referring to South Korea by its formal name.

The European Union also condemned the North Korean attack. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called on the “North Korean authorities to refrain from any action that risks further escalation and to fully respect the Korean Armistice Agreement.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China, North Korea’s main benefactor, called for peace and stability. “We hope all involved parties will do more to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Hong Lei said during a regular news conference.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the government “to do their best to collect information on the situation and be prepared for any kind of unexpected incidents.”

The attack roiled financial markets in Asia, briefly sending the U.S. dollar sharply higher before it gave back some gains, on a flight from what are considered riskier investment. The Bank of Korea convened an emergency meeting to discuss the effect of the attack. Several financial analysts quickly issued reports that said they didn’t expect South Korea’s stock market to be impacted.

A spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff said “scores of rounds” were fired by the North. The artillery was fired from positions south of the North Korean city of Haeju.

The attack came without warning at 2:34 p.m local time and lasted for 65 minutes, military officials said. About 250 residents escaped the island in fishing boats and arrived in the port city of Incheon two hours later. As the sun set three hours after the attack, fires continued burning in numerous homes and buildings and smoke covered the island, according to people there and on a nearby island called So-yeonpyeong.

The attack adds to a list of more than 30 fatal or life-threatening attacks by the North against the South—including plane bombings, assassinations and naval skirmishes—since the two countries fought the Korean War in the 1950s. Most recently, a South Korean warship sank in March about 40 miles west of the island struck Tuesday. South Korea blamed North Korea for the sinking, citing an exploded torpedo it found and other evidence.

Some units of the South Korean military had been training in waters near the two islands. However, the North routinely complains about the South’s exercises.

The attack shocked South Koreans, who have become accustomed through the years to brash statements and other provocations by North Korea.

“If this leads to any other provocation, it really will be disturbing in many ways,” Song Young-min, an insurance consultant who is in the military reserve, as he watched the news on his cellphone in downtown Seoul.

“It was shocking, scary as well. I even thought of a possible war,” said Park Jung-jin, a banker. “I still believe it won’t go that far, but the news on all that firing and shooting was definitely the most striking North Korean provocation that I’ve heard of so far.”

Lee Eui-sup, who works at South Korea’s National Pension Service, said he immediately suspected the firing was caused by the instability inside the North’s leadership due to the succession process. “It is a serious problem but will soon disappear as it usually does, I believe,” Mr. Lee said.

From the island of So-yeonpyeong, residents watched as the rockets hit the larger Yeonpyeong island. Some sent photos and cellphone videos of the attack to South Korean TV stations. “When I heard the artillery, I thought it was a usual military exercise, but then I noticed the fire and smoke,” said Lee Seung-yeon, a resident on the smaller island.

The two Yeonpyeong islands are the easternmost of five small islands that are within close firing range of North Korea. All are just a few kilometers away from the maritime border known in South Korea as the Northern Limit Line, or NLL, that was drawn up by the United Nations after the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The North has objected to the line since the early 1970s, arguing in part that the line forces its ships to take lengthy detours to international shipping lanes. Its objections intensified in the 1990s and led to two deadly skirmishes in the area in 1999 and 2002.

In 2007, leaders of the two Koreas agreed to turn the area into a “peace zone.” That vaguely worded agreement was struck just ahead of a South Korean election by an outgoing government and never implemented. It was interpreted in North Korea as erasing the maritime border and in the South as keeping it.

And China’s response according to Bloomberg:

China expressed “concern” over reports that North Korea fired artillery shells that struck South Korean territory and called for parties involved to work harder to promote peace and restart multinational talks.

“We have taken note of the relevant report and we express concern over the situation,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing today. “We hope the relevant parties do more to contribute to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.”

Hong said that officials are aware of claims by a U.S. scientist that North Korea had revealed to him a “stunning” new uranium-enrichment plant. The descriptions by the scientist underscore the need to restart six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Hong said.

“China unswervingly promotes denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula,” Hong said. “We have taken note of the relevant report. It is China’s consistent and firm position to realize denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and consultation. What is imperative now is to restart six-party talks.”

South Korea scrambled fighter jets and returned fire after North Korea lobbed dozens of shells into its territory, injuring four soldiers, Yonhap News reported today.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who declined to be identified, confirmed the shelling, without giving any further details. The military has been put on high alert and will “respond strongly” to further provocation, he said.

Stocks were down slightly in response to the news.  According to Bloomberg:

Stocks sank, dragging the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down the most in five months, while the dollar and the Swiss franc rallied as fighting broke out between North and South Korea and concern grew Europe’s debt crisis will spread. Metals slid as China’s banks approached lending limits.

The MSCI gauge of stocks in developing nations lost 2.3 percent as all 10 industry groups retreated, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 1.1 percent at 9:39 a.m. in New York. The dollar and franc appreciated against most peers. South Korean won forwards slipped the most in six months. Ten-year Treasury yields sank six basis points, the Irish yield jumped 27 basis points, and a gauge of European sovereign debt risk rose to a record. Copper and zinc slumped more than 1.6 percent.

U.S. equities followed European shares lower after South Korea scrambled fighter jets and returned fire following North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong island. China’s biggest banks are close to reaching annual lending quotas and plan to stop expanding their loan books, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Greece will need to make an “extra effort” to cut its deficit to receive more emergency aid, European Union and International Monetary Fund officials said.

“We’re in this very fragile growth state,” said Matthew Kaufler, a Rochester, New York-based money manager at Federated Investors Inc., who helps oversee $341.3 billion. “When you have these other issues — the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, concern about Chinese growth, geopolitical unrest in North Korea and a massive insider trading scandal — that’s going to undercut confidence. That all is overshadowing the latest economic data points in the U.S.”

On a related note, I have done my best to keep up with Cheonan stories here.

Read the full stories here:
North Korea Fires Rockets at Island
Wall Street Journal
Evan Ramstad and Jaeyeon Woo
11/23/2010

China Voices Concern on N. Korea Artillery; Calls for Dialogue
Bloomberg
Michael Forsythe
11/23/2010

Stocks Fall on Korea Clash, Europe Debt, China Lending; Dollar Strengthens
Bloomberg
Stephen Kirkland
11/23/2010

Lankov writes in the Korea Times:

One of the most important peculiarities of North Korean life is the degree of isolation of North Koreans from entire world. The government does not want them to be aware of some facts which contradict the officially approved picture of the world and their own country. To make sure that propaganda has no competition, the North Korean authorities eliminate all possible sources of alternative information.

Few if any Communist countries were as efficient as North Korea in cutting their population off from the unwanted and unauthorized knowledge about the world beyond the nation’s boundaries.

Few North Koreans are ever allowed to leave their country. The only statistically large but non-privileged group of people with overseas experience was the Siberian loggers who were sent to the wilderness of Southern Siberia from the late 1960s onwards. However, that part of the world is not famous for a high density population, so their contact with the locals was kept at a bare minimum (and North Korean authorities saw to this).

All other groups of North Koreans who were allowed to travel overseas formed the upper crust of society and by definition were carefully chosen for their supposed political reliability. These privileged few were diplomats, crews of the North Korean ships and planes as well as a handful of the people who were allowed to participate in international exchanges, largely of academic nature. These people had a lot to lose, and they also knew that their families would pay a high price for any wrongdoing they committed, thus they seldom caused trouble. They are least likely to talk much about overseas life.

There were students, of course, but their numbers were very small ― perhaps, less than 10,000 North Koreans ever graduated from foreign universities (just for comparison: some 240,000 South Koreans are studying overseas right now).

The North Koreans cannot buy or read books published overseas ― no exception is made even for books from other Communist countries. All non-technical foreign publications are kept in special departments of libraries and one needs a security clearance to access them. In these departments the subversive material could be read only by the trustworthy people who obtained special permission from security police.

Of course, radio was the major source of worries for the Pyongyang leaders. So, North Korea is the only country which outlaws the use of the radio sets with free tuning. All radio sets are permanently fixed on the wavelength of the official Pyongyang broadcast, and police conduct random house checks to ensure that technically savvy owners have not re-modeled their sets.

In a clearly Orwellian twist, the government does its best to keep the populace cut off from the past as well. All periodicals and most books more than ten years old are to be sent to the same special departments with access being limited to the people with proper security clearance. Even speeches of the Great Leader are edited (rewritten) from time to time to meet the demands of the ever changing political situation.

Why did they do it? The answer seems to be obvious: the governments know that they have to hide the huge difference in economic performance between North Korean and its neighbors, and above all ― between North and South Korea. Currently, the ratio of per capita income between two Korean states is estimated to be at 1:15 at best and 1:50 at worst. This is the largest gap which exists worldwide between two countries which share a land border, and this gap is powerful proof of North Korea’s economic inefficiency. The government understands that once the populace learns about the gap, the situation might get out of control. To prevent it, they work hard to keep people ignorant about the outside world.

Until 2000 or so, they have been generally successful, even though some snippets of dangerous information found their way to North Korea. Things began to change in the late 1990s when North Koreans began to move across the porous border with China. Most of the refugees did not stay in China, but eventually returned to North Korea. They brought back stories of Chinese prosperity, DVDs with South Korean TV shows and small, easy-to-hide transistor radios with free tuning.

Since then, things began to change, and the information self-isolation system began to fall apart. However, it might be premature to believe that it has been damaged beyond repair. Yes, people in the borderland area are aware that they live in a poor and underdeveloped society. Many people in Pyongyang also came to realize this. But it seems that in more remote parts of the country the isolation still works reasonably well.

Sometimes I wonder how shocked North Koreans will be when exposed to the outside world for the very first time. We can be sure that their surprise will be huge ― and perhaps, their disappointment about their country’s past will be huge, too.

Read the full story here:
Crack in Orwellian paradise
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
11/21/2010

According to Voice of America:

The South Korean Unification Ministry’s annual report calls the Sunshine Policy of peaceful engagement with North Korea a failure.

The ministry’s white paper, issued Thursday, contends a decade of cooperation, cross-border exchanges and billions of dollars in aid did not change Pyongyang’s behavior or improve the lives of North Korean citizens.

Lee Jong-joo, a ministry spokeswoman, says South Korea’s goal is to see North Korea prosper, but Seoul must respond appropriately to any provocations from Pyongyang.

Compared with the previous two administrations here, North-South relations have significantly cooled under President Lee Myung-bak.

Mr. Lee, since taking office in 2008, has insisted North Korea give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons if it wants badly needed food and other aid from Seoul.

His conservative government points to North Korea’s continued nuclear programs and this year’s sinking of a South Korean warship as examples of deception by Pyongyang.

The white paper’s publication was delayed six months to include information on the sinking of the Cheonan navy ship in March.

Pyongyang denies responsibility for the sinking. An international investigation concluded the ship was hit by a North Korean torpedo.

Park Young-Ho is a senior research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification. He says Mr. Lee’s administration is trying to establish a relationship based on rules with the North.

Park says this is a shift, in response to four decades of Pyongyang’s questionable attitude towards inter-Korean engagement.

The ministry’s report complains about the lack of progress on other critical issues, including reuniting separated families and the release or information about South Korean prisoners of war, as well as citizens abducted by the North’s agents.

Referring to huge payments Seoul secretly made to Pyongyang to bring about a 2000 summit of the countries’ leaders, the Unification Ministry says any future engagement must be done transparently.

The policy document does stress the importance of dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang.

On Thursday, Pyongyang sent a message to Seoul saying it is prepared to discuss the status of a jointly run resort in the North when their Red Cross societies hold talks next week.

South Korea’s government has asked Pyongyang to release assets it seized in Seoul’s portion of the Mount Kumgang resort.

Tours to the resort were a rare source of hard currency for the impoverished North. Seoul suspended the program in 2008 when a North Korean guard shot and killed a South Korean tourist near the resort.

Read the full story here:
South Korea Formally Declares End to Sunshine Policy
Voice of America
11/18/2010

Acording to Reuters:

North Korea is facing a grain deficit of 542,000 tonnes in the 2010/11 marketing year after the government only partially provided for grain import cover, the United Nations’ food agencies said on Tuesday.

North Korea’s cereal import requirement in 2010/11 is estimated at 867,000 tonnes, while the government plans to import commercially only about 325,000 tonnes, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said .

“The mission recommended to provide some 305,000 tonnes of international food assistance to the most vulnerable population,” the FAO and WFP said in a report after a joint mission to the country.

According to the New York Times:

Despite a relatively good autumn harvest in North Korea, the reclusive communist nation remains in dire need of food aid, especially for its youngest children, pregnant women and the elderly, according to two United Nations agencies.

In a new joint report, the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said that North Korea, even after substantial imports, would have a shortfall in staple crops — mostly rice, grains and soybeans — of more than half a million tons.

The 2010 harvest was 3 percent higher than last year, the agencies said, despite an unusually harsh winter and alternating drought and flood conditions over the summer.

But even in the best of years North Korea is unable to feed itself. Government food distribution provides only half the necessary daily calories, the report said. People are thus left to fend for themselves with small hillside plots, kitchen gardens and the buying of or bartering for food on the black market.

Aid officials have estimated that the food aid program for North Korea was 80 percent underfunded and that nearly half the country’s children are malnourished.

“I saw a lot of children already losing the battle against malnutrition,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, after a visit to North Korea earlier this month.

“Their bodies and minds are stunted, and so we really feel the need there,” she said. , Agriculture is “the main contributor to the national income” in the North, the agencies said, although its percentage of gross domestic product has declined in the past decade to 21 percent from 30 percent. A lack of foreign currency and credit, made worse by international sanctions against the regime, prevented significant imports of fertilizer and pesticides as well as tires and spare parts for farm trucks and tractors.

In remarks before the Group of 20 summit meeting in Seoul last week, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had “very serious concerns about the humanitarian situation” in North Korea, “especially for the very young children.”

Mr. Ban said the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had pledged to him that the South would provide humanitarian assistance to the North’s children.

…

The two U.N. agencies said their report, which was released Tuesday, was produced by teams that went to most of North Korea’s principal agricultural regions.

As the teams traveled around, the report said, “it was evident that there were no cereals in stock in the warehouses visited.”

…

Additional Information:
1. Here is a link to stories about South Korean aid provided this year. 

2. The DPRK has recently expressed skepticism over the motivations of foreign aid agencies.

3. Here is a PDF of the UN Special Report.  It is full of data and has been added to my Economic Statistics Page.

4. Here is a link to the UN report which you can read on line.

Read the full sotries here:
N.Korea faces 542,000 t grain deficit in 2010/11-UN
Reuters
11/16/2010

U.N. Urges Food Aid for North Korea
New York Times
Mark McDonald and Kevin Drew
11/17/2010