Archive for the ‘United Kingdom’ Category

British football association donates sportswear to DPRK

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

From Yonhap:

The British Football Association has donated some 600 items of sportswear such as gym suits and sweat pants to North Korea, a pro-Pyongyang daily in Japan said Tuesday.

The sportswear was delivered to the North Korea’s football association in a ceremony held in Pyongyang on Thursday with the British Ambassador to the country John Everard attending, the Choson Sinbo newspaper said.

Read the full article here:
British football association donates gym suits to N.K.: report
Yonhap
6/17/2008

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UK appoints new ambassador to DPRK

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

From Her Majesty’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office:

Mr Peter Hughes has been appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in succession to Mr John Everard who will be retiring from the Diplomatic Service. Mr Hughes will take up his appointment during July 2008.

His CV can be found here.

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Teach English in Pyongyang

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

From the British Council:

English Teacher Trainers, DPRK (North Korea)
Based Pyongyang, reference OA08007

You must read the Information about the Job before you make an application. It contains vital information on how to apply, our selection procedure, and the application deadline, as well as job-specific information.

Senior English Teacher Trainer – £29,361 a year

English Teacher Trainer (three posts) – £25,772 a year

Contract from 1 September 2008 to 31 August 2009 (with the possibility of extension)

Benefits including free accommodation, pension provision, medical insurance and regular flights to Beijing and the UK

JOB SUMMARY
The British Council/Foreign and Commonwealth Office English language project in the DPRK aims to deliver high-quality programmes in teacher/trainer training and to develop the curriculum and related materials as well as assessment systems at three leading institution in Pyongyang. This high-profile project has been running since 2000, and we are now seeking four experienced English language teaching professionals to fill the above posts, which will be based at these institutions.

You will have: a diploma-level qualification in TEFL (e.g. UCLES DTEFLA/Cambridge ESOL DELTA, Trinity College London Dip TESOL); a minimum of three years’ ELT and teacher training experience overseas; and course/curriculum planning and materials development experience. An MA in TEFL/Applied Linguistics (or equivalent) and experience of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and of teaching ESP are desirable. Additionally, for the Senior English Teacher Trainer post you will have knowledge of testing, and people and project management experience is desirable.

Note: local restrictions mean that UK passport holders only can be considered for these posts. These are unaccompanied posts, although in exceptional cases the DPRK authorities might agree to a married couple.

WHO WE ARE
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We work in 110 countries and territories reaching millions of people each year, and increase appreciation of the UK through the arts, education, science, government and sport.

HOW TO APPLY: Visit their website.

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N.K. orchestra to perform in Britain: report

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Back story: It looks like Suzanne Clark’s efforts are finally paying off…

Yonhap
1/29/2008

North Korea’s national symphony orchestra will perform in Britain as part of its planned concert tour to Europe in early September, a U.S. radio station reported Friday.

The North’s 120-member State Symphony Orchestra will hold three concerts in London and Middlesbrough Sept. 2 to 14, Radio Free Asia said, quoting a British businessman who arranged the tour.

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245 N. Korean defectors sought asylum in Britain this year: report

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Yonap
12/24/2007

As many as 245 self-claimed North Korean defectors sought asylum in Britain in the first 10 months of this year, a U.S. radio station reported Monday.

A spokesperson for the UNHCR, Jennifer Pagonis, however, noted the British government needs to confirm whether they actually came from North Korea, the Radio Free Asia said citing a spokesperson for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

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Korea allows aid group to reach flood victims directly: RFA

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Yonahp
Sam Kim
10/31/2007

North Korea has allowed an international relief group to bring supplies directly to the North’s southeastern region hit hard by recent floods, Radio Free Asia (RFA) has reported.

The U.S.-funded broadcasting station cited Tom Henderson of England-based civic group, Shelter Box, Tuesday as saying that North Korean authorities made the rare decision, allowing aid officials to deliver food and other supplies to flood victims in the region southeast of capital Pyongyang.

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British singer charms North Koreans into a tour

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Times of London
10/24/2007
Lucy Bannerman

She is one of the few Westerners to be invited behind the borders of the world’s most secretive state, and is surely the only soprano from Middlesbrough to perform for Kim Jong Il.

Having become an unlikely celebrity in North Korea over the past six years, the opera singer Suzannah Clarke has pulled off perhaps her greatest coup by getting permission to take the state’s national orchestra to Britain. The Times has learnt that plans are under way for 120 musicians to perform at a number of big venues across the UK early next year.

The Foreign Office has already given its support to the project and the search is now on for sponsors.

For the performers, it will be their first experience of the outside world; for Clarke, 38, it will be the culmination of years of work, using her position as the darling of Pyongyang to build close relations with North Korea’s leaders. She said: “This is not an easy project. Two years ago I wouldn’t have had any hope of succeeding. But when I went out there last April, I could feel a change in the air, a warmer atmosphere. This is the first time the North Koreans have ever let their orchestra abroad.

Clarke, who opened the Euro 96 football championships at Wembley, claims that ending isolation is the best way for the West to build relations with the hardline state, which has a dismal record on human rights and is thought still to be holding up to 200,000 political prisoners, and has presided over millions of deaths from famine and economic mismanagement. However, she argued that isolation was not the answer. The idea of a British tour came to her as she watched the orchestra perform during the annual Friendship Festival this year.

As befits the tough standards set by the dictatorship, the musicians displayed the same discipline and technical prowess demonstrated by the thousands of dancers who take part every year in the synchronised gymnastic games marking Kim Jong Il’s birthday. “They played a cheeky medley of tunes – Shostakovich, Mozart, as well as some of their own repertoire. It was powerful, passionate, but funny as well, and I thought, ‘Gosh, British audiences would love this’,” she said.

She is seeking sponsors and dealing with the considerable logistical challenge of arranging transport and accommodation for 120 North Koreans and their chaperones during their visit. “I wake up from mini-nightmares of losing a North Korean on the Tube,” she said.

Supporters include Lord Alton of Liverpool, chairman of the British-North Korean All Party Parliamentary Group and official patron of the project, and David Heather, a British financier who curated Britain’s first exhibition of North Korean art in Pall Mall, this year.

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Teach English in Pyongyang!

Sunday, September 9th, 2007

Michael Rank at NKZone (which seems to be making a comeback) has pointed out:

British Council is looking for three English language teacher trainers as part of its “high-profile project [that] has been running since 2000.”

The British Council website states:

Senior English Trainer – £28,240 a year, plus benefits

English Trainers (2 posts) – £24,877 a year, plus benefits

Contract from 1 November 2007 to 31 August 2008

Benefits including free accommodation, medical insurance and pension provision

JOB SUMMARY
The British Council/Foreign and Commonwealth Office English language project in the DPRK aims to deliver quality programmes in teacher/trainer training and to develop the curriculum and related materials as well as assessment systems at leading institutions in Pyongyang. This high-profile project has been running since 2000, and we are now seeking three experienced English language teaching professionals to fill the above posts, which will be based at these institutions.

For all posts you will have: a diploma level qualification in TEFL (eg UCLES DTEFLA/Cambridge ESOL DELTA, Trinity College London Dip TESOL); a minimum of 3 years’ ELT and teacher training experience overseas; course/curriculum planning and materials development. Additionally: for the Senior Trainer post you will have an MA in TEFL/Applied Linguistics (or equivalent) plus experience of teaching ESP and of people management. For one of the Trainer posts, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) teaching experience is required, and, for both posts, an MA in TEFL/Applied Linguistics (or equivalent) is desirable.

Note: Local restrictions mean that UK passport holders only can be considered for this post. These are unaccompanied posts, although in exceptional cases the authorities might agree to a married couple.  Employment is subject to permission from the DPRK Ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs.

WHO WE ARE
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We work in 110 countries and territories reaching millions of people each year, and increase appreciation of the UK through the arts, education, science, governance and sport.

HOW TO APPLY
Please apply using the materials below.

   Information sheet
   Behavioural competencies
   Guide for external applicants
   Application form
   Guidance on completing the application form
   Senior English Trainer – Information about the job
   English Trainer (with CLIL) – Information about the job
   English Trainer – Information about the job

Closing date for applications: 12 noon, Thursday, 20 September 2007. Applications should be returned to TMP, initially by e-mail, then hard copies by post. Interviews will be conducted on 4 and 5 October 2007 in Manchester.

Please return completed application forms quoting reference OA07016 to:

Lisa Hampton
TMP
Chancery House
53-64 Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1QS

Telephone: 020 7649 6046
Fax: 08700 339318
E-mail: [email protected]

If you are unable to download the application form and details please contact Lisa Hampton.

OUR RECRUITMENT POLICY
The British Council is committed to a policy of equal opportunity and is keen to reflect the diversity of UK society at every level within the organisation. We welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We also offer application packs in the following formats: large print, Braille, computer disk or audio tape.

We guarantee an interview to disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria.

We are the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.

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Trendy London welcomes North Korean art

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Asia Times
Michael Rank
8/1/2007

Above the chic shops and arcades of London’s Pall Mall, the flag of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea wafts incongruously in the wind. Look inside, and portraits of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader stare out at you.

No, the North Korean army hasn’t marched across the River Thames, but Pyongyang has established a small cultural enclave in London’s West End in the form of the first major exhibition of North Korean art in the Western world.

Curator David Heather says he first got the idea after meeting a North Korean painter at an art exhibition in Zimbabwe in 2001. “I got chatting with Mr Pak and he invited me to Pyongyang,” said Heather, making it all sound surprisingly straightforward. But the 45-year-old financier admits that mounting the exhibition was “quite a challenge … very time-consuming” and also admits that he has no great knowledge of art or the international art market.

He describes the surprisingly extensive exhibition of about 70 artworks as “an opportunity for people to see art from what is a secretive and protective society at first hand”.

The show ranges from apolitical landscapes and ceramics to a vast, blatantly propagandistic battle scene celebrating the routing of the US Army in the Korean War, as well as hand-painted posters on such unexpectedly diverse themes as “international hero” Che Guevara and “say no to sexual slavery in the 21st century”. This is a clear reference to Korean and Chinese “comfort women” who were forced into prostitution to serve Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Heather brought over three of the artists to London for the opening of the exhibition, including Pak Hyo-song, whom he had met in Zimbabwe and who has two dramatic – if highly un-North Korean – wildlife paintings of zebras and lions on show.

Pak spent five years in Zimbabwe as representative of the Mansudae Art Studio, North Korea’s leading group of official artists, whose activities include designing monuments and propaganda posters on behalf of foreign, mainly African, governments.

Pak’s dramatic if not entirely lifelike oil paintings seem to have been influenced by the well-known British African wildlife artist David Shepherd, and sure enough, the 47-year-old “Merited Artist” told Asia Times Online at the opening party that he was a great fan of Shepherd.

He is undoubtedly the only North Korean artist to have had a one-man show in Europe, after Heather mounted an exhibition of 15 of his paintings in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2005.

The London opening featured a remarkable mix of people. It was was a rare chance for the three North Korean artists and normally elusive members of the North Korean Embassy in London to mix socially with South Korean diplomats, art collectors and business people as well as with British Foreign Office officials, members of Britain’s tiny pro-Pyongyang New Communist Party, and at least one aging Moonie.

Heather said he had hopes of bringing the show to Paris, Berlin and even New York, and that only a few days after the opening he had already sold 50 posters at 250-300 pounds sterling (US$500-600) each, as well as two large paintings priced at several thousand pounds.

The sum of 300 pounds may sound like a lot for a none too subtle North Korean poster by an anonymous artist, but propaganda art is highly fashionable nowadays, with Chinese posters from the 1960s and 1970s fetching hundreds of dollars in London and New York. Given that the North Korean posters are hand-painted while the Chinese pictures are mass-produced prints that originally cost a few cents, the North Korean versions may turn out to be rather smart investments.

Heather said he had “no idea” how much he had invested in the exhibition, including renting a gallery on one of London’s most expensive streets for six weeks. “I don’t do it to make or lose money,” he said, but he clearly takes pride in being “a good negotiator”.

He said the North Koreans are “very direct and straightforward” and that “they are very open to ideas”. He has visited Pyongyang just once, in 2004, and conducted most of his negotiations in Beijing. Heather said he had bought 150 artworks, which he would show in rotation. Pricing the pictures was difficult, as this was the first time North Korean works of art were being sold in the capitalist West, he noted. “It opens up a new market which wasn’t there before.”

The biggest and most expensive picture in the exhibition is called Army Song of Victory and is priced at 28,000 pounds. A collective work by seven artists, it shows a Korean People’s Army brass band celebrating as US troops flee in the Battle of Rakdong River in 1950. A spokeswoman said the gallery was considering an offer of 21,000 pounds on the opening night.

Heather said he had received “a lot of help” from the North Korean Embassy and the British Foreign Office, and quiet encouragement also from the South Korean Embassy, which was anxious to see what North Korean art was all about. He has taken the North Korean artists to the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and the historic city of Bath – despite the floods covering much of western England – and invited them to his home for a traditional British dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Heather has clearly formed an excellent rapport with the North Korean Embassy, and has even played golf with one of its diplomats on a course near London. “He’s sort of average like me. He has played on the Pyongyang golf course; it’s mainly for the elite,” Heather explained.

But holding an art exhibition is just the beginning, and Heather is now hoping to bring a 150-member North Korean orchestra over to London next year. “I’m hoping they will play in the Royal Albert Hall or Royal Festival Hall,” he said, referring to London’s two biggest concert halls.

This may not be quite as far-fetched as it sounds. Heather is working on the orchestra project with British soprano Suzannah Clarke, who has given several concerts in Pyongyang and is one of North Korea’s few foreign celebrities. Her rendition of “Danny Boy” is said to be especially popular with North Korean audiences. Given her fame and his business prowess, it’s an unlikely plan that just could come off.

Artists, Arts and Culture of North Korea runs at La Galleria, 5b Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY, until September 2.

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North Korea’s Gold Mines

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

Oh My News
Robert Neff
2/21/2007

(Check out the original post for photos)
Many people’s impression of North Korea is that of a poor country unable to feed its own people and desperate for cash. Other than selling weapons, printing counterfeit money, and engaging in the production of illegal drugs, it is thought that it has very little means of obtaining hard currency. Yet, recently, it has received a great deal of the media’s attention for its sale of gold to Thailand. Many people forget that North Korea has always had an abundance of mineral wealth — including gold.

Korea’s wealth had long been known not only in the Far East, but also in the Middle East. Ibn Khordadzbeh (844-848), an Arab, wrote that “there is a mountainous country named Silla and divided into numerous principalities. Gold abounds there.” Another Arab, Ibn Rosteh, repeated this claim in the 10th century when he pronounced Silla was very rich with gold. Arab merchants traveled from their own countries, along with the Chinese, and traded with Korean merchants along the Yesong River during the Koryo period. Most of Korea’s trade with these merchants was mainly gold and silver utensils, copper, ginseng, paper, fans and swords.

Eventually, as Korean foreign policy changed and it began to avoid most intercourse with foreign nations, this trade died, but the legends of Korea’s wealth didn’t. In 1867, Ernest Oppert, a Prussian trader from Shanghai, China, may have used Korea’s reputation for being abundant with gold, and the common belief amongst the Westerners that Korean kings were buried in coffins of solid gold, to hire a band of mercenaries to assist him in his infamous failed attempt to exhume the Korean regent’s father’s tomb and hold his remains as ransom.

Although gold is found throughout the Korean peninsula, it was, for the most, primarily mined and panned for in the mountainous regions of the northern provinces of Korea and along the eastern coast using primitive methods. This mining has gone on for literally centuries, but it wasn’t until the 1880s when several attempts, Korean and Western, were made to mine gold using “modern” methods. These efforts failed primarily because of the lack of finances, skilled labor, infrastructure and the resolve of the Korean government.

It wasn’t until 1896 when the first large mining concession was granted to a couple of American businessmen that “modern” gold mining in Korea began. This was the origin of the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company [OCMC], the first, longest running, and the richest of the Western mining concessions in Korea, and one of the richest in the world. It was soon followed by British, German, French, Italian, and of course, Japanese concessions, but none of them could compare to the wealth and size of the OCMC.

Although these mining concessions have been condemned by many modern Korean scholars as tools of exploitation by the Japanese and the West; it is also important to remember that they brought employment, education, and even higher living standards to thousands of Korean miners and their families.

The pictures accompanying this article are of the Seoul Mining Company located at Su’an (in present day North Korea) in 1915. The Seoul Mining Company was established in 1907 when two American businessmen, H. Collbran and H.R. Bostwick, leased Su’an mine from a British mining syndicate. The British had grown disenchanted with the mine and were convinced that it was not very profitable — they were wrong. Within the first six years of its operation it had produced nearly $3,000,000 worth of gold. Although the Seoul Mining Co., at first appeared to be one of, if not, the richest gold mining operations in Korea, by the early 1920s it was apparent that the gold was nearly depleted and in 1924 the mine was closed.

One of the chief problems for the early mining companies was transportation. Most of these gold mining sites had few, if any, crude roads or paths to them. It was often easier to transport supplies and equipment by flat-bottomed boats up the river to the landing nearest the mines. Then, depending on what was being transported, Korean ponies or bulls were used to manhandle the equipment and supplies to the mines.

The Korean bull was a slow moving powerful animal that was extremely docile and easily handled by its mapoo (handler), the ponies on the other hand were described as “swell-made spirited little beasts [but] generally vicious.” One early Westerner described his first encounter with his pony:

“As soon as the creature saw me approaching to mount, it reared and kicked furiously, and opened its mouth and flew at me like a tiger.”

So violent were these little ponies that a missionary remarked: “I love to see the pony shod, see him pinioned teeth and nail, in one hard knot, lying on his back under the spreading chestnut tree, with the village smithy putting tacks into him that brings tears to his eyes.”

In addition to transportation problems there was the lack of timber. Timber was essential to mining operations. In the beginning it was used as fuel to run the stamps (grinding equipment), to construct the buildings and to support the mine shafts, but timber was not always readily available in large quantities. Without timber the mines were doomed. By about 1910, most of the mines participated in reforestation programs, but for most of them they would not be around long enough to profit from these actions.

Most of the mines were in remote places, far from civilization. Obtaining enough miners to work the mines was usually not a problem, as they were generally paid better than the average Korean. However, these remote sites were home to large populations of big predatory animals — chiefly, tigers, leopards, and wolves.

Occasionally, tigers, especially ones that were too old to hunt the fleet-footed deer, would attack a lone Korean miner returning to his home at night. Often very little of the victim was found in the morning save a few pieces of ripped clothing and scuffle and blood marks on the ground. Surprisingly the animal that caused the most fatalities and was arguably the most feared was the wolf.

Sometimes wolves would creep into the small mining settlements at night and snatch children on their way to and from the outhouses. There are even accounts of wolves forcing their way into the flimsier hovels and dragging away children from the safety of their beds.

By 1939 all of the large Western gold mining concessions had been sold to the Japanese, and only a few very small mines were still operated and owned by Westerners, and even these were eventually taken over by the Japanese when Japan entered World War II. During World War II many of the mines fell into disrepair due to the negligence of their Japanese managers, and their failure to pay their Korean miners. During the Korean War, American soldiers reported that the OCMC mines were flooded and unworkable.

It has been more than 50 years since the Korean War has ended. During this time, North Korea has made great effort and progress in reopening some of these mines from the past and developing new ones. Today Western financing and expertise are still being used to aid the extraction of gold from the mountains of the north.

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