North Korean Economy Watch

According to the Donga Ilbo:

The Unification Ministry said Monday that it has asked ministries to suspend aid to North Korea requiring government budget.

The ministry had issued recommendations to delay the signing of new contracts and the shipment of materials to the North to companies involved in inter-Korean cooperation.

Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said, “We sent official letters to 10 related ministries, including the Strategy and Finance Ministry, the Health and Welfare Ministry, and the Korea Forestry Service Friday asking for the temporary suspension of assistance projects for North Korea run by those ministries.”

“This measure has been taken in light of the North’s seizure of South Korean real estate in the Mount Kumgang area and the grave nature of inter-Korean relations of late.”

Seoul has also begun efforts to survey inter-Korean projects conducted by the 10 ministries. Last year, the ministries ran a budget of six billion won (5.2 million U.S. dollars) to assist the North.

The Unification Ministry also contacted companies involved in inter-Korean cooperation, excluding those operating at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, to refrain from making new contracts, investment and visits Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

With analysts saying Seoul has taken a series of measures in the wake of the Cheonan sinking, a Unification Ministry source said, “Since the situation in inter-Korean relations has gotten grave and highly treacherous, we informed related ministries as a preemptive measure to reduce risks.”

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek also told reporters Monday, “We can hardly say that we’ve taken any practical countermeasures.”

Read the full story here:
Ministries Asked to Suspend Aid to N. Korea
Donga Ilbo
5/18/2010

According to the AFP:

The United Nations will send a team to North Korea in May to assess how aid funds have been used in the country, a spokeswoman from the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs told AFP Tuesday.

“A working level UN mission will go to DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) in late May to review the implementation of central emergency response fund (CERF) funded projects there,” Elisabeth Byrs said, in response to queries from AFP.

“The mission will comprise four UN staff from OCHA and from the CERF secretariat,” she said, confirming Japanese media reports.

The team would meet heads of UN agencies on site, in order to “better understand how funds provided by CERF are used,” said Byrs.

The spokeswoman did not know if the team would also meet North Korean authorities.

The UN has allocated eight million dollars in 2010 in emergency relief funds for North Korea, which has suffered more than two decades of natural disasters.

While UN agencies such as the World Food Programme, Unicef and the World Health Organisation have offices in North Korea, visits by UN missions to the secretive communist nation are extremely rare.

In the past months, however, high-level UN officials have been travelling to the country, a sign that Pyongyang may be opening up, a source close to the UN said.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe visited the country in February, and in April UN health agency chief Margaret Chan also made a trip there.

Chan said following the visit that North Korea’s health system would be the “envy” for most developing countries although it faced challenges.

“Based on what I have seen, I can tell you they have something that most other developing countries would envy,” the WHO director general told journalists, despite reports of renewed famine in parts of the country.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based welfare group with contacts in the North, had said in February that 2,000 people had starved to death there this winter.

Well that was not very subtle.

Read the full story here:
UN to send review mission to North Korea
AFP
5/18/2010

According to the Guardian Jobs web page:

Exciting opportunities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)

Employer: BRITISH COUNCIL
Posted: 06 May 2010
Reference: OA10002
Location: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)
Industry:  Charities – International, Education – TEFL, General – General
Hours: Full Time
Salary: £26,880 – £30,624

Exciting opportunities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)

In-country Project Leader – £30,624

English Curriculum/Materials Developer/Trainer – £26,880

English Trainer – £26,880

Contract from August 2010 to August 2011 (with the possibility of extension to March 2012)

Benefits including free accommodation, pension provision, medical insurance and mid-contract flights to Beijing and the UK

The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our purpose is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and increase appreciation for the UK’s creative ideas and achievements. We operate in 110 countries and territories worldwide.

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 three 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; and experience of curriculum planning; and of materials development. It is desirable that you have experience of working in a ‘hardship’ environment.

Additionally:

English Trainer: will have experience of developing English assessments.

English Curriculum/Materials Developer/Trainer: it is desirable that you have experience of constructing English tests and of running CELTA/Trinity Certificate type courses.

In-country Project Leader post: will have experience of testing. It is desirable that you have an MA in Applied Linguistics (or equivalent); people and project management; teaching British Studies; English for specific purposes (ESP); and content and language integrated learning (CLIL).

Note: local restrictions mean that UK passport holders only can be considered for this post. This is an unaccompanied post, although in exceptional cases the DPRK authorities might agree to an accompanying spouse. Employment is subject to permission from the DPRK Ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs.

Closing date for applications: 12 noon, Monday 24 May 2010. Applications should be returned by e-mail.

For more information and an application pack, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org/new/about-us/working-with-us/current-vacancies or e-mail (quoting OA10002): OAS.vacancies@britishcouncil.org.

According to Bloomberg:

China rejected North Korea’s request for aid at a meeting between Premier Wen Jiabao and Kim Jong Il, which may explain why Kim cut short his stay in Beijing, the Seoul-based JoongAng  Ilbo newspaper reported.

China can’t support North Korea beyond the framework of sanctions set by the United Nations Security Council, Wen told Kim at their meeting on May 6, the Korean-language daily said, citing an unnamed source in Beijing.

Kim made his first trip to China in four years amid speculation, denied by North Korea, that his regime may have been responsible for the March 26 sinking of a South Korean naval ship, which killed 46 sailors.

North Korea quit nuclear disarmament talks in April 2009 after UN condemnation of its test-firing of a ballistic missile. China is host of the six-party forum, also including Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S., which hasn’t convened since December 2008.

For a story like this the usual caveats apply.

UPDATE 3: We are starting to see some price data come out of this story.  According to  the Times Live of South Africa:

However, conservationists, led by Johnny Rodrigues, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF), slammed the plan. They fear that many of the animals will not survive the long journey, let alone conditions in the impoverished communist state’s zoos.

In a telephone interview, Chadenga said the animals had already been paid for.

“The North Koreans paid for these animal species. This is a business deal, and we have an obligation to meet our side of the deal. For instance, the two baby elephants were sold for US$10,000 each. From the sale of the other animals, we might raise the other US$10,000.”

He dismissed concerns over conditions in Korean zoos.

“The North Koreans paid to facilitate a trip of our officers to determine the conditions in that country. On their return, they gave us a satisfactory report, and that is when the capturing of these animals started.”

He said Zimbabwe had an over-population of elephants . “We have more than 100000 elephants in our national parks. We will sell them to anyone if they approach us .”

UPDATE 2:  According to the AP (Via New York Times):

Wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe  on Wednesday defended the decision to sell two baby elephants and other animals to North Korea, and they said veterinary experts were satisfied that North Korea was equipped to care for them. The two 18-month-old elephants each cost $10,000. Officials said the other animals purchased by the North included breeding pairs of giraffes, zebras, antelopes, hyenas, monkeys and birds.

Vitalis Chadenga, the head of the wildlife department, called the deal “purely a business arrangement” for financially struggling Zimbabwe; he said it involved surplus species in the western Hwange National Park. But Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, criticized the arrangement. “We understand North Korea does not have a good record in animal rights,” he said.

UPDATE 1: According to iol South Africa:

Zimbabwe is preparing to send wild animals to a North Korean zoo, state media said on Monday, a move likely to anger groups protesting at Pyongyang’s role in training an army unit accused of killing thousands of people.

The National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (NPWMA) said it was processing an application from North Korea to ship elephants, giraffes, zebras, warthogs, spotted hyenas and rock dassies to a zoo in the hermit state.

NPWMA director general Vitalis Chadenga told the state-owned Herald newspaper the national parks authority had sent experts to North Korea to verify whether the zoo was appropriate for the wild animals.

“This is a pure business arrangement with no directive from government … North Korea is paying for the animals as well as meeting the capture and translocation costs,” he said.

“We are satisfied that the recipients of the animals are suitably equipped to house and care for them,” said Chadenga, denying that the move was decreed by Mugabe.

Chadenga was not immediately available for direct comment.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Guardian:

Zimbabwean president sending giraffes, zebras, baby elephants and other wild animals taken from a national park to zoo in communist state, conservation groups say.

Two by two, they were caught and lined up as an extravagant gift from one despotic regime to another.

According to conservationists, the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, will send a modern-day ark – containing pairs of giraffes, zebras, baby elephants and other wild animals taken from a national park – to a zoo in North Korea.

The experts warned that not every creature would survive the journey to be greeted by Mugabe’s ally Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.

There are particular fears that a pair of 18-month-old elephants could die during the long airlift.

Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said elephant experts did not believe the calves would survive the journey separated from their mothers.

…

The animals were being kept in quarantine in holding pens at Umtshibi camp in the park, he said.

Rodrigues added that officials opposed to the captures had leaked details to conservationists.

They reported that some areas of the 5,500 square mile park, the biggest in Zimbabwe, were being closed to tourists and photographic safari groups.

“We fear a pair of endangered rhino in Hwange will also be included,” he told the Associated Press.

He said conservation groups were trying to find out from civil aviation authorities when the airlift would begin, and were lobbying for support from international animal welfare groups to stop it.

Zoo conditions in North Korea, which is isolated by most world nations, did not meet international standards, he said. Two rhinos, a male called Zimbo and a female called Zimba, given to Kim by Mugabe in the 80s, died only a few months after their relocation.

At the same time, other rhinos given to Belgrade zoo in the former Yugoslavia died after contracting footrot in damp and snowy winter conditions.

Rodrigues said: “This new exercise has to be stopped. People under orders to do it are too scared to speak out.”

Read the full story here:
Conservationists protest as Robert Mugabe sends ‘ark’ of animals to North Korea
The Guardian
David Smith
5/13/2010

According to Bloomberg:

United Nations food aid to North Korea will run out the end of next month following a drop in international donations after the country detonated a nuclear device, the World Food Program said.

“We have resources to carry us through to June,” Lena Savelli, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for the UN agency, said in a telephone interview today. “We quite urgently need more donors to come forward and give us resources.”

The agency is in talks with donors on how to extend the program as it seeks to continue operations, she said. Kim Jong Il’s regime has relied on outside aid to feed its 24 million people since the mid-1990s when famine caused by floods, drought and economic mismanagement is estimated to have killed as many as 2 million people.

The aid shortfall may put further pressure on Kim following a botched currency revaluation late last year and tougher UN Security Council sanctions after a second nuclear test in May 2009. The Council should also consider the totalitarian regime’s human rights violations to force changes, Vitit Muntarbhorn, UN special rapporteur on North Korea’s human rights, said in a May 1 interview in Seoul.

“It’s a very helpless situation, sadly, for the people,” he said. “Given that the Security Council is the law- enforcement organ of the United Nations, it’s incumbent upon them to take it up,” said Muntarbhorn, 57, whose six-year term as the official for North Korea, expires in June.

Read the full article here:
North Korea’s Food Aid Will Run Out Next Month, UN Agency Says
Bloomberg
Bomi Lim
5/3/2010

According to Reuters (via the Washington Post):

North Korea’s health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang.

North Korea — which does not allow its citizens to leave the country — has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said.

This allows North Korea to provide comprehensive healthcare, with one “household doctor” looking after every 130 families, said the head of the United Nations health agency, praising North Korea’s immunization coverage and mother and child care.

“They have something which most other developing countries would envy,” Chan told a news conference, noting that her visit was a rare sign of the communist state’s willingness to cooperate with outside agencies.

Chan’s comments marked a significant change from the assessment of her predecessor, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who said in 2001 that North Korea’s health system was near collapse.

Chan, who acknowledged that countries that she visits always try to look good while pointing to where they need help, met a series of North Korean officials, visited several hospitals, and also talked to Pyongyang-based diplomats, United Nations officials and representatives of the Red Cross.

The authorities acknowledge there is a problem with malnutrition, she said, but things have become better since famine in the 1990s and a series of natural disasters in 2001.

“Nutrition is an area that the government has to pay attention (to) and especially for pregnant women and for young children,” Chan said.

NO SIGNS OF OBESITY

Chan spent most of her brief visit in Pyongyang, and she said that from what she had seen there most people had the same height and weight as Asians in other countries, while there were no signs of the obesity emerging in some parts of Asia.

But she said conditions could be different in the countryside.

News reports said earlier this year that North Koreans were starving to death and unrest was growing as last year’s currency revaluation caused prices to soar.

Chan, who described her visit as “technical and professional” — in other words avoiding politics — said the North Korean government’s readiness to work with international agencies, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, was encouraging.

The Global Fund requires countries it works with to provide sound data, account for resources contributed and allow access by officials, she noted.

“I can confirm that at least in the area of health the government is receptive to engagement with international partners,” she said.

“They are receptive to requests for increasing transparency — have a better quality data — and being held accountable for the resources flowing into the country to improve health.”

North Korea, whose human rights record has been strongly condemned by U.N. experts, is refusing to return to six-party talks about its nuclear program, which has led to U.N. sanctions being imposed after a nuclear test in May last year.

Tension is increasing with South Korea, with which the North fought a war in 1950-53, after the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel last month for which Seoul increasingly suspects Pyongyang.

But Chan praised a joint project between North and South Korea to improve women’s and children’s health, which she said was promoting dialogue and trust between the two rivals.

Last month, the WHO said North Korea has reduced deaths from surgery and among women in childbirth under the South Korea-funded program.

The Wall Street Journal calls out Ms. Chan:

Greetings, comrades. World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan has returned from Pyongyang with wonderful news. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is making great strides in health care, with one “household doctor” for every 130 households. Thanks to on-the-spot guidance from Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, North Korean doctors selflessly choose not to emigrate and have even conquered the decadent West’s problem of obesity!

All right, we exaggerate. But only the part about the Dear Leader. Ms. Chan’s surreal statements last Friday, as reported by several wire services, really did include praise for North Korean health care and the lack of obesity. “They have something which most other developing countries would envy,” the global health administrator gushed. In her guided tours, she saw few signs of malnutrition, and the people in Pyongyang were the same height and weight as other Asians.

That’s hardly consistent with the reports of other visitors, or the accounts of North Koreans fleeing starvation—a trend on the upswing again after a poor harvest and harsh winter. Even Ms. Chan’s predecessor described the North’s health-care system as near collapse in 2001, and since then the North has continued to depend on foreign aid to feed one-third of its population. As for the abundance of doctors, the North’s declaration on the WHO website ought to arouse suspicion: “During the period 2001-2003, the number of doctors was increased by 104 percent, the nurses 125 percent and the midwives 107 percent.”

It appears Ms. Chan is either winking at the reality to maintain contact with the North or she allowed herself to be fooled. Her own organization’s doctors have described appalling conditions in North Korean hospitals, such as the lack of running water and electricity.

But then this is nothing new for the WHO. In the 1970s, the United Nations agency promoted Mao Zedong’s vision of “barefoot doctors” to serve the rural poor—even as China’s health-care system was collapsing, along with the rest of society, under the strain of the Cultural Revolution. Today the WHO has become a cheerleader for Cuban health care. As long as a totalitarian state gives plenty of poorly trained people the title of doctor, fudges its health statistics and takes visiting officials on tours of Potemkin hospitals, the U.N. seems happy to give its seal of approval.

Ms. Chan’s testimony can be read here.

Hat tip to a reader.

Read the full story here:
North Korea has plenty of doctors: WHO
Reuters
Jonathan Lynn
4/30/2010

Back in 2007 a German breeder of large rabbits expressed concern that some rabbits he sold to the DPRK had been eaten.  You can read about it here.

Well, the rabbit story is back.  According to Radio Free Asia:

The fate of dozens of giant rabbits sent to North Korean to start breeding a cheap source of protein for the famine-hit poor is still unknown, leading to speculation that they may already have been eaten by officials in the isolated Stalinist state.

“I am not aware of [exactly] what happened after we sent the rabbits,” said Jin Sook Lee, the director of the German charity, the German Overseas Korean Cooperation Association. “I don’t even know if they are being used to boost the food supply.”

She said the intended breeding program had run into difficulties once the German-bred outsize rabbits arrived in the isolated Stalinist state, where some sectors of the population still face malnutrition.

To ensure the successful expansion of the giant rabbit population, rabbit cross-breeding and species hybridization were needed, Lee said.

But many female rabbits failed to get pregnant, and of the rabbit kittens that were born, many were deformed, she added.

Boosting ‘rabbit-breeding’

Several charities have raised money to send giant rabbits to North Korea to boost the food supply, as the animals yield up to 10 kilos (22 lbs) of meat.

While the uber-bunnies normally breed as rapidly as their smaller cousins, the French humanitarian group Premier Urgence said it had send staff to North Korea to boost “rabbit breeding skills” among officials in charge of the farms.

The charity, which has received around U.S.$1.5 million in European Commission assistance funds for North Korea, said last November it planned to send a further 200 giant rabbits purchased in neighboring China to North Korea.

Chinese media have meanwhile reported comments made to the German magazine Der Spiegel by the original breeder of giant rabbits Karl Szmolinsky, who has had no information from North Korean officials since he sent 12 rabbits to boost the breeding farms in 2007.

“The only conclusion I can come to is that my rabbits made a nice meal for someone,” an online Chinese farmers’ news service quoted him as saying.

“I would really like to go over there and give them a hand.”

Premiere Urgence said in November that it had sent giant rabbits to seven farms in the country, including Ryongsung in Pyongyang, Youngtan in Northern Hwanghae province, Mikok, and Chungjong in Northern Pyongan province.

Livestock failures

Premiere Urgence said it planned to help the North Koreans improve giant rabbit reproductive rates by sending equipment and working on rabbit-farming skills.

The group said in November it had already dispatched three international staff members to Pyongyang, including a French and a Dutch national, while seven local staff members were already in the office, tasked with technical and clerical duties.

In an attempt to overcome severe food shortages, the North Korean authorities have already experimented with chicken, cow, and pig farming.

However, because of the decrepit state of North Korea’s facilities and the lack of technical skills, most attempts to raise livestock for food appear to have failed.

Director Lee said that sending giant rabbits from Europe was very expensive, costing about U.S. $100 per animal.

The first two rabbits to travel to North Korea paid a fare of U.S. $1,300, with vaccinations and veterinary fees on top of that.

She said her group had given up further plans to send giant rabbits to North Korea.

Experts also said the giant rabbits require more than one kilo (2.2 lbs) of carrots and potatoes daily, hard to come by in impoverished North Korea.

Szmolinsky, 67, of the eastern German town of Eberswalde near Berlin, was first approached by North Korean officials in 2006 after he won a prize for breeding Germany’s largest rabbit.

According to the United Nations, North Korea suffers widespread food shortages, and many people “struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats, and micronutrients.”

Each of Szmolinsky’s rabbits produces around seven kilos (15 lbs) of meat, and under normal conditions should be able to produce 60 offspring a year.

Read the full story here:
Giant Rabbits’ Fate ‘Unknown’
Radio Free Asia
Noh Jung-min
4/19/2010

According to the Times of India:

Economic sanctions by the United States and other western countries is actually strengthening the Kim Jong-il’s regime, a German social worker involved with a non-government organization told reporters here this morning. Sanctions are also affecting life in other ways like the new-found emphasis on sustainable agriculture, she said.

“The leaders are using the sanctions as a justification. People believe the country is in a bad condition because of outside forces,” Karin Janz, country director in North Korea for the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, said while speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Beijing. The official media justified its actions as efforts to fortify the nation against the onslaught of foreign forces, and the people fully believed it, she said.

The sanctions have hit the North Korean agriculture and caused fears of a worsening of the food situation, Karin said. “The North Korean agriculture is highly industrialized,” she said while explaining the country’s agriculture is heavily dependent on imported farm machines and chemical fertilizers. Most of these materials came from South Korea, which has now slammed the doors.

The government has suddenly realized the value of sustainable development and is asking agricultural cooperatives to change their focus. They are being asked to go for organic farming, grow composts and reduce their dependence on chemicals. It is a new policy on sustainable development by default, she said.

“It could be a good start in the direction of sustainable development. But it is a long way to rehabilitate the soil, which is badly damaged” she said.

The Internet is banned to ensure that local citizens do not communicate with the outside world. There is a limited form of Intranet for university students to chat among themselves. But if the ban on Internet were to be lifted, most North Koreans will use it to absorb new knowledge and grow the country with new technological inputs.

“I cannot imagine some kind of opposition rising because it is simply not possible,” she said while discussing the highly militarized nature of the society. The government controls every aspect of life in North Korea and ordinary people seem to be comfortable living in some kind of a “safety shell”, she said.

Patriotism runs high among the people and most have full faith in their leaders. The only sign of dissatisfaction Karin saw was in January when currency reforms hit a large number of people very badly. People who held old currency notes suddenly found they could not exchange them for the new Won notes the government introduced early this year.

Welthungerhilfe is one of the few foreign NGOs that are still operating in North Korea when most of the others have left either because of the challenges posed by government rules and the drying of financing from western sources. There are many Chinese NGOs but the local government does not allow they to communication with those from western countries.

In her five years travelling across nine provinces of North Korea, Karin has not come across a single case of starvation. The food situation is bad, but it is not as grave as the western media tended to show, she said. The government has also done a fairly good job of developing infrastructure and provide school education although the conditions are still a far cry from what prevails in the developed world, she said.

Here is the Welthungerlife North Korea web page (in German).  Here is the page in English (via Google Translate).

I cannot prove it, but I am willing to bet that Welthungerhilfe built these greenhouses near Kujang (via Kernbeisser).  These greenhouses are too new to be visible on Google Earth.

Read the full story here:
Economic sanctions strengthen North Korea’s dictatorship, says German NGO
The Times of India
Saibal Dasgupta
4/20/2010

Vladimir Lenin is often quoted as saying “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”.  This popped into my head this morning when I read this story in the Choson Ilbo:

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek on Tuesday admitted that the fiber optic cables South Korea provided have made it more difficult to spy on North Korea. Hyun was answering a question from a lawmaker at a session of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee. “I understand that there is a problem or a loophole” in South Korea’s intelligence-gathering ability, he said.

Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Jin-suk expressed worries that South Korea’s ability to gather intelligence was weakened by fiber optic cables which the South Korean government supplied to the North in the past. “I suspect that some of the 45 km-long fiber optic cables may have been diverted to lay a communications network between frontline Army units in the North,” he said.

Hyun said Seoul has “no plan as of now to comply with an additional request from the North for more fiber optic cables.”

The South Korean government sent 20 km, 15 km and 2 km-long copper cables to the North in 2002, 2005 and 2007, which were meant to be used for inter-Korean military communications. Last year, the South supplied the North with 45 km-long fiber optic cables, two sets of optical termination equipment, and two sets of optical measuring instruments.

Under an agreement, a 25 km portion was supposed to be laid on the east coast, and another 20 km portion on the west coast. It is difficult to wiretap a network of fiber optic cables, Chung said.

“We haven’t checked yet whether the cables were used simply for the inter-Korean military communications network or for the expansion of a new communications network for frontline units,” Chung said.

He said if copper cables were replaced with fiber optic cables, then that would make intelligence gathering much more difficult in cases like the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan, where there is a suspicion of North Korean involvement.

Read the full story here:
Seoul ‘Hampered Its Own Ability to Spy on N.Korea’
Choson Ilbo
4/14/2010