North Korean Economy Watch

Daily NK
Kim Song A
3/12/2007

Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation “Motive on driving a stable complex”

A claim has been made suggesting that North Korea will reallocate 3,000 workers from Pyongyang to Kaesung Industrial Complex.

Representative Kim Kyu Chul of the Citizen’s Solidarity for Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation revealed on the 11th, “North Korea’s Guidance Bureau for Developing Central Special Economic Zone informed the plan to the South Korean government and enterprisers who are moving in the zone and asked them to provide employees with accommodation.”

Representative Kim informed “In the past, the North has employed workers from other regions to maintain stable human resources… For the first time, workers from Pyongyang will be employed at Kaesung Industrial Complex. These people will be amongst the 18,000 skilled workers already working at Kaesung.”

Furthermore, Representative Kim disclosed his opinion, “The motive behind the North’s recent plan is its determination to establish a more stable Kaesung Industrial Complex and to minimize insecure business aspects related to human resources.”

In response, a South Korean governmental official said “The issue of worker’s accommodation has been a case continuously faced by the North” and added “We cannot know the North’s specific intentional plan for human resources but we will keep in contact to discuss these practical affairs.”

Presently, 11,740 North Korean and 689 South Korean full-time employees are working at Kaesung Industrial Complex. In the case a 3,305km square of factories site on the first phrase is completed as scheduled for this year, then 300 or so companies will be able to lease the area. Consequently, the number of North Korean workers needed at Kaesung Complex will exceed 80,000.

In addition to this, the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation announced that apartments approx. 22.5km square would be on the market until the 14th, for 40 or so companies interested in the factory complex. The Korea Land Corporation will also begin inspections next month in order to find a location for a 1,752km square factory site.

Choson Ilbo
3/12/2007

Intelligence services have information that the Macau home of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s eldest son Kim Jong-nam was burgled, sources say. Authorities are trying to confirm the information. A government official in Seoul told a reporter there was a rumor that homes in an exclusive villa complex in Coloane Island were broken into, and related government offices and police are investigating.

The Zhuyuan Haoyuan villa complex is 15 minutes from downtown Macau and its 80 villas are among the territory’s most exclusive. The average price of each villa is estimated HK$15 million, roughly US$1.92 million. Yellow sunflower symbols adorning the doors of nos. 361 and 371 easily identify them as Kim Jong-nam’s.

Daily NK
Park Choel Yong
3/10/2007

Forced Memorization of Kim Family History Ruining Student Potential

In the past, the greatest pleasure of North Korean university professors was meeting students whose abilities were superior to their own. However, these professors say new generations of students cannot be properly educated and their academic ability is declining because they are forced to memorize the revolutionary history of the Kim family. North Korean preschoolers are two through six years old.

Compulsory education consists of four years in elementary school and six in middle school, followed by an optional four year university degree. During the important middle school period when student development could be the greatest, students are instead directed to devote their efforts to rote memorization of North Korean revolutionary history. No exceptions are allowed even for gifted students.

The most important subject is Revolutionary History

In every province and city, there is “The 1st Middle School” in which the most brilliant students study. In Pyongyang there are the 1st Middle Schools in three districts: Chanduk School, East-Pyongyang 1st School and Moranbong 1st School. The best school among those 1st schools is Pyongyang 1st Middle School where the most gifted students in the country can study.

Pyongyang 1st Middle School used to be the Namsan Loyal Middle School where only children of high authorities and patriots who had fought against the Japanese colonial government can attend. Because Kim Jong Il graduated there, it has become a special school for the gifted.

To enter the Pyongyang 1st Middle School, high grades in Revolutionary History are necessary. There are sub-items under the Revolutionary History: “Revolutionary records of the respectable Father, Kim Il Sung”, “Revolutionary records of the beloved Leader, General Kim Jong Il” and others.

Students must completely memorize the history of Kim Il Sung’s activities along with those of his son Kim Jong Il. High grades on Revolutionary History entrance exams give students priority in attending the school.

Fortunately, Kim Il Sung achieved independence from Japan instead of his father

In order to enter the school, students develop their powers of retentive memory at the expense of intellectual learning. North Korean policy dictates that memorization of revolutionary history should be a cradle to grave endeavor, beginning in pre-school and lasting through university study and beyond. Students abbreviate “the Great Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary history” as “GR (‘Wihyuk’ in Korean)” and “the beloved Kim Jong Il’s revolutionary history” as “BR (‘Chinhyuk’ in Korean).”

Adding to student misery has been the inclusion of “MR (‘Eohyuk’ in Korean)” in 2000, meaning “the Heroine Kim Jong Suk, the Mother’s revolutionary history.”

Students cynically claim that it is fortunate that Kim Il Sung won independence from Japan instead of his father Kim Hyung Jic because the amount of material to be memorized would have doubled.

Foreign media focus on the starvation and ruined North Korean economy caused by Kim Jong Il. However, the destruction of North Korea’s educational system and the subsequent waste of human resources represent some of his most serious crimes. Revolutionary history brainwashing is destroying the intellectual development of future generations.

Daily NK (Part 1)
Han Young Jin
3/10/2007

The reason North Korea’s regime can persevere is because of the central class’ fear of regime collapse.

As a result of this perseverance, North Korea has been able to resist isolation and pressure for more than half a century, with the system even defeating the “March of Suffering” where tens and thousands of people died of starvation.

Today, powers maintaining the North Korean system are the hierarchical upper class including the North Korean Workers’ Paryy, the National Security Agency, the National Protection Agency, prosecutors and adjudicators.

Overall, there are about 4 millions members in the North Korean Workers’ Party (statistics as of 1995), this being roughly 20% of the population. Retrospectively, these people control the 23mn North Korean citizens.

The central class incorporating junior secretaries to the party, training officers, novice elites, generals from the army, safety and protection agents use their power position to control directly the North Korean people.

The most of these people have strong loyalty for the regime. In particular, military generals or party officials especially fear punishment and the thought that their privileges may be removed. Though they may be leaders, it is not one’s own desire to escalate in power but fear of retaliation from new powers.

Local party officers, security agents and protection agents directly control, inspect and punish civilians. In essence, they absolutely control the North Korean people and hence fear direct retaliation from the people. The collapse of the regime, also means that they may become jobless and troublesome.

In the 80’s, there was an incident where the Kangkye Munitions Factory incurred an explosion. The people who thought that a war had risen killed the security agent in charge and threatened to evacuate the country regardless of war or not. The people armed with weapons even raided the home of the security agent in charge, with stones and batons. As this rumor spread, security officers throughout the country felt the tension and were all on alert. Hence, control forces even to the lowest rank have become the trustworthy pillar to the North Korean regime.

Since the early stages of the regime, North Korea trained members of anti-Japan protestors and their families, Mankyungdae Revolutionary Academies and distinguished servicemen from the Korean War. As a result, the mindset of North Korea’s central class is relatively high in societal class awareness, as is their loyalty to Kim Jong Il.

Ideology amidst the central class and brainwashed passion

These people believe that the survival of the North Korea system is directly connected to their lifeline. They fear that they will not be able to receive the same privileges given by Kim Jong Il, if the current North Korean regime were to collapse. They believe that Kim Jong Il’s fate is their fate.

The North Korean regime is currently strengthening the multiple control system for their central class so that the ideology of the class is not shaken and the principals of Kim Jong Il kept intact.

In North Korea, every position and decision is focused around Kim Jong Il and his every single word is glorified. In one sense, it is a specialty of the dictatorial regime, but in reality it is a way to force the upper class to stand in awe and even dread the grand Kim Jong Il. Some defectors, once members of North Korea’s elite say that people work having no conscious awareness of their heavy duty or how to modify words spoken by Kim Jong Il.

Educational jobs by the central class are different to that of the common citizen. As the former Soviet Union and Eastern European bloc was merging in the 90’s inflicting collapse to the regime, elite officials internally passed video tapes on the end of Romania’s former President Nicolae Ceausescu to calm other comrades but in the end stirred greater fear.

Recently, it is said that tapes on the Iraq situation have been televised for commanders and military elites to see. The aim of this viewing, to plant into the minds of the commanders that compromises to the protection of the system means death.

The Kim Jong Il regime gives privileges to inspire the people supporting them. For example, people who work for the Central Committee systems department or the elite propagandists, receive a Mercedes Benz with the number plate ‘2.16’ symbolizing Kim Jong Il’s own birthday, and depending on the position, the car series is upgraded.

Other elites from the Central Committee and figures in key military posts are provided with luxurious apartments in Pyongyang. The apartment blocks are built and located separately to the average house. Soldiers guard the homes, even restraining relatives from entering the apartment premises. These homes are furnished with electrical goods, sofas, food and goods made in Japan, as well as being accompanied with western culture.

As Military First Politics was implemented in the late 90’s, private nurses, full-time house maids, private apartments and country residences, private cars, office cars, as well as “recreational clubs” with beautiful women, were granted as privileges to the head military and provincial officers.

Every Lunar New Year, expensive foreign gifts are presented to the core central class. However, across the bridge, local and system secretaries, public control officers await common goods that can be found in South Korea’s supermarkets such as mandarins, apples, cigarettes and alcohol. Nonetheless, people who work for North Korea’s local offices are more than happy to receive these gifts are it distinctly segregates them from the common North Korean citizen.

OK to Capitalist Goods But NO to Capitalist Regime
Daily NK (Part 2)
Han Young Jin
3/11/2007

The higher the class, the closer one is to the 2nd and 3rd tier network. If a person is discovered to be in opposition to the regime they will be brutally punished and so a person is cut off early if they are found to show any signs of anti-Kim Jong Il.

The people who inflict the greatest control are the military high commanders. North Korea’s military can be seen as a branch of national politics that really does represent half of the regime. Political elites from the military closely control high commanders with under cover spies whose job is to specifically tattle on suspicious officers to the Party. Then, the protection agency in command contacts an expert who equipped with bugging devices carefully monitors the high commander’s every move, 24 hours a day.

In addition to this, control over university students who are being trained to become North Korea’s next elite group is also severe. In order to intensify regulations on university students, the protection agency initiates secret movements. Protection agents and even information staff are grouped to control the student’s movement with one information staff in charge of monitoring every each 5 students.

Even amidst the Workers’ Party and the ministries, national safety agents are dispatched to monitor the elite.

“Capitalist goods are good, but reform is unacceptable”

Though envious of South Korea’s economic development, North Korea’s upper class are opposed to growth and reform.

There is a popular story of an elite North Korean official who visited the South and frankly revealed “Though we may crawl and be worn, we cannot follow South Chosun’s economy.” It is also a well known fact that elite officials preferred Samsung digital cameras and showed interest in Hyundai cars at a South-North Cabinet talks and Aug 15th event in Seoul. Nonetheless, when it comes to acknowledging the need for capitalist reform, North Korea’s central class discards it with a wave of the hand.

The reason that capitalist goods are preferred but reform rejected is a result of the ideology that their individual power will be lost with change to the regime. Those who have loyally followed authorities have no mindset nor special skills that will enable them to survive a capitalist system. Rather than confronting a competitive society, they prefer their current position and the glory that comes with it.

The central class is also well aware of the restraints on North Korea’s economy. Every year as the harvest season arrives, they see citizens march onto the fields malnourished and underfed. They know that the economic policy implemented by authorities has failed and is incoherent. Yet, ultimately they are unwilling to let go of the small privileges they are endowed upon by the preposterous and unreasonable regime.

These people have become accustomed to their power which is utilized to gain them their privileges and tyranny. Even if North Korea enters a famine, they need not worry about food or clothing.

For example, in the case of an official factory secretary, he/she satisfies ones own personal needs by selling factory goods. Using the excuse that factory profits are being raised, he/she orders the workers to engage in more work, on the side. This is how tyranny occurs with the factory secretary manufacturing personal gains. Yet, these officials are not punished with any legal sentences.

Newly-rich dualism, collaborative relationship with official powers

Following the July 1st economic measures in 2002 trade became legal and North Korea experienced a sudden boom in newly rich elites. What led this new rich class to accumulate so much wealth was the fact that they had introduced an enterprise system which allowed trade with China.

The newly rich have a great interest in reform and development, and are well aware that the North Korean regime will not be able to solve the economic issue without facing reform.

However even this class of people are disinterested in bringing an end to the regime. They have already accumulated their wealth and feel no onus in the poverty stricken situation in North Korea. Whether capitalism or the current North Korean regime, as long as they can sustain a living, these people can continue to remain in a dualistic mindset.

While North Korean authorities are strengthening control over this new class, they are in another sense, receiving money and bribes to protect them. Where investigations are involved, authorities are risking their own identities being revealed and hence often ignore the illegalities of the people, even going to the extent of passing on information.

It is a fact that North Korea’s central class is acting as the forefront in sustaining the regime, but then again, these people have greater educational standard than the average commoner and they have had more opportunities to experience Western civilization. Hence, they can compare the North Korean regime with the outside world. Though the majority of this class accommodates to the North Korea regime, the possibility that a fraction of the elites may have some sort of antagonism against the Kim Jong Il regime and the odds that these people may just act upon these feelings cannot be discarded.

In addition, as North Korean society continues to decay, the organization of its systemic corruption may just be hit with danger. As corruption deepens and a crack appears in the regime, authorities will try to control this leak but while doing so, it is possible that endless punishment may just incite some elites to secede.

Particularly, the more information about foreign communities flow into North Korea and the people’s animosity against Kim Jong Il increases, even the elite will not be able to completely suppress feelings of antipathy.

Donga Ilbo
3/10/2007

820 2nd Avenue, New York City. This is the address of the permanent mission of North Korea in the United Nations, the only North Korean diplomatic arena in the U.S. It is a four-minute walk from the UN headquarters and a two-minute walk from the permanent mission of South Korea to the U.N. It is located on the 13th floor of the “Diplomatic Center.”

About 10 North Korean diplomats including North Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Pak Gil Yon are working in this place. When you look at the list of member states of the U.N., you’ll find names like ‘Mrs. Pak’ and ’Mrs. Kim’ right below the list of North Korean diplomats. These are diplomats’ wives who help their husbands at the office by answering phones.

They live in an apartment on Roosevelt Island located on the opposite side of the U.N. headquarters. Many diplomats from poor countries such as North Korea and African nations live there because the rents are relatively inexpensive compared to those of Manhattan.

The diplomats except for Ambassador Park go to work together via minivan. Deputy Ambassador Kim Chang Guk is in charge of U.N.-related affairs and Minister of Political Affairs Kim Myong Gil handles U.S.-related issues. North Korean diplomats have a good command of English. Minister Kim’s English is fluent enough to communicate with reporters in English. Some young diplomats speak French as well.

However, during North Korea-U.S. talks, Choi Son Hee, a fellow researcher of North Korean Foreign Ministry, interpreted for the North Korean delegation headed by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Kwan. She is not only an interpreter but also a diplomat. Choi, who visited the U.S. for the third time, drew attention as an excellent interpreter.

North Korean diplomats are required to get permission from the State Department when they travel beyond the 30-mile limit from the Columbus Circle in Manhattan. When Ambassador Park has to go to Washington, he has to get permission.

Recently, Harvard University was going to invite Mr. Park to hold a forum but failed because the State Department did not issue permission. So the host tried to change the location to Columbia University, which is located within the 30-mile limit. .

South Korean diplomats contacting North Korean diplomats directly or indirectly say they are not financially abundant. It is said that ethnic Koreans who are friendly to North Korea help the North Korean representatives in one way or another. The North Koreans sometimes visit a Korean restaurant on the 32nd Street but not often. Some people say they saw them eat at a delicatessen.

North Koreans often use a Chinese restaurant just beside the North Korean mission when they have an official meeting. A lunch set menu costs about 40 dollars per person and the restaurant offers delicious food so that many South Korean diplomats visit the place. North Korea invited the U.S. delegation to the restaurant for lunch as a return courtesy.

The Korea Society sponsored a large sum of money for the 7-day stay of the North Korean delegation consisting of 7 members, and Stanford University`s North Korea expert group paid for the money needed for the stay in San Francisco. The National Committee on American Foreign Policy also chipped in. Non-profit organizations in the U.S. sponsored the delegation from hotels, restaurants and musicals, as well as round-trip flights from Beijing to San Francisco and New York.

The Korea Society, an organization founded by Korea experts dedicated to the promotion of greater awareness, understanding and cooperation between the people of the United States and Korea, says funding for its programs is derived from contributions, endowments, membership dues and program fees on its website. Many U.S. branch chiefs of Korean conglomerates such as Hyosung and Posco work in the board of directors, and many U.S. companies trading with South Korea sponsor the organization. The South Korean government is supporting it indirectly through the Korea Foundation. A 2004 document shows that the foundation gave 1.1 million dollars to the Korea Society.

Joong Ang Daily
Yeh Young-June and Ser Myo-ja
3/9/2007

The United States has already agreed to take North Korea off Washington’s list of states that sponsor terrorism and a follow-up development will happen soon, Kim Gye-gwan, North Korea’s vice foreign minister, said yesterday.

The United States is expected to release a new list in April. Mr. Kim said no conditions were placed on North Korea’s removal from the list.

After two days of talks in New York with his American counterpart, Christopher Hill, Mr. Kim arrived at Narita International Airport in Tokyo last night and spoke to reporters briefly on his way back to Pyongyang.

“Spring is coming, so the atmosphere will change,” Mr. Kim said, describing the first round of normalization talks as “constructive.”

He also said the discussion included North Korea’s cooperation in the investigation of a highly enriched uranium-based nuclear arms program.

Mr. Kim said he and Mr. Hill also discussed the possibility of arranging a foreign minister-level meeting among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. “It will probably take place around April,” Mr. Kim said. “It is, however, not to upgrade the six-party talks. It is for the six ministers to get together to give momentum to the six-party talks.”

Asked whether Pyongyang will make more demands after financial sanctions on North Korean accounts in a bank in Macao, China are lifted, Mr. Kim said, “Just think that things are going well. Don’t try to know too much about it.”

Yonhap
3/6/2007

North Korean diplomats have recently been limited to taking only one of their children with them when assigned abroad amid reports of some diplomats seeking asylum out of their impoverished homeland, an informed source said Tuesday.

The measure is a revival of a decades-old regulation, which has been temporarily suspended since 2002, the source said while speaking on condition of anonymity.

“North Korea is said to have ordered its diplomats and officials overseas to send all but one of their children back to Pyongyang,” the source said.

“It appears North Korea believes there is a greater chance of defection by these expatriates as they now have all of their family members overseas,” the source added.

Defections by North Korean diplomats or their families are rarely publicized, but government officials say they are not unprecedented.

South Korea usually maintains a tight lid on defection cases involving ranking North Korean officials out of fear they may provoke the communist nation, thus making future defections by others more difficult.

More than 10,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War while as many as 300,000 others are believed to be hiding in China or other neighboring countries.
NK Diplomats Ordered to Send Kids Home
Korea Times
Lee Jin-woo
3/6/2007

North Korean diplomats and those who work at overseas branches of state-run trading companies have been ordered to send their children home except for one child by the end of this month, sources said.

The order was issued on Feb. 14, after a one-month-and-a-half notice, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In the early 1990s, the North ordered its students abroad to return home during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakdown of the Berlin Wall.

But this was the first time for Pyongyang to call home the children of diplomats and officials at trading companies.

The measure is a revival of a decades-old regulation, which has been temporarily suspended since 2002. The ban was lifted in 2002 to help more children pick up foreign language skills in a more advanced educational system.

The North has decided to return to its previous policy to prevent possible mass defection of its diplomats and white collar workers abroad with their families in the reconciliatory mood, including the ongoing efforts to normalize the diplomatic ties between Pyongyang and Washington, experts on North Korean affairs said.

Neither primary school students nor college students, however, are allowed to stay overseas.

“Diplomats and workers at state-run trading companies are allowed to keep only one child, who is old enough to attend either junior high or high school, but primary school children and college students are banned from staying overseas,’’ Hong Soon-kyung, a North Korean defector, told The Korea Times.

A former senior North Korean diplomat, Hong serves as chairman of an association of North Korean defectors in Seoul.

Hong said it was because the Stalinist state does not want its young generation to be influenced, or brainwashed, by U.S.-style market economy.

He said North Korean college students are allowed to study only in China, the North’s closest ally.

“Those North Koreans who go overseas for physical labor have not been allowed to bring any child, not even one,’’ he added.

Under the order, some 3,000 North Korean children in some 50 countries will have to return home, sources said.

Ruediger Frank
Asian Perspective, Vol. 30, No.3, 2006 pp. 536

PDF Here: DPRK sanctions.pdf

Abstract:
This article explores sanctions as a policy tool to coerce North Korea’s behavior, such as by discontinuing its nuclear weapons program. It discusses the characteristics of sanctions as well as the practical experience with these restrictions on North Korea. It becomes clear that the concrete goals of coercion through sanctions and the relative power of the sending country to a large extent determine the outcome. Nevertheless, the general limitations of sanctions also apply, including the detrimental effects of unilateral and prolonged restrictions. It appears that the imposition of sanctions against the DPRK is unlikely to succeed. As an alternative way of changing the operating environment for North Korea, assistance deserves consideration. Despite many weaknesses, this instrument is relatively low in cost and risk, and can be applied continuously and flexibly.

Highlights below the fold:
(more…)

Daly NK
Kim Young Jin
3/1/2007

Chairwoman for Hoiryeong City’s North Korean Democratic Women’s Union, Suh Kyung Hee’s husband “K” has been dealing with drugs since the moment he managed his company, Maebong Company. However, as central authorities began to centralize businesses since last year, the company closed its doors and “K” adopted his driver “L” as drug runner and his daughter as the treasurer in charge of distributing illicit drugs to smugglers at wholesale costs to districts such as Musan, Hoiryeong and Onsung.

According to a source in Hoiryeong, K and his driver L had been in confrontation with one another since January. In the past K had procured his drugs from Chongjin and moved them to a base in Hoiryeong. Then, the drugs would be either sold to border smugglers or sold to Chinese tradesmen.

Here is where the conflict surfaced. While, L was in charge of delivering the drugs from Chongjin to Hoiryeong, K became suspicious that L was secretly hoarding the drugs elsewhere. Hence, K conducted an investigation trailing L’s steps at which a disagreement arose.

In early Feb, L voluntarily went to North Hamkyung Security Agency in Chongjin and exposed that Chairwoman Suh’s family had been disclosing in drug dealings. The motive behind L indicting Chairwoman Suh’s family is still unknown.

Some argue that the reason L went straight to the district security office and not the city office in Hoiryeong was because of Chairwoman Suh’s hierarchical position in Hoiryeong city. If L had carelessly reported this case to the city office, it is possible that L would have simply lost his self-dignity.

At present, it seems that rumors about this case are spreading rapidly across Hoiryeong creating unsettling feelings in the city.

People of Hoiryeong city are muttering “High officials must also be shown the seriousness of law,” criticizing Chairwoman Suh’s family for concealing such large amounts of dollars and yuan also Chairwoman Suh, who as the leader of the Women’s Union would advocate severe punishment for female defectors.

100g of North Korean drugs sell for 12,000 yuan

North Korean citizen Park Jong Shim (pseudonym, Sanup-dong, Hoiryeong) who lives in the same suburb as Chairwoman Suh, said in a telephone conversation with a reporter on the 26th “The whole city is raucous because of Chairwoman Suh’s story” and informed “Some people say that the power of law will be enforced properly this time as the district security agency has been involved. On the other hand, some question whether or not those people with so much money and power will be punished according to law, despite the district office being involved.”

Hoiryeong citizen Kang Eun Soon (pseudonym) who defected to China in January said “If I think about the times when Chairwoman Suh would go around making a racket, my teeth rattle.” Like second nature, Chairwoman Suh would prowl around advocating, “With the slightest nudge, Hoiryeong women jump to China, not only defiling their bodies but dishonoring the land where mother Kim Jong Sook (Kim Jong Il’s mother) was born.”

Kang said “Usually, Suh would conduct political meetings through her Women’s Union and argue that the reason there was so many public trials for border crossers and illegal acts in Hoiryeong was due to the fact that women could not look after their family. She would say that Hoiryeong women were obsessed over money and would go to any lengths to get this becoming shallow-minded people.”

“Even if a verdict was made stating that Chairwoman Suh was not linked to the drug dealings, she would still not be able to maintain her position because of all the things she has said in the past,” Kang added.

The drug known as “ice” made in North Korea is sold to Korea, Japan and even Macau through the intermediary of China. The drug “ice” as known to defectors, originated from the Heung Nam Pharmaceutical Company.

Though the going rate for “ice” differs according to quality, 100g of high-quality ice is 12,000 yuan, 9,000~10,000 yuan for standard and 7,000 yuan for low-quality ice.

In accordance with North Korea’s legislation Article 218 amended in April 2004, any person found producing or trading drugs is sentenced to a maximum of 5 years time at the Labor Education Camp. If this act has been repeated on numerous occasions or the drug dealings were large scale, a person could be sentenced to 5~10 years at the Labor Education Camp. If the conditions are even more severe, the law clearly states that a person could then be sentenced to more than 10 years time at the Labor Education Camp or sent to the Labor Education Camp for life.

Korea Herald
3/1/2007

North Korea appears to have started complying with a recent nuclear disarmament agreement, but U.S. intelligence officials are telling skeptical lawmakers they will continue to watch the country’s actions closely.

Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Tuesday that officials had seen North Korea begin inspections of its main nuclear reactor, which the North pledged to shut down and seal in return for an initial load of fuel oil. More aid would follow once North Korean technicians had disabled its nuclear programs.

“There are parts of this nuclear program that we have to pay a lot of attention to, to see if we have the kind of disclosure and the inspection capabilities that we’re looking for,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He also said North Korea is technically capable of building a long-range missile that can hit the United States despite a test failure last year.

He said North Korea has probably learned from the failure of its Taepodong-2 missile during a test in July, and made changes to its other missiles.

“I believe they have the technical capability, as we saw by the Taepodong, but they have not successfully tested it yet,” he said.

Asked how long before North Korea would have a missile capable of reaching the United States, he said, “I would probably estimate it’s not a matter of years.”

The Bush administration was likely to face more tough questions on Wednesday, when the chief U.S. negotiator at North Korean disarmament talks, Christopher Hill, was to appear at a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

Many in Washington are deeply skeptical of the Feb. 13 agreement. Conservatives say it rewards North Korea for bad behavior.

In Seoul, a senior U.S. security official expressed “cautious optimism” that Pyongyang will take steps to disable its nuclear facilities and is coordinating with Seoul for progress.

“I think we have a good first start, and I think we are approaching with energy and with cautious optimism,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jack Crouch told Yonhap News Agency.

Amid lingering doubt that Pyongyang may backtrack, he said there are now “big differences – we have a coordinated policy with the five members of the six-party talks.”

Crouch was here to meet Seoul’s chief nuclear negotiator Chun Young-woo to coordinate on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament after a stop in Tokyo.

Foreign Minister Song Min-soon also met him before heading to the United States to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on Thursday.

A flurry of diplomatic efforts are underway to start carrying out the six-party agreement reached in Beijing on Feb. 13, in which North Korea pledged to shut down and eventually dismantle its nuclear facilities.

Japan said yesterday it will hold talks with North Korea next week in Hanoi, hoping for progress in a row over abductions that has led Tokyo to shun a six-nation nuclear deal with Pyongyang.

“After coordinating with North Korea, the first working-level talks for the normalisation of the Japan-North Korea ties will be held on March 7 and 8 in Hanoi,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a press conference.

A prepatory meeting will be held in the Vietnamese capital on March 6, he added.

Japan is expected to use the forum to push for answers on the abduction of its citizens by North Korea, which says the issue is closed.

North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan is expected to arrive in the U.S. this week to meet his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill in New York and discuss normalizing diplomatic relations. Their meeting may discuss removing the North from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, according to Crouch.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is also set to visit the region next week, stopping in Japan, South Korea and China.