North Korean Economy Watch

The Daily NK reports that construction is afoot at numerous DPRK leadership compounds.

Residence 15 in the Central District (중앙구역):

The residence is located at 39° 0’56.39″N, 125°44’45.45″E.  The first photo is dated March 23, 2009.  The second is dated December 20, 2009.  The third image is from the Daily NK story overlaid onto Google Earth.

Onpho Spa in Kyongsong County (경성군):
The Daily NK also provides a new image of the elite compound at the Onpho Spa.  Here is the original low resolution image from Google Earth and the new high resolution image:

This compound is located at 41°39’26.91″N, 129°30’29.57″E.  Even though the “before” image is in low resolution, we can see that the compound has been drastically rebuilt.  It bears resemblance to the Sinchon Elite Compound (satellite image here) which also is built on a spa.    Barbara Demick mentioned this facility in her recent Nothing to Envy.

The Daily NK also mentions that here is construction taking place at the leadership compound in Songdowon, north of Wonsan. Satellite image here.

The reconstruction of leadership compounds has been underway for some time.  I blogged about some other projects in February 2009. Read about them here.

Here is the text from the Daily NK story:

An unusual level of remodeling and reconstruction of official buildings and special villas is going on across North Korea, according to sources.

One such source inside North Korea reported today that after demolishing the No. 15 Official Residence, located in vicinity of Kim Jong Il’s current office in Pyongyang, the authorities began construction of a new building in July, a claim which has been confirmed by satellite images.

The No. 15 Official Residence was where Ko Young Hee, Kim Jong Eun’s mother, used to live. The location is linked to Kim Jong Il’s office and other official buildings by underground tunnels fitted with an electronic train. When Kim Jong Eun was a child, he also lived there.

However, the source said he believes that the prime real estate may be undergoing a change of use.

The source also reported that in December, 2009, Kim Jong Eun ordered the destruction of another special villa in Kyungsung, North Hamkyung Province, a place famous for hot springs, and the building of a new conference hall and villa with imported construction materials in its place.

Approximately ten kilometers of road and rail construction has also been going on so that the area can be reached more conveniently, the source added.

According to the source, around 1,200 soldiers have been mobilized alongside residents of Chongjin and Hoiryeong for the work. In addition, each household in the area has had to provide ten buckets of rocks for construction and pay 500 won for their delivery.

Regarding this work, North Korea Reform Radio reported in July, “During construction of Kim Jong Eun’s special villa in Kyungsung, the authorities diverted the flow of a stream flowing through Haonpo-ri in Kyungsung, burying farms and angering residents.”

Reconstruction of another villa and conference hall at the coastal Songdowon Resort in Wonsan, Kangwon Province is also ongoing. This construction is reportedly a gift for Kim Jong Il on the orders of Kim Jong Eun.

The construction consists of two large, circular buildings. One of them has a lot of separate rooms, while the other has just one big hall, according to rumors.

Therefore, the source assumed that the finished building might be a similar to Kim Jong Il’s Seoho Villa, the No. 72 Villa in Nakwon, South Hamkyung, which is rumored to have one room extending 100m below the ground.

A South Korean architect estimates that the construction of the three facilities and railroad will cost a total of around $180 million dollars, an amount which, according to the current international market price of corn, $300/ton, is enough to buy 600,000 tons of corn, enough to feed 2.3 million North Koreans for two months.

According to documents the South Korean military and intelligence authorities provided for submission to a hearing of the Diplomacy, Commerce and Unification Committee of the National Assembly by lawmaker Yoon Sang Hyun, there are 33 luxurious villas in beautiful mountainous areas and along the coasts of North Korea. Since 2008, 13 out of 33 sites have been under maintenance work, according to intelligence.

There are also 28 stations for the exclusive use of Kim Jong Il across North Korea.

In North Korea, in general, around two or three facilities are remodeled per year, but the current degree of widespread construction and remodeling suggests that Kim Jong Eun may be set to use the villas in the future.

On this, an anonymous expert with a national policy institute suggested that it does not portend a scaling back of the Kim family ruling style. “Seeing Kim Jong Eun’s luxurious life pattern,” he said, “he seems set to follow his father’s conventional method of dictatorship.”

You can see satellite imagery of 19 leadership  train stations here.

Read the full sotry here:
Luxury Villa Construction Booming
Daily NK
Kim Tae Hong
10/26/2010

According to the Daily NK:

The People’s Safety Ministry has declared war on the use of vehicles for private gain, according to a source, raising fears that another period of social upheaval is on the cards.

Vans, buses and trucks have been in use as so-called “servi-cha” (service cars) in North Korea since the late 1990s, after the authorities became unable to provide regular electricity to the railroads. Since then, this alternative transportation system has become a core means of distribution and domestic movement.

However, a source from North Hamkyung Province reported on Sunday, “A crackdown on sedans, vans, and 1.5 to 2-ton trucks belonging to individuals has begun under a decree handed down by the People’s Safety Ministry on the 18th. Now, all traffic safety agents are checking car registration documents, vehicle licenses, car permits and driver’s licenses on the streets.”

The source explained, “The PSM intends to confiscate all kinds of vehicles apart from those registered for cadres and businesses in the Traffic Office database in each province. Even those vehicles belonging to military-owned foreign currency-making enterprises have been targeted for inspection, but the military police will deal with them.”

According to the source, the North Korean authorities have divided the crackdown on the servi-cha system into two steps: the first is to be carried out until the end of this year, and the second by late April, 2011. First, for the next six months, the PSM will investigate vehicle ownership in government organs, companies and factories, inspecting all vehicles on the streets and confiscating those found guilty of illegality. In the second phase, the PSM will move on owners of private vehicles.

Vehicle management in North Korea is the work of the Traffic Department of the People’s Safety Ministry. The Traffic Department has a Traffic Office under each municipal or provincial People’s Safety Ministry which is in charge of monitoring vehicles within that region. Vehicles belonging to the military are managed and monitored by the rear guard unit of each corps, division or regiment; punishment, monitoring and crackdowns are military police duties.

The operation of a “servi-cha” requires the collusion of three parties; the car’s real owner, a driver and a cadre from an organ or enterprise.

A used car arrives from China or Japan, whereupon the cadre, who has close relations with the smuggler of the car, registers it in the name of his organ or enterprise, since all vehicles must belong to a group, not an individual.

Then, the car owner hires a driver and operates the vehicle as a bus or delivery truck.

Gains are divided between the cadre and the owner, who also pays the driver’s salary. The cadre extracts some of the profits for himself and records the rest as company income.

Under this mechanism, almost every organ, company, factory and even collective farm has at least one “servi-cha” in its name; profits are used to cover other losses, since there is no support coming from Pyongyang anymore.

This system is probably the most decisive influence on the growth of the jangmadang in North Korea. Thanks to the “servi-cha”, volumes of commercial traffic and personnel migration have increased and products smuggled in across the Tumen and Yalu Rivers from China are able to reach remote southern provinces such as Kangwon and Hwanghae.

Since the late 1990s, when the operating ratio of the railroad dropped to as low as 40%, the servi-cha system spread as an alternative to the collapsing public transit network. As permanent markets emerged in 2004, demand from people for migration and the distribution of goods increased drastically, and thereafter the system became the core transportation tool.

Considering the dominant influence of the “servi-cha” in the daily lives of the North Korean people today, if the crackdown is long and/or successful over a long period, other serious effects may be felt in North Korean society, where the aftershocks of the currency redenomination have only just dispersed.

This measure is being interpreted as part of a series of struggles for the eradication of what the North Korean authorities see as “anti-socialist elements”. Additionally, it seems to be an attempt not to ignore the abuse of loopholes in the system by cadres.

From the authorities’ perspective, the wide-spread usage of the servi-cha represents a loss of control over the society, because the movement of goods and people naturally incorporates the circulation of information.

The obvious problem is that any crackdown on the servi-cha industry will cause instability in the markets.

The source said, “Getting rid of ‘servi-cha’ is the same as letting us starve to death,” adding, “If they eliminate ‘servi-cha’, it won’t just be a problem for companies; any life tied up in markets including wholesaling and retailing will hit a brick wall.”

He explained further, “The measure will be a blow to cadres in the middle and lower levels, who are in collusion with traders. Therefore, lower cadres are likely to resist the measure first.”

Therefore, it is very much open to question whether the measure will be a success or a failure, just like previous crackdowns over markets and the currency redenomination.

Read the full story here:
War Declared on the Servi-Cha
Daily NK
Im Jeong Jin
10/25/2010

1. The Boston Globe puts together a great photo album of the celebrations attended by Kim Jong-un.

2. Pyonghwa Motors did a car show in Vietnam where several of their vehicle models are sold. Who would have thought that both the North Koreans and the Unification Church would approve of a showcase model! See the Pyonghwa Motors Wikipedia page here.

3. See the KPA’s “Funky get down Juche party” (Youtube).  It only works with audio!

4. Here is a group of North Koreans in China visiting Starbucks! (They were only seen outside the Starbucks, I cannot confirm they went in)

5. Recently I have posted a lot of pictures of North Koreans wearing Western brands (Jesus, Mickey Mouse, South Park, etc).  Today we see Jurassic Park (h/t to an anonymous colleague):

6. Fourjay Industries of Dayton, OH, might like to know that their products are helping to motivate swimmers at the Kim Il-sung University swimming pool (satellite image here).  I am willing to bet that the DPRK’s order (probably made through one or more intermediaries) did more good for the state than the stimulus package (zinger)!  I realize this picture proves nothing.  You just have to trust me that it came from Kim Il-sung University (Gag located the product web page here):

7. Finally, here is a good copy of a very famous picture:

According to the Daily NK:

Three North Korean Senior Middle School students have been caught trying to carry explosives into North Korea, according to a Radio Free Asia (RFA) report today.

Citing a source from Hyesan, RFA reported, “On the 11th, immediately after Chosun Workers’ Party founding day, 15-year old Songbong Senior Middle School student Kang and two others were caught trying to bring explosives in from China,” adding, “As a result of this, the security authorities have been put on emergency alert and the border totally closed.”

The RFA report explains that the three crossed the border into China with the help of border guards and smuggled back 10kg of explosives in two bags, but were caught at the entrance to a village by a community watch guard unit consisting of workers.

According to another source, “I’ve heard a number of rumors, including that they brought the explosives to destroy the bridge that passes by Wangdeok Station.” However, the source added, “Whether this is true or not I cannot say.”

Wangdeok Station is among a number of stations in North Korea on lines reserved for the exclusive use of Kim Jong Il.

The North Korean authorities are apparently at a loss to explain the case, because the students were just the children of normal workers; they did not have criminal records and were only interested in literature and reading.

Since the event occurred, the Yangkang Province authorities have stepped up security, with provincial committee cadres and students from Hyesan Agriculture University patrolling in the area around Bocheonbo Combat Victory Monument and the local statue of Kim Il Sung. They have also dispatched tens of guards to idolization sites such as Hyesan Revolutionary Museum and Kim Il Sung Revolutionary Activities Institute.

The report also added information on further similar cases: in 1997, a group of people were arrested after smuggling explosives into the country, allegedly in order to blow up the city’s statue of Kim Il Sung, and there has also been an arson case involving Kim Jong Suk Art Theatre and persons with complaints against the Kim Jong Il system.

It should be stated that stories such as these should be regarded with some skepticism since almost all of the facts are unverifiable.

For what it is worth, here is a satellite image of the  Wangdeok Leadership Train Station in Hyesan ( 41.448124°, 128.277445°):

According to the New York Times:

North and South Korea reopened one of the three severed hot lines between them on Monday in response to a request from the North, its first apparent outreach since the youngest son of the leader, Kim Jong-il, was unveiled as his successor.

The reopened hot line connects the principal international airports — Pyongyang in the North and Incheon in the South — and a test call was conducted late Monday morning, the Unification Ministry said through a spokesman in Seoul.

Another government official here said Monday that North Korea had approached the South about reopening the hot line, which was severed in May following the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, in March.

Relations between the Koreas have been badly strained since the Cheonan sinking, which killed 46 sailors. The South has blamed the incident on a North Korean torpedo attack; the North has denied any involvement.

It was not immediately clear whether the renewal of the airspace hot line was an authentic diplomatic entreaty from the North or merely a matter of practicalities. Analysts continue to look for signs of a possibly new foreign policy approach from the North now that Kim Jong-un, Mr. Kim’s Western-educated son, has been given powerful posts in the military and the Workers’ Party.

Commercial aircraft using South Korean airports were still avoiding North Korean airspace, said Lee Jong-joo, an official with the Unification Ministry, adding that the South Korean government was still considering whether to remove that ban.

In May, the nuclear-armed North severed all three hot lines that connect the countries, which remain in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, and a formal peace treaty remains elusive.

The principal hot line is located at Panmunjom, the so-called truce village on the highly militarized border. A South Korean government official on Monday described that link as “kind of the official one, used for all official messages.” The official said the North had “unilaterally shut down” that line in May and has not indicated if or when it might reopen.

The North also closed down a naval hot line intended to prevent clashes near its disputed sea border with the South. That link, which remains closed, was established in 2004 after deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

With the hot lines closed, communications between the two governments have been basically conducted through their jointly operated industrial park in Kaesong, located inside North Korea. The South Korean government does not have an official office at Kaesong, but diplomatic messages are routinely passed there.

This story does not explain what two naval centers are connected by the inter-Korean naval hotline. If a reader is aware what organizations are connected, I would appreciate knowing so I can map the hotline on Google Earth.

Read the full story here:
North and South Korea Restore Aviation Hotline
New York Times
Mark McDonald
10/17/2010

FIRST: A visitor to Pyongyang sent me these photos of a North Korean boy wearing a South Park shirt on Mansu Hill:

I trust that I do not need to explain why this is interesting.

SECOND: From Koryo Tours: The latest news from Pyongyang is that Arirang, the spectacular 100,000-strong mass gymnastic event has been extended until October 25th, marking the final performance of the 2010 season. If you haven’t yet seen tens of thousands of people moving in unison, 20,000 students forming a giant mosaic or the dancing eggs that makes Arirang unique, don’t miss our Last Chance Tour. Visitors can also see the massive monuments of Pyongyang, eat food “fit for royalty” in the ancient city of Kaesong and watch the North and South stare each other down at the DMZ. There’s no word yet on whether 2011 will have mass games at all – this just might be Arirang’s last dance. Don’t miss it!

If you are not able to see the Mass Games this year you should still see Centre Forward!

THIRD: NKNews.org has a couple of interesting recent updates from the DPRK.  The first claims that all of Pyongyang’s traffic ladies have been replaced by traffic lights.  Read the report here.  The second report covers a whole list of interesting observations.  Check out the report here.

According to Fox News:

In an eerie replay of a scandal that enveloped the United Nations Development Program, an internal audit by the U.N.’s World Food Program shows significant “lapses,” “anomalies,” and unexplained variations last year in the way the relief agency reported its financial and commodity management in North Korea.

The holes in WFP’s humanitarian reporting raise questions of whether a U.N. agency has allowed money and supplies intended for starving North Koreans to end up in the hands of the country’s brutal communist rulers, who are under international sanctions aimed at halting their aggressive atomic weapons program.

According to WFP itself, in response to questions from Fox News, the confidential audit “highlighted a small number of inconsistencies in commodity accounting that have subsequently been addressed.” All the issues involved have since been “closed,” the agency added.

However, Fox News obtained a copy of a summary of projects undertaken by WFP’s internal watchdog Office of Internal Audit between July and September of last year, which lists the North Korean lapses first among its audit highlights. Among other things, it notes:

–“inconsistent data and unreliable information systems used for reporting [WFP] commodity movements, stock balances and food utilization” in North Korea;

–“lapses…in financial and commodity management processes.”

—“numerous anomalies…in information systems used for reporting commodity movements and food utilization in the CO [WFP local country office].”

See summary document here (PDF).

The full extent of the management lapses and their consequences cannot be determined without the unexpurgated audit report—and the WFP is not willing to make that public. The agency flatly turned down a request by Fox News for the document.

In fact, WFP has not even supplied a copy of the audit report to nations, including the U.S., that supervise its operations through a 36-member executive board. (The U.S. government gave about $1.76 billion to WFP in 2009, and has so far contributed $959 million this year.)

A Fox News query to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in Geneva got confirmation that the U.S. government did not have the report, and that “WFP does not currently share its internal audit reports with the WFP Executive Board members.”

By now, however, it was supposed to. A policy that allowed the WFP’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, to give such audit reports to executive board members on demand was up for approval by the board at its last meeting in June. However, it was withdrawn from the board’s agenda; it is now up for consideration at the next Board meeting in November.

Even then, however, the wording of a draft version of the decision underlines that the sunlight provisions “will not be applied retroactively.”

The audit references to lapses in relief aid reporting practices are not the first indicator that the regime of ailing dictator Kim Jong Il might have the opportunity to exploit WFP resources in North Korea.

In June 2009, Fox News got an admission from the relief agency that its food supplies were carried from China to North Korea on vessels owned by the Kim regime. The potential transportation costs for those relief supplies appeared to be enormously high to outside shipping experts asked by Fox News to analyze the agency’s relief program documents. No mention of the regime’s role in transporting WFP goods appeared in the documents or on the agency’s website.

Click here to read an earlier Fox News article on this topic.

WFP has delivered more than $1 billion worth of food aid to North Korea since 2000, but the amount of donated money available for that effort has dwindled sharply as the Kim regime has exploded two nuclear bombs, threatened neighboring Japan and South Korea with war, and even sunk a South Korean warship on the high seas, according to the best forensic evidence available.

Its current plans call for spending about $91 million for food for about 2.2 million North Koreans this year.

The WFP audit reference to lapsed internal controls in North Korea, and the agency’s pooh-poohing of them, also bears a disturbing resemblance to the early stages of a battle over the role of the United Nations Development Program in North Korea, which led to the closure of UNDP’s North Korea office for two years, from 2007 to 2009. The WFP was later named as the U.N.’s lead agency in the country.

In 2006, a whistleblower named Artjon Shkurtaj revealed that UNDP procedures in North Korea had funneled millions of dollars in hard currency to the Kim regime, allowed North Korean government nominees to occupy sensitive UNDP positions in the local country office, kept thousands of U.S. dollars counterfeited by North Korea without informing U.S. authorities, and other transgressions.

All were flatly denied by the U.N. agency, though many of the accusations were later revealed to have been mentioned in internal audit reports — which UNDP refused to make public, on the same grounds currently used by WFP, that they were internal management tools. The existence of the audit criticisms were only made known through an external board of auditors’ investigation in 2007.

A further outside investigation revealed that UNDP’s transgressions were even worse than the auditors had suggested. Not only had UNDP routinely continued to hand over millions in hard currency to the Kim regime, use government nominated officials in sensitive positions, and transfer sensitive equipment with potential for terrorist use or for use in creating weapons of mass destruction, it had done so in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions in force at the time, and also contravened its own basic financial rules and regulations.

Click here to read an earlier Fox News article on this topic.

In the midst of the furor over its North Korean activities, UNDP finally agreed to make future internal audit reports public—at least to governments on its executive board, and as long as they applied in writing. Since then, it has also amended its internal procedures and is now relaunching itself in North Korea. (To date, the U.N. has not paid recompense to Shkurtaj that was mandated by its own ethics officer in the wake of the UNDP scandal.)

Is the World Food Program following the unsettling trail blazed by UNDP in North Korea, before it mended its ways?

Without the full internal audits, it is hard to tell—but the stonewalling of those audits looks very familiar.

Read the full story here:
U.N. Audit Finds ‘Lapses’ in Managing Food Program Aid to N. Korea
Fox News
George Russell
9/28/2010

According to Kathimerini:

Authorities in Piraeus today were to continue their inspection of a German-flagged French-owned vessel that had been en route to Syria from North Korea with a cargo believed to comprise banned weapons.

Following a tip-off from another country, which was not identified, Greek authorities intercepted the vessel and ordered its mooring at the port of Piraeus so checks could be carried out. Coast guard officers, military experts and members of the National Intelligence Service (EYP) participated in the inspection, which did not result in the discovery of any weapons but did turn up a large quantity of what a government source yesterday described as “nonmilitary material that could have a dual use.” This material reportedly included pieces of metal and pipes that could be used in the construction of missile launchers.

The United Nations Security Council agreed in June last year to ban the export of all weapons from North Korea.

According to Reuters:

The expanded sanctions were aimed at cutting off its arms sales, a vital export estimated to earn it more than $1 billion a year.

North Korea’s biggest weapons sales come from ballistic missiles, with Iran and other Middle Eastern states as customers, according to U.S. government officials.

Read the full stories here:
Ship checked for weapons
Kathimerini
9/29/2010

Greece searches ship for North Korean arms – source
Reuters
9/28/2010

According to the AFP:

North Korea is forging trade documents and changing the names of its trading firms to try to dodge international sanctions, a Seoul intelligence official and a media report said Wednesday.

Pyongyang changed the name of the Korea Mining and Development Corp to Kapmun Tosong Trade after the UN Security Council blacklisted the firm following the North’s missile test in April 2009, Dong-A Ilbo newspaper reported.

The communist state also renamed weapons trader Tangun Trade as Chasongdang Trade when the company was put on the sanctions list after the North’s second nuclear test in May 2009.

The tests prompted the Security Council to impose tougher sanctions targeting Pyongyang’s weapons exports and blacklisting companies suspected of such dealings.

The sanctions also called on UN member states to inspect ships and planes suspected of carrying banned cargo to or from the North.

Since then, the North has mostly used China to transport its arms exports, Dong-A said.

It had forged trade invoices on military products, for instance by labelling torpedoes as fish processing equipment and anti-tank rockets as oil boring machinery, the paper added.

A spokesman for Seoul’s National Intelligence Service confirmed the report but declined to give details.

“Intelligence authorities in South Korea and the United States are trying to crack down on the North’s forging of company names and export invoices, but it is becoming increasingly difficult since the North keeps coming up with new schemes,” the paper quoted one South Korean official as saying.

The impoverished North faces multiple sanctions imposed by the UN and the United States and targeting its illegal trade in arms, drugs and luxury goods.

The US Treasury Department announced Monday it was imposing sanctions on four people and eight organisations accused of aiding the communist government through illicit trade.

Of course these games are nothing new. About this time last year DPRK sanctions enforcement was in the news.  Marcus Noland referred to the task as “Whac-a-mole”.

Read the full stories here:
N.Korea forges trade documents to dodge sanctions
AFP
9/1/2010

N. Korea Fakes Trade Documents to Export WMDs 
Donga Ilbo
9/1/2010

According to the Daily NK:

It has been reported that the North Korean authorities have declared a “Special Vigilance Period” and begun regulating civilian access to Pyongyang. The move looks like the start of preparations for the Delegates’ Conference of the Chosun Workers’ Party, which could begin as early as the end of next week.

An inside source reported the news in a telephone conversation with The Daily NK today, saying, “Since the 26th, they have been regulating access to Pyongyang for provincial residents at all the ‘No. 10 Checkpoints.’”

The General Security Bureau of the National Security Agency sets checkpoints at every major entry point into Pyongyang, and these are called “No. 10 Checkpoints.” They are used to regulate the floating population; at all checkpoints, vehicles and civilians have their documents checked.

There are approximately ten checkpoints, with Junghwa No.10 (Hwangju, North Hwanghae Province to Pyongyang), Seopo No.10 (Pyongsung, South Pyongan Province to Pyongyang), and Majang No.10 (Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province to Pyongyang) seeing the highest traffic flows.

The source added, “There is also a decree whereby all local cadres on business trips and others visiting Pyongyang on family business or for other reasons must leave Pyongyang by the end of this month.”

Special Vigilance Periods are a customary move when important events are held in Pyongyang on national holidays.

On Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s birthdays (April 15 and February 16), the founding day of the Chosun People’s Army (April 25) and the Chosun Worker’s Party (October 10), the four major national holidays, the Special Vigilance Period conventionally lasts for seven to ten days, while there is customarily a three or four day Special Vigilance Period when the Supreme People’s Assembly is sitting. Additionally, when international VIPs visit Pyongyang, access to the city is generally restricted for four to six days.

The only specific public evidence of the start date of the Delegates’ Conference came in the form of a June 26th Chosun Central News Agency dispatch, according to which, “The Politburo of the Central Party summons a delegates conference of the Chosun Workers’ Party at the beginning of September, 2010 to elect the leading apparatus of the Workers’ Party and reflect new demands for the revolutionary development of the Party, which is facing critical changes in bringing about the strong and prosperous socialist state and Juche revolutionary achievements.”

While the statement could mean any time between September 1st and 10th, considering September 9th is the founding day of the North Korean regime, the conference looks likely to be held between September 6th and 8th.

The Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA) also reported today that county delegates’ conferences have been held and provincial delegates’ conferences will be held soon. The latter will elect provincial delegates who will go forward to the main conference.

In another report, Chosun (North Korea) Central Broadcast (the state radio station) reported that Kim Jong Il had been voted in as a delegate for the North Korean People’s Army in a military party delegates’ conference held in the April 25 House of Culture on the 25th.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang Getting Set for Delegates’ Conference
Daily NK
Yoo Gwan Hee
8/27/2010