North Korean Economy Watch

According to the Donga Ilbo:

North Korea seeks to directly handle tours to the Mount Kumgang area after forcing South Korea out of the venture, said a source on North Korean affairs yesterday.

Korea Taepung International Investment Group, an agency under the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, has reportedly recruited Chinese companies to help operate the tour since January this year.

The source said, “Negotiations have significantly progressed in certain aspects,” adding, “I understand the North Korean leadership is considering directly operating the Mount Kumgang tour by getting Taepung or an agency under the National Defense Commission to hire multiple Chinese companies as agencies after forcing the Hyundai Group out of Mount Kumgang and Kaesong.”

Another informed source said, “Since Taepung is an agency that holds overall authority over attracting investment for the North’s national development, the group is believed to be advising and supervising efforts to resume the Mount Kumgang tour as well.”

On this, a South Korean government source said, “Even if the North severs ties with Hyundai Asan Corp., complicated legal action will continue over the North’s violation of the contract,” adding, “No Chinese company will seek to serve as a comprehensive business operator, so the new plan appears to be the most practical alternative for North Korea.”

If Taepung or an agency under the defense commission starts to operate the tour directly, the tour program will likely be operated under a completely different system.

The tour’s South Korean operator, Hyundai Asan, has wielded comprehensive and monopolistic rights to the venture, but North Korea appears to have taken over as the operator, with multiple foreign companies taking part.

An agency under the North’s defense commission or military will likely step forward to operate the tour in lieu of Pyongyang’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee under the ruling Workers’ Party or the Landmark General Development Bureau under the North Korean Cabinet.

And according to Yonhap:

Dozens of South Korean business officials will visit North Korea this week to comply with Pyongyang’s demand that they be present when the communist state freezes their assets at a joint mountain resort, officials said Monday, amid fears of further confiscation.

North Korea already confiscated five South Korean government-run facilities, including a family reunion center and a fire station, at its Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast last week.

The move reflected Pyongyang’s anger over Seoul’s refusal to resume cross-border tours that were halted in 2008 after the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean guard near the resort.

North Korea insists it has done everything to explain the shooting and guarantee safety for future South Korean visitors. South Korea doubts the genuineness of the gestures, demanding an on-site probe participated in by its officials and tangible safety measures.

The tours earned millions of U.S. dollars for the sanctions-hit North Korean regime before they were suspended. The North Korean demand for their resumption comes as the isolated state struggles to curb its economic troubles that deepened under U.N. sanctions imposed for its two nuclear tests, the latest in May last year.

An official at Hyundai Asan, the chief South Korean operator of the now-suspended tours, said 40 people from 31 companies, including his own, applied for permits to visit North Korea on Tuesday.

The North last week demanded “real estate proprietors and agents” attend the implementation of its plan to freeze their assets, which include hotels, a golf course and a variety of shops.

Officials at the Unification Ministry in Seoul said they plan to grant the permits.

“It is our basic stance that we respect the decisions of the companies,” spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.

Dozens of South Korean firms possess 360 billion won (US$320 million) worth of real estate in the mountain tourist zone.

During a meeting with Hyundai Asan officials stationed at the resort Monday morning, North Korea did not specify which companies should attend the freeze this week, a ministry official here said.

“The North Korean authorities remained ambiguous,” the official said, declining to be identified. “That will leave the door open for anyone wanting to visit North Korea this week.”

South Koreans fear Pyongyang may be taking steps to confiscate more South Korean assets. The North seized the Seoul government-run facilities 10 days after freezing them and expelling personnel.

South Korea has pledged retaliatory measures without being specific. A senior Unification Ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Monday the measures would be announced by early May.

South Korea also warned North Korea will be to blame for any further deterioration of relations between the divided states.

The Korea Herald speculates on how the South Korean government might retaliate:

The government is reportedly considering limiting the volume of agricultural and marine products from North Korea or tightening regulation of imports in other ways.

Certain North Korean items, such as sand, hard coal and mushrooms, already require the unification minister’s approval each time someone wants to bring them into the South. Seoul could expand the number of such items, making the import process more troublesome.

Currently, South Korean materials going into the joint industrial park in the North’s border town of Gaeseong and products rolled out from factories there account for more than 60 percent of inter-Korean trade.

Last month’s inter-Korean trade volume amounted to $202 million, 63 percent of which were goods going in and out of the Gaeseong park.

Since cross border tours to Mount Geumgang have been stalled, most of the remaining inter-Korean trade volume (35 percent) consists of agricultural and marine products.

Although the growth of inter-Korean trade has slowed under the Lee Myung-bak administration, South Korea is still the North’s second largest trading partner after China, according to the Unification Ministry.

Inter-Korean trade accounts for about 30 percent of the North’s trade with other countries, while China takes up about half.

The Seoul government could also further restrict nongovernmental aid to the North, which it has limited ever since Pyongyang launched a rocket in April last year.

It could also engage to the international community about the North’s “wrongful measures.”

Read the full stories here:
N. Korea to Directly Take Over Mt. Kumgang Tour
Donga Ilbo
4/26/2010

S. Koreans to visit N. Korea as Pyongyang moves to freeze their assets
Yonhap
Sam Kim
4/26/2010

Seoul may cut trade with N. Korea
Korea Herald
Kim So-hyun
4/25/2010

UPDATE:  According to the Associated Press (Via Washinton Post):

North Korea formally launched a medical videoconference network Tuesday aimed at giving smaller, rural hospitals access to specialists in the capital Pyongyang with the help of the World Health Organization.

WHO has been providing cameras, computers and other equipment to North Korea to help the reclusive, impoverished country connect a main hospital in Pyongyang with medical facilities in 10 provinces. The system is designed to allow doctors to talk to each other to provide additional services to rural patients.

On Tuesday, North Korean health officials and visiting WHO Director-General Margaret Chan held the formal inaugural ceremony for the system at the Kim Man Yu hospital in Pyongyang, according to footage from broadcaster APTN.

“This is an excellent vision because it meets the needs of the government,” Chan said.

Chan, clad in a white gown, later tested the system by talking with provincial doctors via video link.

One unidentified doctor at Jagang province, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Pyongyang, told Chan he is satisfied with the system because it’s too far for his patients to visit specialists in the capital.

She arrived in Pyongyang on Monday, becoming the U.N. agency’s first chief to visit the communist country since 2001.

…

WHO opened its office in Pyongyang in 2001 and has coordinated the purchase of medical equipment and supplies for North Koreans. The world’s health body says on its Web site that it is currently focusing on strengthening the North’s health infrastructure.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Associated Press (via Taiwan News):

World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan arrived in North Korea on Monday on a rare visit to the isolated country.

The U.N. body has said Chan will spend two days in the reclusive communist country _ the first chief to go since 2001 _ to tour health facilities and meet the country’s health minister.

The WHO has not provided details of Chan’s itinerary, but the Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch that Chan arrived in Pyongyang on Monday.

The dispatch said the government held a reception for Chan, who arrived the same day as Red Cross and Red Crescent officials. It was not clear if the visits were connected.

The North faces chronic food shortages and has relied on outside assistance to feed much of its population since a famine believed to have killed as many as 2 million people in the 1990s.

Malnutrition, dysentery, and vitamin and iodine deficiency are believed to pose serious risks among children in the country, which also faces a shortfall of hospitals and lacks an efficient state health care system.

Read the full stories here:
WHO chief arrives in North Korea on rare visit
Associate Press (Taiwan Times)
4/26/2010

NKorea launches telemedicine network with WHO help
Associated Press (via Washinton Post)
Kim Hyung-Jin
4/27/2010

UPDATE: Lots of additional helpful information in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

ORIGINAL POST: It is not glamorous, but it is interesting–and largely unexplored.

In all the time I have spent visiting or investigating the DPRK I have been curious about how they handle waste management and sanitation.  There is not much written on the subject (other than periodic reports that people collect their solid waste for fertilizer, or that school kids were sent out to collect it during the Arduous March), so I thought I would kick off a discussion about the topic and if any readers can point out more information, I would appreciate it.

Where does the garbage go?
On my second trip to the DPRK, I saw a garbage incinerator next to the Moranbong Middle School.

Click on the image above for a larger version.  The garbage incinerator is in the lower left corner. A satellite image showing its location is here. It is awkwardly placed next to the school and a children’s playground, and it is probably for use by residents of the nearby apartment block.  Maybe this is under the control of the building inminban.  After seeing it, however, I assumed that residents of Pyongyang simply burned their trash in similar facilities all across the city—but I never saw another incinerator in Pyongyang or any other city I visited. Later I was told by some defectors that garbage was collected (for some anyway–I don’t have any details) and that garbage is buried in actual landfills.  Since the DPRK is a poor country, we can expect the level of garbage to be lower than in neighboring countries, but in all the thousands of hours I have spent looking at North Korea on Google Earth, I never saw an easily identifiable landfill…until March of this year.  Below is both the largest (and only) landfill I have identified in the DPRK:

The coordinates are  37°57’12.80″N, 125°21’36.11″E in Ongjin (South West).  It is approximately 33 meters in diameter at its widest point.  There is no telling what is in there or how well it is sealed off from the local water table.  If any former residents of Ongjin happen to see this post and can fill in the details, please let me know.

One highly-qualified reader asserts that there is no way this could be a landfill, but has no idea what it could be.  If anyone else has a hypothesis about this location, please let me know.

Sewage Investments:
I have also been cataloging sewage and water treatment facilities across the DPRK.  Not surprisingly, there are few to be found.  The largest facility, however seems to be under construction north of Pyongyang.  It has been under construction since approximately August 2005 and it is still not complete.  It is located at  39° 7’6.80″N, 125°46’20.87″E, and here are some photos of its development:

Thanks to a tip from Michael we can also see the crumbling of the Phyongchon District (Pyongyang) sewage plant:

Kuwait was reported to be lending the DPRK $21m to update its water and sewage facilities. The indispensable Stalin Search engine has more on Kuwait and the DPRK.

So if anyone knows of any papers, etc. on sanitation in the DPRK, please let me know.

According to Yonhap:

South Korea denounced North Korea’s decision Friday to seize five South Korean facilities at a mountain resort on its soil and warned that Pyongyang will be held responsible for the deterioration of inter-Korean relations.

“It is an illegal and unreasonable measure that undermines the very foundation of the South-North relations,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement after Pyongyang said it will seize the South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang.

“The North has proven itself to be an unfit partner for normal business and transactions,” it said.

North Korea also said other non-state South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang will be frozen, and that all employees from the South at the resort will be expelled. The measures were seen as aimed at pressuring Seoul to resume the suspended mountain tour program that had been a source of foreign currency for Pyongyang.

Seoul said it will take “strong measures” against the North. It did not elaborate.

“We cannot accept the (North’s) measures, as they are in violation of contracts between North Korea and our businesses, agreements between the governments and of international laws. It is an unjust step that undermines the very foundation of South-North relations,” a ministry official told reporters.

The North’s move came at the end of a two-day inspection by North Korean military officials of the mountain resort, where dozens of South Korean businesses and private investors own various facilities that are part of the suspended tourism program.

The five facilities to be seized include a family reunion center, funded and owned by Seoul’s National Red Cross, as well as a fire station and a duty free shop. They also include a cultural center and a hot spring resort, both owned by Seoul’s Korea Tourism Organization.

Pyongyang froze the assets, worth some 124 billion won (US$112 million), on April 13 after an on-site inspection by its officials late last month. The latest inspection ended Friday.

“First, we will confiscate all five assets of the South Korean authorities that have already been frozen in compensation for our loss due to the long suspension of the tour,” an unidentified spokesman for the General Guidance Bureau for the Development of Scenic Spots said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The once lucrative tourism program for the impoverished North was suspended in July 2008 after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard near a restricted area. Nearly 2 million South Koreans had visited the mountain resort since the tours began in 1998.

“The confiscated real estate will be put into the possession of the DPRK or handed over to new businessmen according to legal procedures,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The North said early last month that it will restart the tourism program with a new business partner unless Seoul agreed to resume the tours before the end of April.

“The situation has reached such an extreme phase that it is at the crossroads of a war or peace, much less thinking of the resumption of the tour. It is quite natural that we can no longer show generosity and tolerance to the south side under this situation,” the statement said.

Friday’s measure also included freezing of all assets owned by over 30 South Korean businesses and private investors.

Hyundai Asan, the main South Korean developer of the joint mountain resort, urged the North to withdraw its decision and the governments of the two Koreas to resolve the issue through dialogue.

“The road to Mount Kumgang must not be severed as the tours greatly helped promote cooperation and reconciliation between the South and the North and peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the business group said in a statement.

“We also urge our government to actively seek a solution to the current situation, as the joint economic cooperation project of the South and the North, as well as properties of businesses that invested in Mount Kumgang, now sit on the verge of a breakdown,” the statement said.

Read the full story here:
Seoul denounces N. Korea’s seizure of assets at Mount Kumgang
Yonhap
4/23/2010
Byun Duk-kun

According to the Press Trust of India:

A Chinese tourist train entered North Korea for the first time today, carrying more than 400 passengers including a group of Finnish students, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

The train embarked on the four-day tour from the Chinese province of Liaoning under a new arrangement with North Korea expected to attract tens of thousands of tourists, the agency reported from the provincial capital Shenyang.

The first train is mostly carrying tourists from China but also includes foreigners living in China, notably the Finns, resident in Guangzhou.

The tour comes amid heightened tensions between reclusive North Korea and South Korea, as Seoul has appeared increasingly suspicious that the North was behind the sinking of one of its naval ships last month.

It also follows reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il plans to visit China soon.

Read the full story here:
Chinese tourist train makes first North Korea tour
Press Trust of India
4/25/2010

Great reporting by the Choson Ilbo–which provides video footage (before and after) of the DPRK’s currency reform on the market  in northern Onsong.

(October 2009)

(March 2010)

Video of the market is available from the the Choson Ilbo and ABC web pages.

According to the Choson Ilbo:

Footage taken in October shows a bustling market, but the same place in March is almost deserted, with only a few traders selling goods. In October, the market was overflowing with food, clothes, shoes, cooking oils, squid and other goods. But three months after the currency debacle, only a few bags of corn are visible in the stalls. Products that were part of South Korean aid shipments to North Korea can also be spotted.

“Judging by the fact that the market was still deserted even in late March, it appears that retailers are waiting until prices go up even more,” said an official at the Unification Ministry. “The sale of goods picked up somewhat after North Korean authorities increased supply by importing products from China and other countries ahead of Kim Il-sung’s birthday” on April 15, a North Korean source said.

Onsong market before the currency revaluation used to include both roofed and open-air stalls where unauthorized merchants sold goods on mats placed on the ground. The square in front of the train station was also a bustling market where traders sold products away from the watchful eye of the authorities. But in early March 90 percent of the stalls were empty.

Pastor Kim Sung-eun of the Caleb Mission said, “If the owners of roofed stalls, who paid a fee for official approval to sell goods, disappeared, it suggests that North Korea’s middle class has collapsed.”

There was also evidence of South Korean aid products being sold in the markets. Bags of grain bearing the South Korean Red Cross symbol could be seen in various parts of the market. Some North Koreans used them as shopping bags. Goods sent as part of aid shipments by South Korea including grain bags are said to be very popular in the North. “There are rumors that high-ranking North Korean officials sold South Korean aid products in the markets, but none of them have been confirmed,” a Unification ministry official said.

“The market opens around 8:30 a.m. and closes around 7 p.m. after sunset,” said a North Korean defector from Onsong. “It’s heartbreaking to see the once bustling market so empty.”

This particular market is not visible on Google Earth.  The imagery is low-resolution and likely predates the construction of the market. See for yourself.

According to the People’s Daily (Xinhua):

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has decided to promote the production of consumer goods in order to improve people’s lives, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported Wednesday.

The major task was to continue exploiting the potential of the light industry, raising production, improving quality, promoting the modernization of enterprises and guaranteeing its operation at full capacity, a cabinet meeting has agreed.

Besides, the ministers underlined the importance of the spring ploughing and sowing, saying supply to the rural area should be ensured.

They also demanded sectors such as metal, electricity, coal and railway continue promoting production to create condition for the improvement of people’s lives.

The newspaper said DPRK’s Premier Kim Yong Il attended the cabinet meeting, but did not mention the exact date.

Industrial production grew 16 percent in the first quarter, compared to the same period a year before, said the paper.

Consumer goods are part of Kim Kyung-hui’s (Kim Jong-il’s sister) portfolio as head of the KWP’s light industry department.

Read the full story here:
DPRK to promote production of consumer goods
People’s Daily (Xinhua)
4/21/2010

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

UPDATE 2:  A third individual has been arrested for going after Mr. Hwang.  According to the AFP:

A third man has been arrested over a plot to assassinate a top ranking defector from North Korea, a report said Saturday.

The man, whose family name is Han, was a former North Korean agent who has been living in South Korea since the 1960s, Yonhap news agency said, quoting prosecutors.

…

Han was charged with seeking to trace Hwang’s address in a plot to assassinate him, Yonhap said.

Han was recruited said to have been recruited by North Korean agents in 2000, who helped him reunite his family members living in the North.

North Korea has denied involvement in the bid to assassinate Hwang, accusing Seoul of inventing the story to fuel tension.

UPDATE 1:  Seoul convicted the two North Koreans to ten years in prison.  According to the Associated Press:

The Seoul Central District Court handed down 10-year sentences to each of the men after convicting them of violating South Korea’s National Security Law.

The defendants – Kim Myong Ho and Dong Myong Kwan – entered the packed courtroom under heavy security, handcuffed and wearing beige prison clothes. They have seven days to appeal the verdict.

They were arrested in Seoul in April for allegedly planning to kill Hwang Jang-yop, a former senior member of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party who defected to South Korea in 1997. North Korea has denied the assassination plot, accusing South Korea of staging it to intensify anti-Pyongyang sentiment.

The North Koreans posed as ordinary defectors and told investigators they were ordered to report back to Pyongyang on Hwang’s activities in Seoul and to prepare to “slit the betrayer’s throat,” prosecutors have said.

…

“The efforts to try to locate Hwang’s residence to plot to kill him … is a dangerous act undermining social security and order that must be condemned,” judge Cho Han-chang said.

The defendants did not speak throughout the trial, except when giving barely audible answers to the judge’s questions about their date of birth and place of origin. Their lips were pursed throughout the trial and they looked away from the proceedings.

The men were led away immediately after the verdict was read. Defendants normally are not given time or opportunity to comment on the verdict, court spokesman Kim Sang-woo said.

“If they disagree with the sentencing they can simply file an appeal,” Kim said.

The defendants confessed in their statements to having committed all of the acts they have been charged for and have since shown much remorse, the judge said.

“They have admitted to all of their crimes and even showed a human side, worrying about the safety of their families in North Korea,” Cho said.

High-profile defectors are believed to be key targets for assassination plots. In 1997, a nephew of one of Kim Jong Il’s former wives was killed outside a Seoul apartment, 15 years after defecting to the South. Officials never caught the assailants but believe they were North Korean agents.

Kim Jong Il reportedly has vowed revenge for Hwang’s defection.

The North Koreans made their way from Yanji, China, to Thailand posing as defectors. Thai authorities deported one to South Korea in January and the other in February, according to prosecutors.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the BBC:

South Korea says it has uncovered a plot to assassinate the most senior official ever to have defected from Communist North Korea.

Two North Koreans, said to have been posing as defectors themselves, have been arrested on suspicion of being on a mission to kill Hwang Jang-yop.

Mr Hwang, 87, once a close confidant of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, defected to the South in 1997.

Pyongyang’s official government website had recently threatened him with death.

The alleged plot to kill Mr Hwang was uncovered when the two men, named by the Yonhap news agency as Kim and Tong, crossed into South Korea from Thailand earlier this year, posing as defectors themselves.

They were questioned by South Korean officials during the debriefing sessions that await all North Korean refugees who make it to Seoul.

A unnamed senior official at Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office told reporters they had said their orders were to “slit the betrayer’s throat”, the Associated Press news agency reports.

…

Mr Hwang, who was once the secretary of the North Korean Workers’ Party, has said he left the country after witnessing the impact of disastrous economic policies which led to widespread famine in the 1990s.

He left close family members behind, many of whom are reported to have been sent to labour camps.

Mr Hwang lives under heavy police protection at an undisclosed location and has remained a harsh critic of Pyongyang.

The Washington Post adds more:

Compounding the perception of an imminent threat from the North, the South’s intelligence service and prosecutors gave a rare public account of a foiled plot.

They said two North Korean army majors defected through Thailand, arriving in South Korea in January and February. But inconsistencies were found in their stories, and the men said under interrogation that they intended to kill Hwang Jang Yop, 87, a former chairman of North Korea’s legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly.

“The men tried to kill themselves during the interrogation session,” said a spokesman for Seoul prosecutors.

Since defecting in 1997, Hwang has been a thorn in the side of North Korea, publicly condemning the nuclear-armed dictatorship of Kim Jong Il. In recent months, he has traveled to Washington and Tokyo to share his views on strategic thinking in Pyongyang.

Complaining about such trips, North Korea’s Uriminzokkiri Web site warned Hwang that “traitors have always been slaughtered with knives.” But Pyongyang did not comment on the allegation that it had sent assassins to kill him.

…

North Korea has a record of assassinating its opponents abroad. The wife of South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee was fatally shot in 1974. Seoul says that Kim personally ordered the killings of several members of South Korea’s government in Burma in 1983 and the destruction of a civil airliner in 1987, killing 115.

Read the full stories here:
North Korea ‘plotted to kill high profile defector’
BBC
4/21/2010

South Korea says it foiled assassination plot by North
Washington Post
Christian Oliver
4/22/2010

According to Yonhap:

The first accredited high school opened Tuesday for North Korean students who have settled in South Korea.

Yeomyung, established in central Seoul in 2004, used to provide schooling for older aged students whose families had defected from the North. Graduates had to pass state qualification exams in order to receive high school diplomas since it was not a formally accredited institution.

The number of North Korean students was 1,478 at the end of last year, according to government data, with 77 percent of them are enrolled in regular schools. Yeomyung currently has 32 students enrolled in its high school course.

“We will provide full support to see that North Korean adolescents who receive education at alternative schools or private facilities become sound citizens,” Education Minister Ahn Byong-man said at the opening ceremony.

Read the full sotry here:
Alternative school for N. Korean students opens in Seoul
Yonhap
4/20/2010