Archive for September, 2010

Party conference pushing up food prices

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

According ot the Daily NK:

Since the North Korean security forces have been on special alert for the last two weeks in advance of the Delegates’ Conference, there has been a contraction in market activity, and this is forcing up rice prices.

In September, when farmers normally start harvesting, rice prices tend to drop, but because regular citizens do not know when the Delegates’ Conference is going to start, things are not easy this year.

A source from North Hamkyung Province told The Daily NK yesterday, “In Hoiryeong Market, rice was 1,000 won per kilo in late August, but today it is 1,300 won. The reason is that the special alert has been in force for around two weeks in the run up to the Delegates’ Conference, so there is less food trading going on.”

During any “special alert,” which the authorities impose in preparation for important political events, controls over migration and so-called “anti-socialist” activities are reinforced on pretexts of national security and rooting out espionage agents. The selling of rice is one thing which is subject to control.

Meanwhile, the most desirable corn is currently worth 750 won per kilo, according to source. This is corn produced last year; newly harvested corn costs 500 won. People tend to prefer old corn to this year’s corn because when they put it in water to cook, its volume increases more.

The source also explained that the people know exactly who to blame, saying, “People are complaining that last spring the authorities irritated them in order to wage war against South Chosun, and now they are being bothered with the Delegates’ Conference, which is still on hold.”

“Due to a crackdown on ‘grasshopper traders’ around markets, only traders who can afford a stall within the market can do business,” he went on. “It is natural for rice prices to rise because there are fewer rice sellers.”

Grasshopper trader means one who does business in alley markets, moving location in order to avoid the authorities.

The source noted, “In late October or early November, food prices may stabilize, but I am not sure because flood damage was so serious this year.”

With rising rice prices, exchange rates also rose; in Hoiryeong, one Yuan is now worth 235 won, which is 10% more than in late August.

See Andrei Lankov’s comments on the delay in the party conference here.

Read the full story here:
Conference Security Hitting Cost of Rice
Daily NK
Yoo Gwan Hee
9/14/2010

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Number of South Koreans permitted in Kasong zone to increase

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

According ot the Daily NK:

An official in the Ministry of Unification has revealed that the government is planning to allow an increase in the number of South Korean nationals permitted to overnight within the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

The new standard will allow a 50% increase in South Koreans staying in the Complex, from the current 600 to a maximum of 900, with the new limits set to take effect after the “Chuseok” harvest festival later this month.

Explaining the plan, the official said, “While the restrictions on residing personnel have been in place, fatigue has accumulated and problems have constantly occurred with companies having a great many production and quality errors,” adding, “So we can expect the government to select this course of expanding the number of residing personnel to between 800 and 900 this week.”

“Especially, maintaining production quality during the period of high demand starting in September with the current staffing levels would be difficult,” the official went on, “so companies have requested an increase in staffing levels, and the government has been considering the companies difficulties and requests.”

However, the official stressed that the move doesn’t mean the government is softening its stance in terms of post-Cheonan sanctions measures, saying, “The May 24th Measures will stay in place, and restrictions on new business investment and new investment in existing businesses will continue.”

At the time of the May 24th Measure, the number of personnel permitted to overnight in the Complex was fixed at 550 from its original limit of 1,000, though the real average was only around 500. However, the limit was increased to around 590 in July based, the Ministry of Unification announced at the time, on the “stances of the corporations and (the government’s) experience of running the complex.”

Read the full story here:
Government Plans Kaesong Personnel Change
Daily NK
Chris GReen
9/14/2010

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Lankov on the delay in the Worker’s Party conference

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Andrei Lankov has written some interesting thoughts on the delay in the much anticipated Worker’s Party conference.  According to Lankov:

By its nature,  the media is supposed to report events, especially those events which are seen as important or unusual. When elections are held, terrorists bomb an airliner or an UFO is spotted over New York, this is news. The media outlets usually remain silent when an airliner safely arrives and no Martians are seen walking in the Central Park.

This is understandable, but sometimes it is very important when some event does not happen – especially when the reason for the breach of pattern is not clear. But, understandably enough, such non-events attract much less media attention.

It seems that last week we all were witnesses to such a non event. The international media eagerly awaited news from Pyongyang where a conference of the ruling Korean Workers Party (KWP) was scheduled to take place. Indeed, in July the North Korean media officially informed the world that the KWP would soon have a party conference – the first party conference in 44 years and a first formal gathering of the KWP representatives in 30 years.

This was a rare event, so it attracted much attention. It was almost universally expected that at the conference Kim Jong Il will make public the name of his successor, and few people doubted that it is his youngest son, Kim Jong Eun who will become the next ‘Sun of Korea’.

The official media was quite specific about the conference dates. It was said that the conference would be held in the first ten days of September. The North Korean documents contained a term which unequivocally refers to a period from the  1st to the 10th day of month.

Taking into consideration that authorities are clearly in control of the timing of such an event, the international media was on alert since the first days of September.  Some sources leaked the supposed exact starting date for the coming conference, but people in the know remained skeptical: they are well aware how unreliable are the political rumors which merge from North Korea. Nonetheless, journalists, diplomats and spies expected that the conference would happen last week, as officially proclaimed.

It did not. Now, it is September 13 already, so the official deadline has quietly passed, but nothing has been heard about the conference. For a while there were speculations that the conference met clandestinely. However on Friday, the 10th of September, Nodong sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North Korean government, published an editorial where it mentioned the conference as one of many glorious events which will happen in North Korea in near future. This editorial attracted much attention since it made clear that, first, the conference has not taken place and, second, that it was not cancelled, but postponed.

Predictably, the non-event did not become a major news. Only few specialized publications noticed it. Nonetheless, the decision to postpone the conference is unusual and might be politically significant.

Had not Pyongyang authorities made a clear and unequivocal statement about the conference schedule, this would not attract much attention. But the government is in control. Last but not least, the delay is sending the wrong signal to the people who might start wondering why a much publicized event did not take place on time. The government’s obvious inability to keep its promises on such trivial matters will damage its standing in the eyes of the public, and will make them wonder whether everything is normal at the top.

Indeed, this is something to wonder about. It is difficult to believe that the conference was postponed due to, say, some logistical problems: it is not too difficult to house a couple of thousand representatives, and moving them around town for few days would hardly constitute a major challenge even for such a poor nation. So, there are good reasons to suspect that something in Pyongyang went wrong again, and the longer the delay is, the greater the scale of these unknown problems is likely to be. However, even if the conference will open amongst the usual pomp later this week, the inability or unwillingness to convene it as initially scheduled still should not be ignored.

So, what might have gone wrong? Since we are dealing with North Korea, which is frequently described as the “world’s most secretive society”, nothing is known for sure, and one has to remain skeptical even in regard to the rumors which are likely to start emanating from North Korean in near future. Nonetheless, some possibilities should be considered.

First, it is possible that the North Korean elite is far less united than it is usually assumed, so some factions are seriously unhappy about the likely choice of successor and/or expected composition of the new leadership (a formal appointment of new top officials is an important part of the conference ritual). They might have managed somehow to block the conference, while Kim Jong Il is unable or unwilling to restore the order. This fighting might unroll among the top functionaries of the regime, but it might as well be an internal feud within the ruling family among whose members, one must suspect, not everybody is happy about the recent choice of successor.

Second, the delay might reflect something more sinister – the growing inability of Kim Jong Il to pass reasonable judgments and make rational decisions, his tendency to follow impulses and emotions.  Indeed, in the last two years of strange and seemingly irrational things began to happen in North Korea with alarming and growing frequency, with its policy becoming more erratic. Among examples of such actions, one can mention the gross diplomatic mistakes of 2008-09, a badly planned (and unsuccessful) currency reform, and the recent sinking of the South Korean warship in disputed waters. The list can be easily continued. Many long-time Pyongyang watchers have recently developed the impression that the North Korean top leadership is doing strange things, things which do not make much sense, and it is not coincidental that the first signs of such erratic behavior appeared in early 2009, shortly after  Kim Jong Il suffered a serious illness, presumably a stroke.

If this is the case, it is not impossible that Kim Jong Il just decided to have a conference when he felt like it, but then cancelled or postponed it, without thinking twice about the political impact of such decision. Such sudden changes of mind are not unexpected when we deal with a stroke patient, but this particular patient seemingly has a complete control over the nuclear-powered nation of 24 million.

Last but not least, it is also possible that Kim Jong Il is now too sick to make an expected public appearance at the conference (this view seems to be widespread in South Korean ruling circles). Yes, as recently as September 11 the North Korean media reported his trip to a mine in a distant northern part of the country, but no date of the trip was disclosed (and such reports can easily be fakes).

Many other plausible explanations can be – and, at all probability will be – suggested, too, but one thing seems to be fairly certain: something unusual is happening in Pyongyang these days. If the conference will not meet in the next couple of weeks we can be sure that the situation is very unusual indeed.

The mine Lankov mentions above is the “March 5th Youth Mine.”  The DPRK released some photos of Kim Jong-il visiting this mine.  You can see them here, here, and hereHere is the story in KCNA.  The March 5 Youth Mine is located in Junggang County (중강군) at  41°42’46.97″N, 126°48’45.64″E.  Can anyone match up the satellite imagery with the photos of Kim Jong-il?  I think the satellite imagery may be too old.  Kim Jong-il also reportedly visited the mine on January 29, 2008.

UPDATE: This artilce was later published as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.  You can read it here.

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Middlesbrough vs. DPRK Ladies

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Pictured above: April 25th Sports Club field in Sadong-guyok (사동구역) where the matches were held (Google Maps)

UPDATE 4 (2011-4-25): To mark the ten-year anniversary of DPRK-UK diplomatic relations in September 2010, the British Embassy in Pyongyang and Koryo Tours arranged for the Middlesbrough Ladies Football Club to travel to the DPRK for two friendly matches against the DPRK’s national ladies team.  In addition to the two matches, the ladies team spent an afternoon training children at a local school, and an edited version of the film Bend it like Beckham was shown on North Korean television.  If you can access Facebook, you can see pictures of the visit here and  some videos here.

I managed to get video of one of the matches that was aired on North Korean television, so I edited it and posted it to YouTube:

It is in severn parts.  Part 1 of 7 is here.  The resolution is not great, but I am not a professional video editor!

Koryo Tours now has the ambitious goal of bringing a DPRK women’s football team to Middlesbrough.  According to a recent Koryo Tours newsletter:

We are therefore looking to take a North Korean women’s football team to the UK in 2012.  We also plan to bring a female DPRK film crew to accompany the squad and make a documentary of their time in the UK for both North Korean and international screening.

We do have support from both the British Embassy in Pyongyang and various international institutions but we also need financial support.  It would be extremely useful to have introductions to companies or individuals who you think might be interested in helping us.

Contact Koryo Tours for more information.

UPDATE 3: Sky News has a good summary of the events and a video.

UPDATE 2: According to the BBC, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their second game.

UPDATE 1: According to the AFP, the Middlesbrough FC Ladies lost their first game.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Guardian:

North Korea, the most secretive country on earth, the nation George Bush located on the Axis of Evil, where the flame of Marxism-Leninism still burns strong, will this week welcome its first British football team: 14 Teesside women players aged from 17 to 23, and their manager, Marrie Wieczorek.

On Thursday, Middlesbrough FC Ladies set off on a football tour with less bar-hopping (it’s illegal to leave your hotel without your guide) and probably more talk about dialectical materialism than usual. “I think it is going to be a bit of a culture shock,” says Wieczorek. “The whole place is shrouded in secrecy.”

At a time of mounting speculation that Kim Jong-il may be stepping down and appointing his son as successor, the team will fly to Beijing and then board an Air Koryo flight to Pyongyang, where they will play two games.

Middlesbrough Ladies will, in their way, be making history. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as it prefers to be known) has so little contact with the outside world that the tour represents one of the most significant cultural exchanges of recent years. But it is also the latest episode in the entirely unlikely relationship between Middlesbrough and North Korea.

Historical link

Back in 1966, when England hosted the World Cup, North Korea played its three group games in the town, and Dave Allan, Middlesbrough’s media manager, said that a bond had existed ever since.

“It wasn’t that long after the Korean War and there were people in Teesside who’d fought in that, and when the Korean team came they were seen as the enemy,” Allan said. “But people really just took them to their hearts. It helped that they played in red, which was the Middlesbrough team colour. But it really was the people themselves, non-stop smiling, and very friendly and open.”

In 1966, North Korea beat Italy in what is routinely referred to as “one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history”, but the team’s failure to win a single game in this year’s finals – the first time they had qualified since then – led to rumours that the national coach had been sent to be “re-educated” on a building site on his return home.

In 2002, Nick Bonner of the travel company Koryo Tours tracked down the 1966 players and brought them back to Middlesbrough in what is still North Korea’s most important non-political exchange with the outside world.

“You don’t hear much about Middlesbrough in this country. But in North Korea they love us,” said Wieczorek. Even more astonishing, she said, they also love women’s football. The North Korean women’s team is currently fifth in the world, and it is as popular a spectator sport as the men’s game.

“Here, on the other hand, it was a battle to even play it when I started out 34 years ago,” said Wieczorek, “and although we’re supported by Middlesbrough FC we still have to raise our own money for transport.”

Culture shock

In North Korea, visitors are expected to bow before statues of the Supreme Leader. Do the Middlesbrough team have any idea what to expect?

Acting captain Rachael Hine, a mortgage adviser with Santander, said: “We know it’s going to be different. But nobody really knows how different.

“We’re just trying to go there with an open mind.”

This was a philosophy that has already been tested. “I told the girls their mobile phones will be confiscated at the airport,” said Wieczorek. “Their jaws just dropped.”

Read the full story here:
Middlesbrough Ladies’ North Korean football tour guarantees place in history
Guardian
Carole Cadwalladr
9/12/2010

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Pyongyang night life

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

According to Sify News:

Life in Pyongyang, capital city of North Korea, is boisterous and fun-filled even as the country is threatened with military action from the West due to its nuclear programme, reports Xinhua.

Screams from roller coaster rides, karaoke and clink of beer glasses at night clubs seem to be quite a picture of metropolitan areas like New York, Tokyo or Beijing.

Well, make no mistake. This is what actually happens at night in Pyongyang.

Though without dazzling neon signs, the hustle and bustle of discos or the notorious red-light districts, night life in Pyongyang is not cloaked in silence.

Built in the 1980s in Pyongyang’s Moranbong area, the Kaeson Youth Park used to operate only a handful of simple rides and was open to the public only during the daytime and on holidays. With a restoration being done by authorities, tourists can now have fun, even at night, with an Italy-made ‘jumping machine’, pirate ship and roller coaster being rated at the top by visitors.

There are also video-game lounges, where children were seen shooting flying saucers and racing cars.

‘Over 5,000 people visited the park every night. And it is a good place for people to be relaxed after a day’s work,’ Kim Hyok, the park’s director, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

While a visit to the park is not free of charge, it does not cost that much either.

An adult ticket costs 20 won (21 cents) and one for a child 10 won. And it costs about 250 won or $2.65 to take part in all the facilities. For foreigners, however, the ticket costs one euro ($1.27).

Even though electricity is in short supply in North Korea, authorities have specially laid two cables to guarantee regular service to the park.

Karaoke – popularly known in Pyongyang as ‘film-accompanied music’ – is another popular night time entertainment.

Even the country’s leader, Kim Jong Il, has supported popularising karaoke as he says it was a good way to make the lives of all people varied and rich.

In many restaurants in the capital city, karaoke as well as popular music is played for the pleasure of customers. To liven things up, waitresses are also trained to sing.

Beer bars and pubs are also reporting huge turnouts as night falls upon Pyongyang.

Bars are seen filled with laughter, cheers, and the aroma of tasty homemade beer.

The Qingxing beer house, Pyongyang’s largest bar, opened in April this year with a capacity of 1,000 people.

While retired people and housewives are seen in the daytime, government officials, public servants and workers would arrive after office hours.

Interestingly, the beer bar prepares only tables for customers and provides no chairs. Drinkers have to stand, while waiters serve beverages in carts.

During summer, the beer bar receives an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 customers per day.

Meanwhile, in a bid to attract more female customers, the Taedong Beer Brewhouse, which produces beer in a Pyongyang surburb, was preparing a fruity flavour.

Read the full story here:
North Korean capital has a night life – minus the dazzle
Sify News
9/12/2010

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Weekend fun: Pyongyang fashion

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Below is an interesting photo of a North Korean girl in pants speaking on her Koryolink mobile phone. The photo is from this Russian language web page.

Click image for larger version

Her outfit is pretty trendy: Pink-rimmed square glasses, Chinese-style purse, pants, and apparently two mobile phones (one in each hand). Not the typical scene in Pyongyang.

Previous posts about women’s fashion can be seen here, and here.

Other posts about clothing in the DPRK can be seen here.

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Clandestine video of post-flood Sinuiju

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

The video was originally released by the Choson Ilbo, but the Telegraph (Britain) has posted a high-quality version of it:

Click image to link to video

According to the Telegraph:

The video, obtained by Chosun Ilbo media agency, shows people [in Sinuiju] living in tents on streets with their water damaged belongings. Others can be seen buying water from a salesman.

The price of water has increased since the floods, according to the agency’s source, with a bowl costing 6 pence. The usual monthly wages are around £1.30.

Heavy rains in July and August have hit food production that, even in a good year, falls a million tonnes short of the amount needed to feed North Korea’s 23 million people.

According to the Chosun Ilbo, North Koreans in Shinuiju were complaining about the government and their inability to help the area properly.

Last week the South Korean government offered to provide £5.5m in emergency aid, including food, relief materials and first aid kits – but not rice nor construction equipment, as per Pyongyang’s request.

North Korea’s request was made through the Red Cross at the weekend, and is being reviewed, the Unification Ministry said in a statement.

South Korea has been reluctant to give rice to the North because it is worried it will not reach the people who need it most.

Pictures of the flooding can be found here.

Read the full story here:
Rare footage from inside North Korea reveals aftermath of floods
Telegraph
9/7/2010

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Evaluation of a DPRK cyber menace

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

James Lewis Writes in 38 North:

As intelligence operations are inherently covert in nature, North Korea may have a clandestine cyber collection effort, which it could use to launch attacks during a conflict. Indicators of an improving North Korean cyber capability would include a flow of skilled individuals from outsourcing companies back into the government, the discovery of North Korean “signatures” in malware, or the appearance and use of cyber techniques in military doctrine or exercises. Absent these developments, we should regard North Korean cyber capabilities in the same light we consider its other forays into advanced military systems—strong interest and ragged, self-made technologies, accompanied by bluster and exaggeration.

Read the full article here:
Speak Loudly and Carry a Small Stick: The North Korean Cyber Menace
38 North
James A. Lewis
9/2010

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North Korean sanctions hurting South Korean companies

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

According to the Daily NK:

A new survey [in South Korea] has suggested that the May 24th Measure, which was put in place in response to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, has had a serious effect on entities doing business with North Korea, in many cases harming them in a way capable of putting them out of business altogether.

The survey, conducted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, included a total of 500 companies; 200 with trade ties to the North and 300 without.

Of that 200, 93.9% said they have suffered what they characterized as substantial losses since the May 24th Measure imposed a trade ban with the North, while 66.5% said this was enough to put them out of business.

The survey put the average losses of those firms with ties to the North at approximately $800,000.

Meanwhile, around 8 out of 10, or 83%, of the 500 said that they now have no interest in developing business ties with the North, regardless of the political and economic environment.

Read the full story here:
Survey Reveals Effect of Trade Ban
Daily NK
Chris Green
9/8/2010

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Some North Koreans signal frustration with succesion

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

According to the Washington Post:

Almost every night, seeking to gather opinion from a country where opinion is often punishable, Kim Eun Ho calls North Korea. He talks mostly to people in Hoeryong city in Hamgyong-bukto province, and the conversations never last long. Hoeryong city employs 14 men who monitor the region’s phone conversations, Kim believes, and typically they can tap a call within two or three minutes. Kim says he knows this because, as a North Korean police officer before he defected in December 2008, he sometimes monitored the conversations.

But these days, with Pyongyang preparing for a Workers’ Party convention that could trumpet the rise of leader Kim Jong Il’s youngest son, Kim Eun Ho and other defectors who speak regularly to North Koreans hear plenty of opinions reflecting what he described as a broad sentiment against hereditary succession.

“Of 10 people I talk to,” he said, “all 10 have a problem with Kim Jong Eun taking over.”

Just as North Koreans know little about their potential future leader, the rest of the world knows almost nothing about North Korean opinions. Recent academic research, based on surveys with defectors, suggests that North Koreans are growing frustrated with a government that allowed widespread starvation in the early 1990s and orchestrated brutal currency reform in 2009 that was designed to wipe out the private markets that enable most residents to feed themselves.

The defectors are motivated to emphasize the worst-case scenario in their homeland. There are some who think that Kim Jong Eun will take power and gradually lead North Korea to Soviet-style reforms. Some defectors say that even though the younger Kim is largely unknown, they hope he’ll allow for a free economy after his father dies.

Still, in South Korea, an emerging patchwork of mini-samples suggests that many North Koreans view their government as a failed anachronism, and they see the young general, as he’s called, as a sign of the status quo. They associate Kim Jong Eun with the December 2009 currency revaluation. They don’t know his age – he’s thought to be in his late 20s – but they think he’s too young to be anything more than a figurehead.

Sohn Kwang Joo, chief editor of the Daily NK, a Seoul-based publication focusing on North Korea, receives frequent reports from stringers in four North Korean provinces. Those ground-level reporters, gathering information mostly from intellectuals, farmers and laborers, suggest to Sohn that “eight or nine out of every 10 people are critical of Kim Jong Eun.”A recent report from PSCORE, a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization promoting harmony on the Korean Peninsula, suggested that two party officials were sent to a gulag last month for slandering the chosen heir. Kim Young Il, a PSCORE director who was in China during Kim Jong Il’s recent trip, said: “Criticism of Kim Jong Eun is very strong. . . . What you see now is face-level loyalty, but it’s not genuine.”

Kim Eun Ho, the former North Korean police officer, works as a reporter for Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio. The nightly routine testifies to the difficulty of gathering information from within the world’s most reclusive state.

Kim first calls a friend who lives close to the Chinese border, where a smuggled foreign cellphone receives a clear signal. When Kim reaches his friend, the friend uses a second phone – a North Korean line – to call one of Kim’s police sources in Pyongyang. The friend then places the North Korean phone and the Chinese phone side-by-side, volume raised on the receivers, allowing Kim an indirect, muffled connection.

For extra caution, the conversations rely on code words.

“For general citizens, Kim Jong Eun is vastly unpopular,” Kim says. “People cannot take him seriously, in reality. He just suddenly appeared, and he’s too young.”

A defector-based survey released in March, co-written by North Korea experts Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard, provided the first sharp indication of growing discontent with Kim Jong Il’s regime, linked in large part to an information seal that no longer keeps everything out. North Koreans have access to South Korean television shows. Some travel to China for business.

For now, though, experts and U.S. officials see little likelihood that North Koreans’ closely guarded skepticism about their government will pose a threat to the government. Without churches and social clubs, North Koreans have few places where opinion can harden into resistance.

“They’ve almost perfected the system of social control,” says Katy Oh Hassig, an expert on North Korea at the Institute for Defense Analyses, which does research for the Pentagon.

Like Kim Eun Ho, Jin Sun Rak, director of Free North Korea Radio, calls his old country almost every night. His wife and 14-year-old daughter live in North Korea. He decided to defect – telling nobody but his brother – in 2008, after traveling to China and seeing the relative wealth. The first time he went, hoping to sell 80 grams of unrefined gold, he bribed a border guard and carried a dagger, tucked near the lower part of a leg. His first night in China was “beyond imagination.” He said he went to a restaurant, had some drinks and ended up at a karaoke bar where he knew none of the songs. Days later, he returned to North Korea with some money and a new frame of reference.

“Whenever they say something,” Jin said of the government, “they’re lying. They’re as worthless as barking dogs.” As for a greater cynicism about the government, Jin said: “I think it’s something unstoppable now. People’s minds have been changed. Young people know the value of money. They don’t want to be party members anymore. They’ve been exposed to the private markets.”

Jin, who lives in Seoul, rarely talks to his wife and daughter. He doesn’t think it’s safe to tell them his opinion.

Read the full story here:
N. Koreans may be frustrated with government and likely rise of Kim Jong Eun
New York Times
Chico Harlan
9/8/2010

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