Archive for April, 2011

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DPRK owes ROK appx $1billion

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

According to the Choson Ilbo:

North Korea owes South Korea more than W1 trillion in terms of food and other loans, it emerged Tuesday (US$1=W1,092). The North has to start repaying the debt from June next year, but given its economic difficulties and strained inter-Korean relations it is unlikely that Seoul will see a penny.

According to the Unification Ministry, the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations gave the North 2.4 million tons of rice and 200,000 tons of corn from 2000 to 2007 on condition of repayment over a period of 20 years with a 10-year grace period at a 1 percent annual interest. The loans amount to US$720.04 million, with the interest reaching $155.28 million.

The South Korean government also spent W585.2 billion from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to re-link cross-border railways and roads from 2002 to 2008. Of the total, W149.4 billion worth of materials and equipment for construction on the North Korean side are also loans to be repaid on the same conditions.

Besides, Seoul lent the North $80 million worth of raw materials for production of textile, footwear, and soap in 2007 and 2008. At the time, the North paid back 3 percent of the loan with 1,005 tons of zinc ingots worth $2.4 million, leaving a $77.6 million balance.

All told, the principal on these loans amounts to W1.02 trillion and the total debt including interest to over W1.2 trillion.

The first repayment of $5.83 million for the food loans provided between October 2000 and March 2001 is due on June 7 next year.

A ministry official said, “The amount has already been included in next year’s revenue plan, on the assumption that it will be paid back. If the North fails to pay, it will be deemed outstanding balance.”

Aside from the food and economic loans, the South also lent the North W1.37 trillion through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization from 1998 to 2006 for the construction of a light-water nuclear reactor. The money was raised by issuing government bonds. The total amount of all loans adds up to W2.25 trillion, if the accrued interest of W877.2 billion is counted.

But since the KEDO project was scrapped in 2006, there is no way for the South to get the money back. It seems likely that the total amount will be handled as “irredeemable government bonds” that have to be made up for with tax money.

Read the full story here:
Pyongyang Owes Seoul Huge Amounts of Money
Choson Ilbo
2011-4-20

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Posted in Banking, Debt, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Food, International trade, Railways, South Korea, Statistics, Trade Statistics, Transportation | Comments Closed

KJI 1st quarter 2011 OSG roundup

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

According to the Daily NK:

Kim Jong Il was less active in the first quarter of 2011 than in the same period of last year, clocking just 35 public appearances in comparison with 41 in 2010.

The news was revealed by the Ministry of Unification this morning, following its periodic analysis of North Korean TV and radio news reports.

Kim’s most regular companion during his first quarter nationwide on-site inspections was the director of the Party’s Light Industry Department, sister Kim Kyung Hee, who was by his side 28 times.

Revealing the statistics, Ministry spokesperson Lee Jong Ju explained, “Although this is less than the 41 cases in the same period last year, when compared to the average number of National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il’s public appearances in the first quarter since 1999, 21, it can be seen as relatively active.”

The statistics reveal a total of 12 appearances by Kim at sites in the economic sphere, ten appearances at performances by various groups, and nine events involving the military.

“Appearances are focused on the economic sphere at the beginning of most years, which can be seen as an attempt to encourage more results,” Lee also pointed out. 40% of Kim’s total of 161 on-site appearances in 2010 were in the economic sphere, and were concentrated in the first quarter in 2009 as well as 2010.

“Particularly, the fact that Chairman Kim Jong Il is making a talking point out of self-reliant production and the CNC technology of industrial facilities at every industrial location he has visited this year is interesting,” Lee added, noting the oft-drawn link between modern technology and the succession propaganda of Kim Jong Eun.

Behind Kim Kyung Hee on the record of visits came Party Propaganda Secretary Kim Ki Nam (24), Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Kim Jong Eun and Party Administration Secretary Tae Jong Su (22 each), and National Defense Commission Vice Chairman Jang Sung Taek (20).

“North Korea can thus be said to be a place running a system with family at its core,” Lee concluded.

Read the full story here:
Kim Maintains Economic Focus in 1st Quarter
Daily NK
Kim So Yeol
2011-4-20

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Posted in CNC, Economic reform, Light Industry, Manufacturing, Political economy | 1 Comment »

Strange UK-DPRK fraud case

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

I still have not had time to pay much attention to this story, but here is the coverage by the major British media outlets:

The Economist:

SVEN GORAN ERIKSSON, a Swedish football manager of some repute, is a man known as much for his wide travels as he is for his colourful love life. After scoring great success in Italy, he managed the national teams of England, Mexico, and the Côte d’Ivoire. Even seasoned Sven-watchers however were surprised when he rocked up in North Korea in 2009.

This week it was reported that he had been there at the behest of one Russell King, a convicted conman, who had managed to convince a London financial institution, the government of North Korea, and Mr Eriksson himself that he was managing billions of dollars on behalf of the Bahraini royal family.

A report on the BBC’s investigative news programme “Panorama” (or, if you’re outside the viewing area) has it that Mr King, who is now believed to be on the lam in Bahrain, first convinced directors of small investment bank First London Plc to hand over 49% of the company to him, in return for his apparently colossal business. This done, he used First London to finance an investment in Notts County, a Midlands football club with a proud history, now plying its trade in the lower divisions.

Mr Eriksson, drawn in by the promise of shares in Swiss Commodity Holdings (SCH), a vehicle of Mr King’s, was duly installed as football director at County. He was joined there for a time by another fellow dupe, Sol Campbell, an ex-Arsenal and England star. Messrs King and Eriksson ventured to Pyongyang on SCH business, where they are reported to have made a deal with officials in the North Korean government to grant them exclusive rights to the impoverished nation’s gold mines. “I was in the palace and they were handing over to the North Korean government so-called shares”, Mr Eriksson told BBC’s investigative news programme “Panorama”. “They used my name”, he laments; there was even talk of him managing the North Korean football team.

Those who follow developments in North Korea tend to prefer casting Kim Jong Il as an evil genius—crazy like a fox—rather than as merely crazy. While there can be no doubting that he has it in him to run circles around America and China, the Dear Leader appears to be no match for a silver-tongued conman of Russell King’s stature.

The Guardian:

The Serious Fraud Office is looking into an elaborate scam that took in the former England football manager Sven Göran-Eriksson, former spymaster Sir John Walker and the North Korean government.

Investigators are also looking at how the same fraudster took control of almost half of a London investment bank without paying for the shares.

First London plc – the investment bank whose shares were listed on the Plus stock exchange and whose advisers included Tim Yeo MP and Air Marshal Sir John Walker, a former head of defence intelligence – subsequently went into administration with debts of £8.7m.

BBC Panorama has discovered that Russell King, a convicted fraudster, took control of 49% of First London by claiming he was managing billions of dollars for the Bahraini royal family. The case has been referred to the SFO – which only looks at the country’s highest value frauds – by the Financial Services Authority.

An FSA spokesman said: “In this case the acquisition of control occurred without the FSA having been given the prior notice which the law requires it to be given. Had it been given proper notice it would have been in a position to consider whether it should use its powers to object to and prohibit the change of control. The FSA subsequently identified a number of concerns and pursued a series of leads into what was an extremely complex corporate structure. It would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time due to confidentiality issues.”

The Panorama programme will show how King then used the name of the bank and its high-profile advisers to give credibility to deals.

They included an attempt to obtain funding for a new company that claimed to have assets worth $2tn and the short-lived takeover of the Football League’s oldest club. In 2009, King was behind a controversial takeover of Notts County which promised to bring millions of pounds of investment from the Middle East. The investment, which appeared to have been guaranteed by First London, never materialised and the club was left £7m in the red – but not before Eriksson agreed to join County as director of football. Nottingham police are investigating.

The coach’s contract included a clause entitling him to €11m of shares in a little-known company called Swiss Commodity Holding, which had been set up a few months earlier and was claiming to have assets worth $2tn from the exclusive rights to North Korea’s gold, coal and iron ore.

King persuaded the former England manager to visit the rogue state as part of an SCH delegation and Eriksson was present at a meeting with the North Korean leadership. “I was in the palace and they were handing over to the North Korean government so-called shares,” he tells the programme. “I asked them how much and what they told me was not millions, it was billions of dollars. They used my name. Of course they did. At the end it became a big, big mistake.”

Panorama’s investigation shows that King was secretly running SCH, which was considering a public listing.

Documents detailing SCH’s claims were prepared by First London plc. The investment bank also sent Walker, who sat on the bank’s advisory board, to check out King and his associates. The air marshal tells the programme: “What do I think of Russell King? Not a lot. He was good at chat, but that was his business. He was a con man. I was taken the same way Sven was taken. They just wanted names.”

King had gained control over First London plc shares after convincing the bank that he was managing billions of dollars of Bahraini cash by introducing some of its executives to senior members of the royal family. But Fawaz Al Khalifa, president of the Bahraini Information Affairs Authority, says King was lying about his royal connections: “He might have met members of the family here or there, but we have no financial connection to him or his company.”

King, who was jailed for insurance fraud in 1991, denies running Notts County, SCH or First London plc.

However, the programme has obtained dozens of emails and testimonies showing he was secretly pulling the strings, including some where he refers to himself as Lord Voldemort, the character from the Harry Potter books who can never be named.

First London plc’s parent company, First London Group plc, is still in business. In a statement, its lawyers said the failure to notify the FSA about the change in ownership was a mistake: “This was simply an error and not done for any ulterior or questionable motive. As far as our client is aware the FSA were satisfied that the information provided was in compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements. Our client is unaware of any investigation by the FSA or SFO into its activities so far as they relate to or involve Russell King.”

BBC:

The Serious Fraud Office is examining a con that took in Sven-Goran Eriksson and the North Korean government, BBC Panorama has learned.

Investigators are also looking at how the same conman stole a football club and broke a bank.

Convicted fraudster Russell King persuaded the former England manager to join Notts County FC as director of football and to visit North Korea.

Mr King denies any fraud and said he was just a consultant on the deals.

Mr Eriksson was appointed at Notts County in 2009 following a takeover that promised to bring millions of pounds of Middle Eastern investment.

“For me as a football man it was fantastic, building a club from the bottom of League Two and having the funding to do it, to be a Premier League club. It’s like a dream, so I signed. Big mistake,” he said of the deal.

Milk bill
The promised money never arrived and the club was left £7m in debt. Mr Eriksson says there were early signs that all was not as it seemed.

“I started to have doubts when they came and told me the milk bill has not been paid,” he said.

Mr King claimed his Swiss-based mining company had assets worth almost $2 trillion because it had the rights to North Korea’s gold, coal and iron ore.

He told Mr Eriksson the Notts County cash would come from that mining deal. He then persuaded him to join a delegation visiting Pyongyang.

“I was in the palace and they were handing over to the North Korean government so-called shares,” Mr Eriksson told Panorama.

“I asked them how much that was and what they told me was not millions, it was billions of dollars. They used my name. Of course they did. At the end it became a big, big mistake.”

‘Con-man’
Russell King’s business deals had credibility because they appeared to have the backing of First London plc, an investment bank with advisers including Conservative MP Tim Yeo and Air Marshal Sir John Walker, a former British spymaster.

The bank sent Sir John, a former head of defence intelligence, to check out Mr King and the Korean deal, but he was also taken in.

Sir John said of the deal: “What do I think of Russell King? Not a lot. He was good at chat, but that was his business. He was a con man. I was taken the same way Sven was taken. They just wanted names.”

Mr King also managed to get control of almost half of First London plc without paying a penny for the shares, after he convinced its bankers he was managing billions of dollars for the Bahraini royal family.

But Fawaz Al Khalifa, President of the Bahraini Information Affairs Authority, says that Mr King was lying about his royal connections: “He might have met members of the family here or there, but we have no financial connection to him or his company.”

First London PLC went into administration last year with debts of £8.7m and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has been examining the deal that gave King control of 49% of its shares. The FSA has now passed its finding to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

“In this case the acquisition of control occurred without the FSA having been given the prior notice which the law requires it to be given,” said an FSA spokesman.

First London plc’s parent company, First London Group plc, is still in business. In a statement, its lawyers said the failure to notify the FSA about the change in ownership was a mistake that had been rectified:

“This was simply an error and not done for any ulterior or questionable motive. As far as our client is aware the FSA were satisfied that the information provided was in compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements.

“Our client is unaware of any investigation by the FSA or SFO.”

Lord Voldemort
Mr King, who was jailed for insurance fraud in 1991, denies any involvement in the running of Notts County or First London plc.

But Panorama has obtained dozens of emails and numerous testimonies that show he was secretly pulling the strings at Notts County.

King even referred to himself as Lord Voldemort, the character from the Harry Potter books who can never be named.

The club had been owned by a supporters’ trust, but Mr King persuaded the fans to sell it for just £1 after they met one of his supposedly wealthy benefactors in Bahrain.

Abid Hyat Khan was introduced as a Middle Eastern prince, but Panorama has discovered he is actually on the run from British police.

He absconded from the UK in 2008, when he was due to stand trial for allegedly stealing almost £1m. Khan denies posing as a prince.

The BBC’s Panorama show can be found here.

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Posted in Football (soccer), Gold, Mining/Minerals, Sports, United Kingdom | Comments Closed

Koryolink sees increase in users and revenue

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Martyn Williams writes in PC World:

North Korea’s only 3G cellular operator continues to report strong demand for its service and saw record revenue and growth in subscriber numbers in 2010, its majority shareholder said Monday.

The Koryolink service ended 2010 with 431,919 subscribers, more than quadrupling its customer base over the year, said Egypt’s Orascom Telecom. Orascom owns three-quarters of the cellular carrier through Cheo Technology, a joint venture with the state-run Korea Posts and Telecommunications (KPTC).

Revenue hit US$66.4 million, up 155 percent on the year.

Koryolink launched its service in the final weeks of 2008 amid some skepticism about whether North Korea’s government, which keeps tight control on its people, would really permit the general populace to own cellphones.

The continuing subscription growth appears to have proven the critics wrong. Anecdotal evidence from foreigners that have visited Pyongyang also points to an increasing number of people being seen on the street with cellphones.

There remains plenty of room to grow. The current subscriber base represents less than 2 percent of the population. Koryolink offered cheaper tariffs in 2010 to put its cellphone service within reach of more people, and might have to continue lowering prices if it wants to greatly expand penetration inside what is one of Asia’s poorest countries.

The service now covers 91 percent of the population including the capital, Pyongyang, 14 other cities, and 22 major highways. In addition to basic voice service, a video phone service was introduced in the third quarter. SMS and MMS messaging services and high-speed data service are available, although subscribers cannot access the Internet through their cellphones.

While subscriber numbers and revenues grow, it remains unclear if Orascom is making any money in North Korea. The company doesn’t disclose net profit figures for the unit, but provides profit before accounting for interest payments, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Measured this way, the company posted profits of $57.8 million, up from $17.2 million in 2009.

But perhaps an indication of Koryolink’s profitability, or at least its potential, can be found in Orascom’s recent deal to merge most of its telecom operations with Russia’s Vimpelcom. The deal includes carriers in a handful of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but excludes two: its home market of Egypt and Koryolink in North Korea.

Orascom’s 2010 annual report (Just released) can be found here (PDF).

More about the Vimpelcom deal here.

Martyn discusses the firm’s performance here.

Choson Ilbo has more here.

Read the full story here:
North Korea’s Sole 3G Operator Sees Users and Revenue Surge
PC World
Martyn Williams
2011-4-19

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Posted in Cell phones, Communications, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, Orascom Telecom Holding | 1 Comment »

On DPRK information sources…

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

UPDATE: On a related note…

“North Korea’s Digital Underground“, The Atlantic, April 2011

ORIGINAL POST: The following blurb appeared in a recent article on 38 North:

Feeding this confusion are serious problems with information collection about the domestic situation in North Korea. Policymakers in Seoul and Washington rely heavily (whether they know it or not) on testimony or information provided by North Korean defectors. Defectors and networks of informants who move across the China-North Korea border, are key sources for a new constellation of media organizations like Daily NK, Open North Korea Radio, Free North Korea Radio, Good Neighbors, Radio Free Asia (U.S.), Asia Press (Japan), and other internet media. To be sure, people coming out of the DPRK can be important sources of information—for example, these networks brought out information about the 2009 currency reform. However, the new “media” organizations are not staffed by independent, professional journalists. To the contrary, they are propaganda organs and advocacy organizations designed to undermine regime stability in the North. Their reports frequently lack verification, yet regularly appear in Yonhap News, the leading South Korean government news agency, without any filtering. Major conservative newspapers, such as Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, and Donga Ilbo, quote them as is. International news media, including the wire services and leading American newspapers, in turn, reprint them as world news. Unverified reports and politically motivated characterizations of North Korean instability are transmuted into truth. There are even cases of defectors reportedly being pressured to tow the official line. For example, Yonhap News was pressured to remove a senior reporter, herself a defector, from its North Korea desk when she discounted exaggerated reports by defector organizations of instability around the Kim family succession and currency reform failures.

Aidan Foster-Cater responds in this Asia Times article:

How do we know anything about North Korea? Where can you find reliable information? If sources conflict, how does one judge between them? Bottom line: Who ya gonna trust?

These are key questions. And they’re as old as the hills – which North Korea has more of than facts. My own interest in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is now, dare I confess, in its fifth decade. Even when I started, back in the 1960s, data of any kind were a problem. There were almost none to speak of.

No point asking Pyongyang. I was a fan in those days, but even so I winced at the regime’s clunky propaganda, and its emptiness: the absence of even the most basic facts and figures.

In the 1950s, North Korea did publish some statistics, but in the 1960s they stopped. Why? As growth slowed, paranoia and secretiveness ballooned. Nicholas Eberstadt has noted it was the same in the USSR and China, when Stalin’s and Mao’s excesses were at their height [1]. In Moscow and Beijing the mad blackouts eventually ended. In Pyongyang, darkness still rules.

Normal countries need numbers. A national budget with no figures: What a crazy idea! Not in North Korea, where this bizarre charade is enacted every year, most recently on April 7.

What passes for a parliament in Pyongyang usually meets for just one day a year, in spring. The main business is to pass the budget, which they duly do. (There’s no debate, obviously.)

And no numbers, either. Take a look at the official Korea Central News Agency [2]. Finance minister Pak Su-gil uttered a few percentages, but not a single actual solid figure. Weird.

Until 1994, they at least gave the budget totals, so we could work out some of the rest. South Korea’s Unification Ministry (MOU) reckons it heard a real number on the radio, once, and on that basis offers its own guesses here and there. Yet this is meagre stuff. A joke, really.

But I’ve banged on about this before in these pages [3], so what’s new pussycat? Two things.

First, I personally have taken this matter up, at the highest level. Only the other day I had words on the subject with the Speaker of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) himself. No really, I did. Choe Thae-bok, an urbane gent of 82 and a very senior figure, spent a week in London just before the SPA session. Tea at the House of Lords, that sort of thing. All a bit surreal, and it’s easy to scoff. But at times like these, it’s important to keep the doors open.

Over a convivial dinner at Asia House, I asked Choe about those budget blanks. He said he’d look into it, but I admit I wasn’t holding my breath. Ah well. He must be a busy chap.

Fortunately in 2011 we can supplement Pyongyang’s crummy crumbs with more solid fare. It’s a new world: the information age! NK may resist, but two things have changed – a lot.

First, and obviously, the Internet has been a boon. We who follow North Korea are no longer sad lonely nutters. Online we can find each other – we are legion! – and pool our knowledge. Kind folks like Curtis Melvin at NKeconwatch and Tad Farrell at NKNews, among others, have put a lot of work into creating crucial online resources on North Korea. (For their pains, they have survived more than one cyber-attack [4]. Who on earth would do a thing like that?) So now we can collate and compare notes.

Read the rest below the fold….

(more…)

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Posted in Communications, Domestic publication, Radio, Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

DPRK’s new magic show: Koryo Tours newsletter (Feb 2011)

Monday, April 18th, 2011

UPDATE 4 (2011-11-16): An American magician performed in the magic show.  According to Foreign Policy:

An English literature professor from Southern California by day and a world-class magician by night, Dale Salwak holds the distinction of being the only American invited to perform his act in North Korea. At SAIS recently, Salwak chronicled his experiences in Pyongyang in 2009 and this past April for the Grand Magic Show, the largest ever in the country’s history. His perspective on North Korea offered a look beyond stereotypes of a totalitarian system, mass famine, and nuclear proliferation, and focused instead on magic as a great leveler which emphasized entertainment value before political differences between two countries.

–Magic, as a trade, is taken very seriously in North Korea. Similar in structure to the Chinese system, admission into its exclusive society is followed by a father-son bond of lifelong apprenticeship. Isolated from the West and having limited or no access to DVDs, books and the Internet, North Korean magicians have devised their own methods to magic that have long been known to performers like Salwak. A typical range of acts includes balancing telephones on handkerchiefs and life-sized dolls performing choreographed dance routines to traditional music. The local performers Salwak encountered on his trips cherished every new trick acquired and pleaded with him to share current “world trends” on magic.

–The culmination of Kim Jong Il’s investment in the arts took place this past April at the Grand Magic Show, a tribute to the late Kim Il Sung. Like his father, Kim Jong Il appears to hold a great interest in magic and the circus, dating back to the country’s early history of Soviet influence. In a place where high-tech entertainment is hard to come by, the Grand Magic Show dazzled a crowd of 150,000 at May Day Stadium, which is the site of the Arirang Games, an annual two-month-long gymnastics festival also in honor of Kim Il Sung. As a spectator at the Grand Magic Show, Salwak watched as the country’s most famous magician, Kim Chol, appeared in a cloud of smoke and fireworks, forcing a bus full of giddy local residents to levitate several feet above the ground, and later, make a horse, an elephant and a helicopter materialize out of thin air. What would have otherwise invoked a roaring response from a typical American audience, the crowd respectfully cheered with subdued, tepid applause.

UPDATE 3 (2011-4-18): The DPRK has finally put on the long anticipated magic show.  According to the Associated Press (via ABC News):

Amid a burst of fireworks and a haze of smoke, a burly showman in a white sequined suit and gold lame cape appears with a flourish. Over the next 45 minutes, he appears to make a Pyongyang bus levitate and wriggles free from a box sent crashing to the stage through a ring of fire.

This is magic North Korean-style performed in a show touted as the country’s biggest ever and mounted in a city where good, old-fashioned illusion, a dancing bear and a dose of slapstick comedy can still command the biggest crowds of the year.

The country’s love for magic is a legacy of the circus traditions they inherited decades ago, during an era of Soviet influence.

North Korean founder Kim Il Sung ordered the creation of the Pyongyang Circus in 1952 in the middle of the Korean War. The tradition of highly technical stagecraft — including the Arirang mass games, where 100,000 performers move in sync in a feat that has come to embody North Korean discipline and regimentation — still dazzles in a country where high-tech entertainment is scarce.

“They love magic shows, together with the circus,” said Tony Namkung, a scholar who often serves as a liaison between North Korea and the U.S. and other governments. “Like so many other things, it harkens back to a pre-electronic past when things were much simpler.”

In fact, North Koreans so love magic that two diplomats dispatched to the United Nations had a special request in 1995 of their American hosts: They wanted to go to Las Vegas to see David Copperfield.

Wowed by the world-famous illusionist, the diplomats were determined to bring Copperfield to Pyongyang. But politics and finances trumped entertainment, and plans to bring the American magician to a nation still technically at war with the United States vanished in the haze of diplomatic tensions.

Undeterred, North Korea has kept putting on shows of its own, and it unveiled a massive one Monday at the capital’s May Day Stadium. It was designed by Kim Chol, dubbed the “David Copperfield of North Korea,” and will include seven performances in all.

The show stars Ri Thai Gum, a beefy showman with the extravagant flair — and physique — of a pro wrestler and the skills of Houdini. He whips off his white suit with silver-sequinned lapels to reveal a tank top and then straps on a gold-appliqued cummerbund onto his hefty waist.

The event was a highlight in a week of festivities surrounding Kim Il Sung’s April 15 birthday. Many of the women turned out in festive traditional Korean dresses reserved for special occasions, sparkles sprinkled into their hair and wearing fur-lined vests to keep warm in the spring chill. Outside, pink and yellow lights illuminated a fountain as music played to crowds enjoying an evening out.

An advertisement boasts that the show features “aircraft and a large bus appearing and then suddenly disappearing, elephants and other heavy animals appearing mysteriously, a motorcyclist performing fantastic skills, magicians floating in the air as if in a gravity-free space.”

And it does, adding in a healthy dose of slapstick comedy.

The tricks are simple crowd pleasers: A Pyongyang city bus filled with waving passengers appears to levitate and then disappear; an acrobat seems to float through a magical skyscape of clouds.

There’s the classic magician’s assistant dressed in traditional Korean dress who gets into a box and reappears halfway across the stadium.

In another trick, a man goes into a box but after a wave of the Korean Houdini’s hand, out comes a girl in a short, spangly miniskirt with a prancing baby bear on a leash bowing hello to the audience

The highlight involves a helicopter and a ring of fire that aim to have the clapping audience, mostly Koreans and a smattering of tourists and foreign dancers and musicians visiting the city for an arts festival, on edge.

“I thought it was great. The quality of the tricks that they pulled off was really high,” said Chris Andrews, a tourist from Sydney, Australia. “That bear trick I thought was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

Current leader Kim Jong Il is said to have inherited his father’s love of the circus and is thought to be the one to push to bring Copperfield to North Korea.

Copperfield’s stage manager once called North Korea’s staging technology “among the most sophisticated in the world,” according to Namkung.

Namkung, who took the North Korean diplomats to Vegas and later brought a Copperfield delegation to Pyongyang to discuss a visit, recalled that the time was ripe to bring a big American star to the North Korean capital.

The U.S. and North Korea had just signed an agreement for Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear power plants and to replace them with light water reactors less prone to weapons proliferation as part of a plan to normalize relations between the longtime enemies.

There were high hopes that Copperfield’s show — to be broadcast live on state TV in North Korea — could pave the way for a new era in relations between the bitter wartime foes. And in a symbolic show of support for reunification, Copperfield agreed to travel through the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and perform for the South Koreans as well.

“This was right after the ‘agreed framework’ signing at a time when it looked as if the two nations would go down an entirely new path, and the atmosphere in Pyongyang was giddy,” said Namkung, who also serves as a consultant to The Associated Press.

Copperfield himself was game, promising to make the city’s iconic Juche Tower disappear, just as he did the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty.

So seriously did the North Koreans take Copperfield’s visit that they staged a private viewing of the circus for his production team’s visit to Pyongyang and promised to give the illusionist a vast suite once used by former President Jimmy Carter on his visit in 1994, Namkung recalled.

But the State Department thought it was too early to back the venture, and the plan eventually foundered over how to finance the trip.

The AP was not allowed shoot video of the performance, but here is the AP’s video coverage of the event.

UPDATE 2 (2011-3-14): KCNA reveals a little more information about the DPRK’s upcoming magic show:

A large-scale magic performance will take place in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The program will include appearance and disappearance of aircraft, large bus with full passengers and big animals like elephant, as well as a motorcyclist’s fantastic skill and the magician’s floating in the air as if in a gravity-free space.

The aircraft, large bus and elephants are all real ones.

The spectators will enjoy a new form of magic show with several numbers connected with each other.

The performer is Kim Chol (50), a vice-chairman of the Magicians Association of Korea and head of the magic creation group of the Pyongyang Circus.

His father Kim Thaek Song and his younger brother Kim Kwang Chol are also talented magician.

He became an eye-catcher already in his teens, drawing the limelight of the magic circles.

He began to distinguish himself with his marked individuality at international magic festivals from the 1980s.

His masterpieces are “Girls Reflected in a Mirror” and “A Rich Catch of Catfish”.

Magic pieces of the DPRK won more than 20 top prizes at international magic festivals..

Founded in Juche 41 (1952), the Pyongyang Circus has produced 1,200 acrobatic works, winning more than 70 awards including 36 gold prizes at 38 international circus festivals.

The circus has performed on 35,000 occasions in total at home and abroad, including 250 tours around the globe, earning international prestige.

The premiere of the magic show will be given on April 18, a day of the 27th April Spring Friendship Art Festival.

The performance will be staged about six times, twice a week.

Its venue is May Day Stadium, well known for the grand gymnastic and artistic performance “Arirang.”

Many local and foreign people have booked tickets for the spectacle.

UPDATE 1: Xinhua (PRC, 2011-3-9) offers some more information on the DPRK’s upcoming magic show mentioned in the Koryo Tours newsletter below:

According to the KCNA, the performance will include the appearance and disappearance of an airplane, bus and elephant, and a magician floating in a weightless state.

Kim Chol, the performer, is a magician with the Pyongyang Circus, according to the report.

It would premiere on April 18 at the stadium, which was also the venue for the grand gymnastic and artistic performance “Arirang,” the report said. There would be six performances in total, given twice a week.

ORIGINAL POST:

Koryo Tours is the leading DPRK travel coordinator.  The company is operated by some very pleasant Brits based in Beijing.  Each year they expand the range of options available for visitors to the DPRK, and this year seems to be no exception.  According to their most recent email newsletter they are offering trips to the DPRK’s first ‘Grand Magic Festival’, the Tax Abolition Day tour, and resuming the fascinating Tumen Triangle tour.  See excerpts from their email below:

Grand Magic Festival in May Day Stadium
This is an all new event that is taking place for the first time this year between April 18th and May 9th in the massive May Day Stadium in Pyongyang. The exact nature of the event is thus-far unclear so we cannot confirm or deny that any actual ‘magic’ will take place but suffice to say it will be an event on a very large scale comparable to the Arirang Mass Games (running this year from Aug 1st – Sept 10th). We Will be able to take anyone who visits DPRK during this time to the event which is running every Wednesday and Saturday night.

This should be something not to miss and anyone who goes will be seeing one of North Korea’s trademark spectacular events for the first time, something to make all your friends jealous!

Our full tour list is online here and any tour during that date will get you to the Grand Magic Festival!

No tax on the March tour!
Our March Madness tour this year is closing fast but we still have time and space to add more people to this economically priced but amazing trip. The full details are online here and we’re accepting applications until the end of this month. The chance to be in North Korea on the anniversary of tax abolition is priceless indeed!

Tuman Triangle May Tour
For the second year running Koryo Tours is proud to run this utterly unique tour, something available only through us and we would love you to come along and join us on this amazing trip that goes from North East China into the obscure and little-known North Korean free trade zone of Rason, then to become only the second ever tour group (our group last year being the first) to cross into Russia by train, we enjoy sometime at and around a local beach there before heading to Vladivostok, the main city of far-eastern Russia to see what this previously-closed city is all about.

The full details for this tour are online here. Please ask us any questions about this tour, if you ever wanted to do anything completely unique then this is your chance. It’s an amazing trip and something truly memorable!

Although I have never traveled with Koryo Tours to the DPRK, I have traveled with them to Turkmenistan and that was an amazing trip.

Also, “Magic” seems to be popular in the DPRK.  A quick search through YouTube finds lots of North Korean magic shows.  I even posted a North Korean magic show that aired on TV earlier this year.  You can see it all on YouTube starting here.

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Posted in Art, Koryo Tours, Magicians Association of Korea, Tourism | 3 Comments »

KPA soldiers reportedly buying time off

Friday, April 15th, 2011

According to the Daily NK:

It has been revealed that if a Chosun People’s Army soldier is able to provide his military base with a fixed quantity of food, he is able to obtain an extended vacation.

A source from Pyongyang explained to the situation to The Daily NK on the 14th, “There has been this system since October last year; soldiers can get a 15-day vacation by offering 100kg of corn to their military base.”

“Now all soldiers from wealthy households can do their military service at home,” he added.

According to the source, military commanders see the policy as killing three birds with one stone, because not only is the base provided with food, but also when a soldier goes home the base can save the amount of food he would have been given during that period, and when he comes back to base after the vacation he is likely to bring some money with him. Higher military authorities apparently know what is going on, but do not try to stop it.

Another source from North Hamkyung Province has confirmed at least one case of the policy in action, reporting to The Daily NK, “My nephew was doing his military service in Hwanghae Province but then got surgery during a fifteen-day break. But he needed one month more vacation, so he offered 200kg of corn to the base.”

He added, “On the base where my nephew serves, each solder gets 550g of corn everyday and the military almost always tells them to go off-base to solve the problem of lunch for themselves, at neighboring farms or wherever.”

Although it was not previously so systematic, it is not actually new for rich households to provide food to the military in exchange for time off.

One defector, Choi, who served in the headquarters of an anti-aircraft machine gun corps in Pyongyang before coming to Seoul in 2010, told The Daily NK, “In 2007 I went home for three months after my father offered 500kg of corn to my base. It was possible because he was the Propaganda Secretary of a collective farm. Other soldiers’ families were not in such good condition, and they couldn’t even imagine spending that much time at home.”

Meanwhile, the current situation in the military is driving other soldiers to thievery. The same source explained that soldiers now openly say that they have to take care of themselves even if that means stealing, since they have no money and therefore cannot get a vacation.

The Pyongyang source also explained that even Pyongyang bases now only feed soldiers corn, and revealed that as a result, “The number of soldiers getting swollen faces from malnutrition and deserting is increasing.”

He added, “They tend to steal things from civilians’ homes and are not reluctant to assault civilians who refuse to accept their demands.” Therefore, the source said, “General people call them not ‘the People’s Army,’ but ‘Thief Army’ or ‘Bandits.’”

The source also explained, meanwhile, “Rich parents get their sons out via discharges due to illness, something which is done with large bribes.”

Given the dire military food situation, there are also many cases of parents offering bribes to military cadres in order to put their sons in charge of food storage, according to the source. Manager of food storage is the best position on the base, and therefore fiercely competitive.

Read the full story here:
Offer 100kg Corn, Get 15-Day Vacation
Daily NK
Park Jun Hyeong and Lee Seok Young
2011-4-15

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Posted in Food, Military | Comments Closed

DPRK makes progess on ‘Thunderbirds runway’

Friday, April 15th, 2011

UPDATE 2 (2011-4-25): Strategy Page comments on the technology that makes these facilities obsolete:

Over the last decade, there has been a pronounced slowdown in North Korean work on underground air bases. Part of this may be the result of growing energy shortages up north, and the frequent blackouts. It’s not just electricity that’s been in short in North Korea over the last decade, it’s everything. That includes construction equipment, especially the specialized stuff needed for digging tunnels into the sides of mountains. But work continues, slowly, mostly with manual labor, to expand the network of underground parking and maintenance facilities for aircraft, as well runway extensions. These sheltered air bases begin underground, then exit the mountain and continue outside. Apparently the North Koreans have figured out that the Americans have now developed weapons that could quickly shut down these underground facilities, and keep them inoperable.

One of the key weapons for doing this is the U.S. Air Force 129 kg (285 pound) Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). The official story was that this GPS guided smart bomb was needed for urban warfare. The smaller blast (17kg/38 pounds of explosives, compared to 127 kg/280 pounds for the 500 pound bomb) from the SDB resulted in fewer civilian casualties. Friendly troops can be closer to the target when an SDB explodes. While the 227, 455, 911 kg (500, 1,000 and 2,000 pound) bombs have a spectacular effect when they go off, they are often overkill. The troops on the ground would rather have more, smaller, GPS bombs available. This caused the 227 kg (500 pound) JDAM to get developed quickly and put into service. But the smaller SDB was always a mystery, with many produced, but few actually used.

But the SDB also has a hard steel, ground penetrating, front end, that can penetrate nearly two meters (six feet) of concrete. Not much use for that in urban warfare. But such a capability is very useful for taking out underground installations, particularly the entrances and air intakes. North Korea, for example, has twenty airfields with underground hangars for the aircraft. Usually tunneled into a nearby hill or mountain, the underground hangar allows fighters and bombers to quickly taxi out onto the runways and take off. Since North Korea doesn’t have that many operational warplanes, it’s believed that some of these “airfields” actually have long range rockets and ballistic missiles, mounted on trailers equipped to erect the missile into launch position and fire it off, in the underground hangars. The trailers are hauled out of the tunnels, onto the air field, the missile fired, and then the trailer is taken back inside to be reloaded. The North Koreans also have hundreds of other, smaller, underground facilities, close to the South Korea border, containing artillery and rocket launchers. These weapons are meant to be quickly hauled out and fired south.

That’s where the SDB comes in, but the U.S. Air Force isn’t saying much about it. The SDB would be the ideal weapon for launching a surprise attack on North Korean underground facilities, both the airfield hangers and the artillery bunkers. American B-2 and F-22 aircraft can dodge North Korea radar and drop a lot of SDBs all at once. A B-2 can carry over 200 SDBs. An F-22 can carry eight, and still protect the B-2s against any North Korean fighters that might have been in the air at the time of the attack. A half dozen B-2s carry over 1,200 SDBs, which is sufficient to cripple North Korean air defenses and twenty key air bases. A few dozen F-22s carry another 300 SDBs to hit smaller, spread out targets. The SDBs not only shut down the entrances to the hangars, but also blow deep holes in the airfields. While North Korea has thousands of troops trained and equipped to quickly come in and clear the hangar entrances and repair the airfields, they are not quick enough to do so before unstealthy B-1s and B-52s come in with more smart bombs (and cluster bombs, carrying thousands of small booby traps, that explode when stepped on or rolled over by vehicles or engineering equipment).

UPDATE 1 (2011-4-15): The Kangda-ri AFB* (Thunderbirds Runway) is slowly expanding.

In the Google Earth image above (dated October 3, 2009), I have outlined the runway infrastructure in yellow.  The northern most runway is new but displaces and older highway airstrip. A bridge is under construction which would link the new runway with the one that passes through the mountain.

The main runway is unchanged in length since the previous image was taken in December 2007.  The secondary runway is appx 1920 meters long.

The construction site is receiving electricity from a nearby substation just northwest of the facility.  Currently the power cables are above ground and cross the runway (in green).

There is a similar facility in Onchon on the DPRK’s west coast.  You can find a good description of it in The Armed Forced of North Korea.

* I use the name “Kangda-ri” AFB because this was the name Joseph Bermudez gave to the original highway strip in The Armed Forced of North Korea.

**This picture was picked up by Radio Free Asia, Yonhap, and the Wall Street Journal’s Korea Real Time.

ORIGINAL POST (2009-12-17): Although KCNA has not reported on it, the KPAF is making slow but steady progress on its east coast “Thunderbirds runway” just southwest of Wonsan (location here).  Construction had begun by Nov 11, 2002 when the image below was captured:

thunderbirds-runway-1-thumb.jpg

At the time this photo was taken the facility was in the early phases of construction, and the runway measured just over 1,500 m (According to Google Earth).  In fact the only way I could be sure it was a runway was because there was already a similar facility on the west coast–north of Nampo at Onchon AFB (Located here).  As an aside, if you would like to learn more about the Onchon AFB, Joseph Bermudez offers some information in The Armed Forced of North Korea.

Well, here is how the place looked December 24, 2007:

thunderbirds-runway-2-thumb.jpg

The runway foundation now extends nearly 2,450 m and we can see the outline of a functional runway appear.  The runway foundation is probably constructed from materials that are mined from the tunnels they are digging into this mountaion.  I am sure there is someone out there more qualified than I to calculate the size of the underground facility based on the amount of rubble they have used on the runway.

The rate of progress is surprisingly slow which is also evidence (though not definitive) that much of this work is being done manually.  At this pace lets hope they finish by 2012.

 

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Posted in Aviation, Google Earth, Military, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

DPRK sees massive forest fires for agriculture

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

NASA released this satellite image (dated April 13, 2011) of the DPRK that shows a number of forest fires:

Click thumbnail for larger image

According to NASA:

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite detected several fires in North Korea on April 13, 2011. The fires are marked in red in the image. The fires stop at the country’s borders with China and South Korea, a sign that they were probably deliberately set. Fire is frequently used throughout the world to clear land for agriculture and other purposes, but rules governing the use of fire vary from country to country.

Clustered along the east coast, many of the fires are producing thick smoke, blanketing the Sea of Japan with haze. Though some of the smoke may be coming from far eastern Russia, the densest plumes extend east from the Korean peninsula.

The fires appear to be taking place straight down the east coast.

This is the second time NASA has documented the spread of forest fires for agricultural purposes in the DPRK.  Here is a previous post on the same topic from October 2009 (with picture).

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Posted in Agriculture, Forestry, Lumber | Comments Closed

Official holiday gifts for sale in marketplace

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

For the last few years, stories have appeared in the media about people selling their official 2.16 and 4.15 holiday gifts from the leaders.

The Daily NK gets the first story this time around:

“Is it true that Day of the Sun gifts are being sold in the jangmadang?”

Most defectors answer to that question is something like, “Isn’t it obvious; selling them can give us enough money for one kilogram of rice?” In the past, gifts from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on national holidays used to be quite precious and an honor for the people, but now they have become a way to lessen difficulties.

According to defectors, special stalls selling “Day of the Sun gifts” have even appeared.

Even the annual crackdown on selling such gifts is a mere formality. Ham In Suk, who came to the South in 2009, said, “The crackdown is carried out temporarily, but it is not effective and not particularly problematic.”

On the biggest national holidays, the Day of Sun and Kim Jong Il’s birthday, the authorities present gifts to children in day nurseries (four to five years of age), kindergartens (six year old) and elementary students (seven to eleven years old).

In one pack, there are usually around 400g of cookies, 400g of candy, 50g of jellies, 100g of rice crackers and five pieces of gum, although the quality and quantity of gifts differs by province.

A ceremony for giving the gifts to children is held a few days before the birthday in kindergartens, and elementary schools, meaning roughly February 14th and April 13th.

Then, on the afternoon of the day when the ceremony finishes you can easily find gifts in the jangmadang. People sell them to traders for a comparatively cheap price decided by weight.

A one-kilogram pack is sold for 1500 won, and the traders sell them on for 2000 won. Therefore, people can earn enough for one kilogram of rice by selling one pack of the gifts and thus have a hot dinner with family to commemorate the national holiday.

According to defectors, the General’s gifts have been on sale in the jangmadang since the March of Tribulation. This is because even though food distribution was suspended during that tough period, gifts from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il continued.

Before that, it was apparently hard to find the gifts in the markets at all, no matter how hard lives were. At that time on the morning of the holiday, parents even made their children bow to portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il before they ate the gifts.

One defector who came to South Korea in 2009 said, “Selling gifts was beyond our imagination before the March of Tribulation, and we even stopped our children from opening the pack of cookies before saying a pledge of loyalty.”

In the 2000s, when people began to purchase Chinese products and food and several kinds of cookies in the jangmadang, the situation for snacks also changed; people in more affluent households sold their gifts from the authorities to the jangamdang to purchase more delicious cookies for their children.

In poor houses, however, parents take the gifts from their children and sell them to get a kilogram of rice. Instead of the General’s gifts, they give their children corn cookies costing around 150 won.

Here are previous posts on this topics.

Read the full story here:
General’s Gifts on Sale in the Jangmadang
Daily NK
Kang Mi Jin
2011-4-14

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Posted in Food, Political economy, Price liberalization | Comments Closed

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