North Korean Economy Watch

(via One Free Korea) Global Times reports (in Korean) that the DPRK is leasing two islands (황금평 and 위화도) to China.

Here is a satellite image of the two islands (highlighted):

According to the article:

South Korea’s Hankook Ilbo daily newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea has decided to extend the lease terms of two islands to Chinese companies for the establishment of a free trade zone.

However, analysts say the zone will more likely be developed as a trade area to facilitate business with China.

Both islands are located on the Yalu River, which constitutes the northwestern boundary between North Korea and the northeast region of China.

Hankook Ilbo reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to establish a free trade zone of 50 square kilometers on the two islands during his visit to China in May, and foreigners won’t need a visa to visit the islands.

The extension of the lease term by 100 years – starting this past May – to Chinese companies is unusual because Pyongyang generally leases land to foreign companies for 50 years, the report said.

By press time, state-run media in North Korea hadn’t confirmed the report.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported earlier this year that in order to attract foreign investment to North Korea, Pyongyang will set up a free trade area, located near the Sino-North Korean border city of Dandong, Liaoning Province, to be developed by a Chi-nese enterprise.

The report quoted an informed source as saying the scale of investment in the two islands will total $800 million.

“I don’t think North Korea will establish a free trade zone in the border areas that soon,” said Lü Chao, director of the Korean Research Center at China’s Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. “But it is likely that the two islands will be developed into a border trade zone that can help improve the lives of the locals and be conducive to regional stability.”

Lü told the Global Times that developing a free trade zone in North Korea’s border areas with China might take longer.

Separately, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported Monday that Kim Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il, recently said his country needs food more than bullets.

“In the past, it was all right to have bullets and no food, but now we must have food, even though we don’t have bullets,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The paper said Kim Jong-un made the remarks during a visit to Kimchaek city in Ham-gyong Province in late September, and the comments are confirmed in documents recently disseminated to party officials.

Kim Jong-un was promoted to a four-star general and vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission last month during an important meeting of the party.

The White House said Thursday that North Korea appeared to be in the early stages of a leadership transition, and it would still take some time to discern the final outcome.

“We’re watching the transition closely,” Jeff Bader, US President Barack Obama’s Asia adviser, told reporters.

The idea of building a special economic zone near Sinuiju has been proposed several times but it never seems to take hold.  Given the level of economic growth in Dandong over the last five years, and China’s growing clout in the DPRK, maybe things will be different this time.

Read the full aticle here:
NK leases islands to Beijing: report
Global Times
Wang Zhaokun
10/29/2010

According to the Mainichi Daily News:

A magazine composed almost entirely of materials smuggled out of North Korea by reporters living inside the country has just launched its first English edition in an effort to reach a wider audience.

The quarterly Rimjingang has been available in Korean and Japanese since 2008. The English edition will be published about twice a year from now on, chief editor Jiro Ishimaru said at a recent meeting in New York University, adding that digital editions in various formats will be available from 2011, including one from Apple Inc.’s iBook store.

Published by Asiapress International, a Japan-based journalists’ organization, the magazine is named after a river in the Korean Peninsula flowing north to south across the demilitarized zone. It operates with eight North Koreans who report clandestinely while living in such capacities as driver, factory worker and mother.

All of the reporters left North Korea because of economic hardships but returned to the country after being recruited to work for the magazine, which provides them with journalistic training and recording equipment.

In a country that tightly regulates information, taking images of street-level North Koreans for outside distribution would most likely be construed as treason. For safety, the identities of the North Korean reporters are completely shrouded in secrecy — they do not know each other or what their colleagues are doing, Ishimaru said.

The reporters periodically cross the China-North Korea border to deliver what they have recorded. The materials include digital images of people who foreigners would rarely have access to — a woman making merchandise at home to sell at a market, homeless children looking for food in a dump, clothing regulation enforcers on the lookout for youngsters wearing unacceptable fashions such as tight-fitting pants, and young soldiers scavenging for food from a farm.

“The reporters are taking risks because they have a strong will to let the outside world know the reality in North Korea and inspire a desire to improve the situation there,” Ishimaru said.

Some of the recent materials cover the paralyzing effect of the November 2009 currency redenomination in which North Korea slashed the value of the won, setting the exchange rate between the old and new bills at 100 to 1 and imposing restrictions on the quantity of old bills that could be swapped for new ones. The move was widely seen as the state’s attempt to reinforce control of the economy.

The magazine shows one of those affected, a woman identified as “Ms. Kang,” who is in her 50s and makes a living selling general goods such as plates and bowls procured in China.

Shortly before the devaluation, “Ms. Kang” reportedly took out a loan of 10 million won, worth about $3,000 at the time, from an acquaintance. Now she struggles with a huge debt as no currency trader will exchange her old won into Chinese yuan, leaving her unable to buy goods in China. She is also unable to convert them into the new won beyond the 100,000-won limit.

“Because the Americans don’t know very much about North Korea, we wanted to include some introductory pieces that explain people’s everyday lives there, including the impact the market is having,” said Bon Fleming, an American editor who translated the bulk of the material for the English edition.

Suzy Kim, assistant professor of Korean history at Rutgers University, said she was most impressed by the abundance of visual footage in the magazine. But she added, “Many of the stories in the magazine are anecdotal — there is as yet no way to collect enough information to present a statistical context for the stories.”

In order to make up for its heavy dependence on a handful of reporters, Kim suggested that the magazine can improve by incorporating a wider variety of views about North Korea from people with different backgrounds, experiences and opinions.

Ishimaru said North Korea is a nation changing fast and so are its people, contrary to the oft-reported images of brainwashed citizens. One of the forces behind the change is the increasing availability of digital media, a trend fueled by the influx of Chinese electronics, including VCD players, which are much more affordable than DVD players, he said.

Illegal copies of South Korean TV dramas crossed the border into North Korea en masse around 2003 via ethnic Korean communities in northeastern China, where watching South Korean satellite broadcasting programs became popular in the late 1990s, according to Ishimaru.

“What allowed the North Korean government to exert tight control over the daily lives of its people was the state’s food rationing system, which taught everyone to remain submissive as long as they were fed,” Ishimaru said.

Since the collapse of the public distribution system in the famine of the 1990s, however, people have been forced to fend for themselves and have become less afraid of the authorities, he said.

“You can no longer talk about North Korea without talking about the expansion of the market economy there,” Ishimaru said.

“The question is not about food — it’s whether North Korea will open up to the outside world or not.”

Previous posts about Rimjingang can be found here.

I have added Rimjingang to my list of North Korea media outlets all of which can be found here.

Read the full sotry here:
Undercover magazine on North Korea launches English edition
Mainichi Daily News
10/28/2010

UPDATE 9 (11/5/2010): The Joong-Ang Ilbo posts images of the gift bags given by North Koreans to their Southern relatives.

UPDATE 8 (11/1/2010): The reunion has ended.  According to Yonhap:

After being reunited in North Korea for three days, 97 families separated by the Korean War bid one another farewell again on Monday, weeping over a reality forced upon them by six decades of conflict between their countries.

Touching the palms of their wrinkled hands to family members’ on the other side of closed bus windows, the South and North Koreans said their last words of blessing to each other on the final day of their reunions at this mountain resort in the communist state.

“I love you. I love you,” one South Korean woman shouted to her North Korean family member aboard a bus as it prepared to depart from the reunion center.

Many North Koreans stood up inside the bus for a better view of their South Korean family members waving at them. One of the three buses carrying North Koreans had its windows completely closed, muffling the words of its sobbing passengers.

As the white buses started to leave the center, the cries grew louder among the hundreds of South Korean family members sending them off. Many watched helplessly, long after the buses had disappeared. Some sat on the ground and broke down in yet more tears. One family member swore at the utter sadness of the scene, deploring the fact that none of the Koreans here could guarantee another meeting even though they lived only several hours’ drive from each other.

Millions of Koreans were separated during the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. Many of them have died over the years, and there are now 80,000 South Koreans on an official waiting list for reunions. The figure does not take into account the more than 40,000 applicants who have died or given up on the search.

Since 2000, when the Koreas held their first summit, they have briefly reunited over 17,000 people face-to-face and an estimated 3,700 via video. The latest reunions came as tension remained at the highest point in years after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The South blames the North, but Pyongyang denies any involvement.

The reunions, organized through the Red Cross channel, also came as the North tied additional future meetings to massive “humanitarian” assistance. In their Red Cross talks last week, the North demanded 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer from the South.

Yoo Chong-ha, the head of Seoul’s Red Cross, said he proposed holding the next round of reunions in March and to use the time until then to verify the whereabouts of family members being sought by the other side.

During their “farewell session” on Monday morning, the families sang traditional folk songs like “Arirang” together and made sure that their children could recognize each other through photos if and when the Koreas reunify.

Unable to stand up after a deep bow to his father, 62-year-old Ko Pae-il sobbed with his head down, grabbing the hands of the man from whom he was separated at the age of three.

Ko, who lives in Alabama in the United States, told his father that he was “sorry for not being able to be a good son.” His father, 81, who looked for him first, said, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

Wearing a coat given to him by his family members from the South, Park Byong-jin, a 80-year-old North Korean, embraced his South Korean relatives in tears, promising to meet them again.

The governments of the two Koreas prohibit civilian contact without prior authorization. Promises of reunions rarely materialize, swayed heavily by the state of cross-border relations.

The North Koreans were generally restrained in their expressions and action, some freezing in front of journalists and cameras.

“Give me something I can remember you by,” Kim Kyeong-oh, a South Korean, said as he pleaded with his older brother, who was wearing a coat Kim had brought for him.

Many family members embraced, cheek to cheek. One South Korean woman moaned, muffling herself with a scarf, saying, “I won’t cry. So you shouldn’t cry, either, sister.” Another family toasted with soda as they wished for another chance to be reunited.

Parent-child reunions were rare in this week’s event, underscoring the growing number of people who die while waiting for their chance to reunite.

On Wednesday, another reunion event will take place at Mount Kumgang, bringing about 100 other South Koreans here. Those reunions will last until Friday.

UPDATE 7 (10/31/2010): More from Yonhap:

Swallowing the sorrow of having to part again in less than a day, Korean families reunited after 60 years of separation sang together, posed for photos and eventually broke down in tears on Sunday as they promised to meet again.

Exchanging the addresses of their homes on either side of the heavily armed border, some families prayed for a chance to be reunited again while others plunged into doldrums over fears that the two Koreas may never be one again.

“Their stress will peak tomorrow when they have to say goodbye to each other,” said Lee Jae-pil, a medical doctor assigned to the reunions of 100 families from both Koreas from Saturday to Monday.

The reunions brought about 430 South Koreans and 110 North Koreans together at this famed mountain resort in North Korea where the bright colors of autumn leaves matched the excitement of families meeting again for the first time since the Korean War.

The 1950-53 war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically in a state of conflict to this day. No means of civilian contact is available between them, and over 80,000 South Koreans are on a waiting list for reunions with their loved ones in the North.

The figure does not take into account the South Korean applicants who have died while waiting, numbering more than 40,000.

South Korean Shim Boon-rye, 80, smiled as she sang a folk song about longing for loved ones, but burst into tears as soon as she finished. She then embraced her 77-year-old brother of North Korean citizenship who sang along with her, “How could I forget you? How could I forget you?”

Shim was one of many who sang — not out of pleasure but out of sorrow — here at this banquet hall, packed with people photographing each other for one last time and sharing snacks prepared by North Korean organizers.

The conviviality during a luncheon earlier in the day had mostly faded as the families began to face the reality that they would part on the third day of reunions.

“Ask your father everything you have ever wanted to know now, or you may regret it,” one family member told Ko Pae-il, a 62-year-old who was reunited with his 81-year-old father. Ko, a Korean-American from Alabama, had said earlier it was too “cruel” that he had to say goodbye to his father, from whom he was separated at the age of 3.

“Father, father, be healthy, OK?” Ko said, racked with sobs.

Such parent-child reunions were rare in this week’s event, underscoring the growing number of people who die while waiting for a chance to meet their loved ones again. Outbursts of tears grow fewer and fewer as the years go by, but the overwhelming sense of sorrow persists, South Korean Red Cross organizers say.

“As we approach the time to say goodbye, things to say and things not to say are all racing out of our hearts,” Kim Gyoo-byeong, a South Korean reunited with his uncle, said.

North Koreans typically refrained from giving truthful accounts of their lives in the impoverished North, instead praising the leadership of their leader Kim Jong-il and touting their socialist system.

Earlier during the luncheon, a North Korean family member stood up and sang a hymn to the “Dear Leader,” freezing the atmosphere momentarily.

Since 2000, when the Koreas held their first summit, they have briefly reunited more than 17,000 people face-to-face and an estimated 3,700 via video. The latest reunions come as tension remains at the highest point in years after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The South blames the North, but Pyongyang denies any involvement.

These reunions, organized through the Red Cross channel, also come as the North ties such events in the future to massive “humanitarian” assistance. In their Red Cross talks last week, the North demanded 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer from the South.

UPDATE 6 (10/31/2010): More information from Yonhap:

Cheerfully thrusting rice cakes into each other’s mouths and taking Polaroid pictures together, South and North Koreans separated by the Korean War six decades ago dined together on Saturday, hours after the families were reunited at this eastern mountain resort in the North.

The 97 families, including four parents who met with their children, set their hearts at ease as they shared warm food served at the family reunion center in Mount Kumgang just north of the heavily armed border between the Koreas.

The more than 570 people, about one fifth of them North Koreans, dined on “galbi,” or a Korean beef rib dish, beef soups, the Korean alcoholic beverage soju, smoked salmon, rice cakes and a variety of fruits that included grapes, oranges and bananas.

Many South Koreans improvised family photos by using Polaroid cameras, an invention that came in handy as the families had only three days to spend together.

“When we first met, it felt a bit awkward, because we didn’t really know each other,” Shin Il-woo, 46, said after she was reunited with the brother of her mother-in-law. “But eating together helped lighten things up.”

Kim Yeong-soon, who was reunited with her 77-year-old brother, said after the group dinner that she was already missing him. “I can’t wait until tomorrow when we can spend time by ourselves.”

The first day of reunions took place en masse at a banquet hall. The second day allowed the families to spend time together separate from the group.

“We’re going to dance together when we don’t have to worry about other people’s eyes on us,” said Jang Gyoo-chae, a 51-year-old who met with the brother-in-law of his wife. “We’ll have fun and not worry about ideology.”

South and North Korea, which respectively support capitalism and communism, remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce. The state of war has been the major blockade when families separated by the war sought to be reunited. Many family members have died after decades of longing. About 80,000 South Koreans are on an official waiting list for the reunions.

The event, which runs from Saturday to next Friday, is the first of its kind in a year.

Since 2000, when the Koreas held their first summit, they have briefly reunited over 17,000 people face-to-face and about 3,700 via video. The latest reunions come as tension remains at the highest point in years after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The South blames the North, but Pyongyang denies any involvement.

The reunions, organized through the Red Cross channel, also come as the North ties additional ones to massive humanitarian assistance. In their Red Cross talks last week, the North demanded 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer from the South.

“From the viewpoint that we are one nation, we should help each other. If the South opens up to us, we have a lot more to offer,” a North Korean Red Cross official said on the sidelines of the reunions that he was helping to organize.

On Seoul’s policy of linking large-scale aid to progress in Pyongyang’s denuclearization, another official said, “Such U.S.-like attitude must be abandoned. Would we use our nuclear arms to attack these people, the same nation as us?”

UPDATE 5 (10/30/2010): Koreas hold family reunion.  According to Yonhap:

Goh Bae-il, a 62-year-old man from South Korea, could not let go of the withered hands of his 81-year-old father from North Korea when they met for the first time in 60 years on Saturday in Red Cross-arranged reunions.

The two were separated in 1950 when the three-year Korean War broke out. The junior Goh was barely three years old and has since grown up in South Korea and the United States. The senior, a frail man who would not say how he ended up in North Korea, labored to extend his arm to his son as a teardrop rolled into the deep wrinkle under his eye.

The reunion, one of the 97 stories of separation and longing that unfolded at this scenic mountain resort in North Korea, underscored the pain and suffering that the six decades of national division has inflicted on Korean families.

The war technically continues to this day as it ended in a truce, blocking the citizens of the two Koreas from meeting or contacting each other freely.

The Gohs were one of only four cases on Saturday where a parent met his or her child.

“This must be a dream,” Ji Ja-ok, 79, said as she met with her 75-year-old brother, Ji Pal-yong, who was forcefully inducted into in the North Korean army during the war.

“We just assumed you were dead!” she said as she kept feeding her brother cookies and sweets that had been prepared on their table by the organizers of the reunion event.

Since South and North Korea held their first summit in 2000, a total of 18 reunions have been organized for separated family members on both sides. including the one that began Saturday.

Crying with her face buried in the laps of her 75-year-old brother, Kim Ok-ja recalled the years of longing and suffering their parents had to undergo before they passed away.

“They lived in sadness for not being able to see you again, brother,” she said. Kim Hyong-gun, patting his younger sister’s shoulders, tried to console her, saying that at least they were now reunited.

Kim Rye-jeong, 96, the oldest South Korean to travel to North Korea this week, was reunited with her 71-year-old daughter, and told her of the many nights she spent seeing the young image of her in her dreams.

“Now you’re here, now you’re here,” the mother told the daughter as tears welled in their eyes.

More than 80,000 South Koreans are waiting for a chance to be reunited with their family members left in the North. The official figure does not take into account those who may have given up on their search or the 40,000 applicants who have passed away.

Many families here brought presents that included bananas, watches, U.S. dollar bills, medicine, vitamins and clothes that would keep their loved ones warm in the North.

The families will part again on Monday after a series of reunion meetings. There is no hope that they will meet again anytime soon.

The latest reunions came amid a new wave of tensions after border soldiers of the two countries exchanged fire a day earlier. No casualties were reported in the incident. In March, a South Korean warship sank after being attacked by a torpedo blamed on the North.

Analysts say the North proposed the latest reunions in an apparent effort to ease tension and foster an atmosphere favorable for its hereditary power succession plan.

The Korean War broke out when North Korean forces stormed into South Korea in June 1950 and advanced as far as to the perimeter of the southeastern port city of Busan.

Upon intervention by U.S.-led U.N. forces, the North rolled back, forcing many South Koreans to join its retreating army. Hundreds of then-South Korean soldiers are believed to be still living in North Korea.

UPDATE 4 (10/27/2010): Koreas fail to regularize family reunions.  According to Yonhap:

South and North Korea on Wednesday failed to reach an agreement on holding regular reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, officials said Wednesday. The two sides are to meet again on Nov. 25 at a yet-to-be-determined venue.

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea demanded 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer in humanitarian aid from South Korea in return for concessions on family reunions.

Red Cross delegates from Seoul told their North Korean counterparts here that their organization had no power to approve such massive aid, a South Korean official involved in the talks told reporters.

UPDATE 3 (10/27/2010): DPRK makes demands for aid in return for family reunions. According to Yonhap:

North Korea demanded 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer in humanitarian aid from South Korea in return for concessions over reunions of families separated by the Korean War, officials said Wednesday.

Red Cross delegates from Seoul told their North Korean counterparts here that their organization had no power to approve such massive aid, one South Korean official involved in the talks told reporters.

The demand was made during the second day of the Koreas’ Red Cross talks. The North had asked on Tuesday that the sides increase “humanitarian cooperation projects” as a way to expand chances for families separated by the 1950-53 war to be reunited.

The talks in the North Korean border town of Kaesong came ahead of the first family reunions in a year at the Mount Kumgang resort in eastern North Korea from Saturday to next Friday, a sign of easing tension on the peninsula.

The official, asking not to be named because the talks were still underway, said his government was reviewing the demand. Another official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said South Korea “does not consider such large-scale aid as humanitarian.”

More than 80,000 South Koreans are waiting for a chance to be reunited with their loved ones left in the North after the 1950-53 war ended in a truce. About 20,800 Koreans have been reunited since 2000, when the countries’ governments held their first summit. Virtually no means of civilian contact are available between the two nations.

South Korea demanded during the two-day talks in Kaesong that the reunions be held at least nine times each year. The South Korean officials said North Korean delegates “tied the reunion issue to rice and fertilizer aid.”

“We may be able to discuss it in our next round of Red Cross talks,” one official said, adding the South proposed holding talks in late November in the South Korean border town of Munsan.

At the start of the meeting Wednesday, Choe Song-ik, head of the North Korean delegation, pressed South Korea on the earlier demand for humanitarian projects.

“There is a saying that one should not miss the right timing. Opportunities do not arise all the time, do they?” Choe said.

Choe also noted that Yoo Chong-ha, head of the South Korean Red Cross, was nearing the end of his tenure and may need showpiece achievements contributing to a thaw in inter-Korean relations.

Kim Yong-hyun, the chief South Korean delegate, responded by saying that his boss was working in his best capacity “regardless of his tenure.”

Kim said his side had “carefully studied” the North’s proposals made a day earlier and called for a more conciliatory stance from his counterpart.

Choe told Kim to “just have faith.”

“Without faith, feelings of insecurity arise,” he said. “All will go well if there is faith as one nation.”

Choe also said, tongue in cheek, “I saw chief delegate Kim carrying a fat briefcase” and that the South Korean “perhaps brought with him many good proposals.”

South Korea stopped sending massive food aid to North Korea after President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 with a pledge to link such assistance to progress in Pyongyang’s denuclearization efforts.

The relations between the divided countries hit the lowest point in years when the South condemned the North in May for the sinking of one of its warships. Forty-six sailors died in the sinking that the North denies any role in.

South Korea shipped 300,000-400,000 tons of rice to North Korea annually before Lee, a conservative, took over. The South this week is sending a shipment of 5,000 tons of rice to the North in flood aid through the Red Cross channel.

The North Korean Red Cross is also demanding that the South resume its cross-border tours to Mount Kumgang, where a South Korean tourist was shot to death in 2008 after apparently wandering into a restricted zone.

The tours immediately ground to a halt. North Korea says it has taken every measure to account for the shooting and guarantee safety, while the South calls for a renewed on-site probe and an array of tangible security measures.

Earlier this year, North Korea froze and seized South Korean facilities at the resort, including a family reunion center, in anger over Seoul’s refusal to resume the tours. The prospect for reopening the Mount Kumgang tours worsened when South Korea condemned the North for the Cheonan sinking.

The tours were long seen as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation and won Pyongyang millions of U.S. dollars every year until 2008. On Wednesday, the North renewed its demand that the two governments quickly hold dialogue on ways to revive the cross-border tourism project.

UPDATE 2 (10/6/2010): Two Koreas Exchange Lists of Family Reunions Applicants.  According to the Choson Ilbo:

North and South Korea on Tuesday exchanged lists of people who wish to attend reunions of families separated during the Korean War.

Both countries’ Red Cross organizations shared the lists of 200 applicants for the upcoming family reunions. Seoul and Pyongyang will now search for and match up applicants’ family members and exchange the results on Oct. 18.

The final lists will be announced and exchanged on Oct. 20 with only 100 applicants from each side to be permitted to attend the reunions at the end of the month.

Seoul’s Red Cross narrowed down its list from an initial 500 after assessing factors such as health and willingness to make the trip.

More than 80,000 Koreans in the South are waiting to see their family members in the North, but a Red Cross report shows about 260 of them die every month without being reunited.

After three rounds of talks last month the two sides agreed to hold the reunions at North Korea’s Mt. Kumgang resort from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5.

UPDATE 1 (10/1/2010): The two Koreas have agreed to reunions.  According to the BBC:

One hundred families from each side of the border will be allowed to meet their relatives from 30 October at a mountain resort in the North.

…

Officials from the two sides also agreed to hold another round of talks later in October to discuss how to hold the reunions on a more regular basis, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

The last reunions were held in October 2009.

The agreement comes after military officials from the two sides failed to make any progress in their first meeting in two years.

ORIGINAL POST: According to Evan Ramstad in the Wall Street Journal:

North and South Korea over the weekend took steps to hold another reunion of families separated by the 62-year division of the Korean peninsula, the first since last September and a sign that some relatively normal exchanges continue amid ongoing tensions between the two countries.

As happened last year, North Korea proposed the reunion, issuing a statement Saturday in which it also pressed for more aid to cope with recent flooding. South Korean officials said they’ll announce a package of flood assistance, including rice and other goods, on Monday.

South Korea said Sunday it viewed the reunion proposal positively and, as it did last year, suggested such events be scheduled regularly. North Korea has tended to use the reunions as a public-relations boost in recent years. This year’s reunion could take place as soon as this month, under the North’s proposal.

Since they began in 2000, 17 in-person reunions and seven video-conference events have been held, allowing about 21,000 people from the two Koreas to meet. In South Korea, about 90,000 have applied to meet relatives in North Korea.

No reunion occurred in 2008, when South Korea refused to participate after a South Korean tourist was shot and killed at a North Korean resort by a North Korean soldier.

Read the full story here:
North, South Korea Plan Family Reunion
Wall Street Journal
Evan Ramstad
9/12/2010

According ot the Union of Catholic Asian News:

The Catholic Church in South Korea has sent rice aid to flood-hit areas of North Korea, the first aid since a South Korean naval ship was sunk reportedly by a North Korean torpedo.

The Korean Bishops’ Committee for the Reconciliation of the Korean People committees delivered 50 tons of rice worth 95 million won(US$85,000) on Oct. 22.

Uijeongbu diocese, the Korean Conference of Major Superiors of Men’s Religious Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life and the Korean Catholic Farmers’ Movement also assisted with the shipment.

The rice was sent to the (North) Korean Roman Catholics Association, which organized distribution of the rice in the Kaesong (Gaeseong) district.

“This is the first rice support to North Korea since the Cheonan naval ship incident last March,” said Father Baptist John Kimm Hun-il, executive secretary of the Subcommittee for Aid to North Korea under the bishops’ committee for the reconciliation.

“The food condition of North Koreans is worsening and their government is unable to support them. We need to offer more help,” he added.

Following the sinking of the naval vessel, the South Korean government banned all economic exchanges with North Korea, except for the minimum humanitarian aid.

Read the full story here:
Bishops send food aid to flood-hit North Korea
Union of Catholic Asian News
John Choi
10/26/2010

Back in February, B.R. Myers, author of The Cleanest Race, gave a few talks in the US.  Apparently I missed all of them.

Luckily, C-Span recorded the one of the discussions for us all to see.  It is well worth watching in its entirety here.

You can order the book at Amazon here.

(hat tip to a reader)

(h/t to Leonid Petrov) Aidan Foster-Carter wrote an interesting article for the Asia Times.  Below is the last paragraph:

Even in Pyongyang the mask is slipping. The WPK conference and subsequent military parade seem to have passed off smoothly, but dissent is growing. One recent visiting group (which included a Korean-speaker) heard a full-scale row between their guides – it was evening, and drink had been taken – as to what right Kim Jong-eun had to be foisted on them as leader. That is still dangerous talk; but many more will be thinking it. The young general has much to prove, and may not have long to do so. Interesting times.

The full article is well worth reading here:
For the Kims, the weakest link is family
Asia Times
Aidan Foster-Carter
10/22/2010

Above (UPDATED): Google Earth satellite imagery of “Food Avenue” in Hoeryong

According to the Daily NK:

A North Korean source from [Hoeryong] has reported that “Food Avenue”, a project designed to attract Chinese tourists to the city which began almost two years ago, has been completed.

According to the source, who spoke with The Daily NK on the 18th, “’Food Avenue’, below Kim Jong Suk University of Education in Nammun-dong, has just been completed, and now they are making a fuss about it as it will appear on television today. Several restaurants like Hoiryeonggak, a noodle restaurant, held opening ceremonies today, too.”

North Korea launched the construction project on orders issued by Kim Jong Il during a visit to his mother’s home town on February 24th, 2009, causing the provincial and city Party committees of North Hamkyung Province and Hoiryeong to launch a 150-day battle to complete the work between April 20th and September 16th.

However, even though workers, housewives and students were pressed into service during the period, the project was not even 50% complete by September. Although North Korea tried to attract Chinese investment, it did not work and the project finally limped to the finish line more than a year later.

The avenue starts from the front gate of Kim Jong Suk University of Education and ends in front of ‘Hoiryeong coal mining machinery factory’, a little more than a five minute walk away. Among other things, the restaurants on the street sell North Korean-style noodles, cold noodles, dog-meat soup and Chinese-style kebabs.

The authorities are hoping that by using the geographical location of Hoiryeong, on the border with the Chinese town of Sanhe, they will be able to attract tourists to Kim Jong Suk’s hometown and earn hard currency at the same time.

Needless to say, however, that while the North Korean propagandist media is busy advertising the glorious completion of Food Avenue, local citizens are looking on with disdain.

As the source put it, “I have no idea what the purpose of building this avenue is, since who on earth would come and eat here? Only a few officials from foreign currency earning enterprises who travel back and forth to China will come, so it is pathetic to even imagine that the businesses will be successful.”

“The restaurants on Food Avenue were as good as forced to open since they were assigned to individual enterprises,” he went on, before adding, “The people just ask, ‘Is there any way for businesses run by enterprises and the nation to be successful?’”

I have not seen any North Korean television this week, but if I see ground level pictures, I will post them.

Read the full story here:
Food Avenue Finally Complete in Hoiryeong
Daily NK
Yoo Gwan Hee
10-19-2010

According to the Wall Street Journal:

There are several news organizations supporting journalists in North Korea. One is Rimjin-gang magazine, a division of AsiaPress International, based in Osaka. The founder and editor of Rimjin-gang is a Japanese journalist by the name of Jiro Ishimaru. As the world’s journalists were reporting from Pyongyang last week, Mr. Ishimaru was in the U.S., presenting his reporters’ remarkable videos, photographs and articles to American audiences. A book containing English-language translations of some of the magazine’s best stories was published on Oct. 15.

Rimjin-gang is the Korean name for the Imjin River, which begins in North Korea and runs south across the demilitarized zone. It is a symbol of North Koreans sending information to the South, Mr. Ishimaru says. “I came to realize that outsiders attempting to shed light on North Korea hit a wall that is simply impossible to breach. No one can report on a nation better than its own people.”

Mr. Ishimaru runs a staff of 10 reporters. For security reasons, each reporter operates independently without knowledge of the identity of his colleagues or what they are doing. The reporters are men and women who want to do something with their lives and who want to help their country, Mr. Ishimaru says. They believe that “if you don’t do something, you are just a slave.”

Mr. Ishimaru recruits his reporters in the border regions of China, home to tens of thousands of North Korean refugees who have escaped across the Yalu or Tumen rivers. He and colleagues from South Korea give the budding journalists a crash course in the basics of journalism and teach them how to use essential technology. The journalists then go back to North Korea with enough money to travel around the country, pay bribes if they get into trouble, and eventually return to China.

It is next to impossible for ordinary North Koreans to get close to military installations, the gulag or Kim Jong Eun. So the reporters have decided to focus on day-to-day life in North Korea, especially starvation, the growing market economy and corruption. They have produced more than 100 hours of video on these subjects. Among the tapes I viewed were ones that showed bags of rice labeled “WFP”—for the United Nations World Food Program—being sold in a marketplace, and soldiers using a military truck as a bus service for paying customers.

The information doesn’t flow just one way. Mr. Ishimaru’s reporters also try to get information about the outside world into North Korea, usually in the form of CDs containing videos of South Korean soap operas, news shows or documentaries. Before DVD players came into use in China, VCD players—video CD players—had a short run of popularity. Chinese merchants now sell these discarded devices, along with CDs, across the border in North Korea. It’s against the law to possess a VCD player or to watch South Korean videos, but the law-enforcement system has broken down enough that more and more North Koreans are taking the risk, assuming that if they get caught they can bribe local officials to look the other way.

Here are previous posts featuring information from Rimjingang.

Read the full story here:
A Free Press Stirs in North Korea
Wall street Journal
Melanie Kirkpatrick
10/19/2010

Tania Branigan visited Pyongyang for The Guardian and wrote a long article on North Korean culture.  Most of the information is familiar to long-time DPRK watchers, though there were a few nuggets of information I had not heard before.  I have posted these below:

But who knew that The Da Vinci Code was a hit in this strictly controlled city? That Céline Dion is a karaoke favourite? Or that the mass performances are not only a tribute to the leadership and motherland, but the way that many young people find partners?

…

Few foreigners see this city at all. Around 2,000 western tourists visited last year, plus perhaps 10 times as many Chinese visitors. The expatriate population, excluding Chinese and Russian diplomats, and including children, stands at 150.

…

There are certainly signs of change here: Air Koryo has new planes and three gleaming airport buses to ferry passengers from runway to terminal. Last week a vast new theatre opened, as did an apartment complex, although it may be destined for officials. The 105-storey Ryugyong hotel – more than two decades in construction – is finally glass-sheathed and due to open in 2012. That year will mark the 100th birthday of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. But it is hard to see how it can achieve its pledge to become “a great, powerful and prosperous nation” by then – even given the Stakhanovite industrial efforts lauded in its newspapers.

…

Pyongyang is lucky: no one is plump, but nor is there noticeable emaciation. Dr Andrei Lankov, associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, says the official income in Pyongyang is around 3,000 won a month, but many have ways of making money on the side and – unlike other North Koreans – its residents receive subsistence food rations. Most top those up at markets that are legal though never formally acknowledged (officials insist that “everything is public”). At the turn of the year, the government embarked on currency reforms to eradicate an increasingly independent group of “kiosk capitalists”. But wiping out hard-won savings caused highly unusual public discontent and even, reportedly, unrest.

You can read the full article here:
The cultural life of North Korea
The Guardian
Tania Branigan
10/15/2010

Pictured Above (Google Earth):  State (Drama) Theater before its most recent renovation

According to KCNA:

Pyongyang, October 8 (KCNA) — General Secretary Kim Jong Il gave on-the-spot guidance to the newly built State Theatre and visited artistes’ new flats.

He provided on-the-spot guidance to the newly built State Theatre.

The more than 620-seater theatre has all facilities necessary for art creation, performing activities and audience ranging from stage, latest sound and lighting facilities, rehearsal rooms, make-up rooms to an annex and welfare and service amenities.

He went round the exterior and interior of the theatre to learn in detail about its construction.

The theatre good in its interior structure and built on a high level is flawless in its architectural substance and style as a cultural and art edifice, he said, highly appreciating the feats performed by soldier- builders in successfully building the theatre of eternal value and extending thanks to them.

Noting that it is an astonishing miracle indeed that they completed the construction of such modern theatre to be proud of in a matter of little over four months, he stressed that this signal success is a striking manifestation of the inexhaustible mental power of the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army, the creators of the revolutionary soldier spirit.

The theatre which is a good combination of national and classical beauty and contemporary beauty and looks elegant, magnificent and exquisite is an excellent cultural edifice meeting the need of the new century, he noted, expressing great pleasure over the fact that it has become possible to hand one more valuable treasure to posterity.

He set forth tasks to be carried out to manage and operate the theatre.

He visited the families of the artistes who have just moved to the new apartment houses on the bank of the River Taedong.

He looked round the exterior and interior of the flats for hours to acquaint himself in detail with their construction.

The apartment houses for artistes are ultra-modern flats built according to the party’s plan and intention to provide the people with the best living conditions, he said, adding that these flats are a model and standard for the construction of the houses to be used by all the people in a thriving nation.

Noting that the flats for artistes were designed well and built on the highest level, he highly appreciated the feats performed by the soldier-builders in completing them in a short span of time and extended thanks to them.

Then he visited the families of Paek Sung Ran, Choe Kum Hyang and Kim Chol Jin, actresses and actor of the State Theatrical Troupe, and Ri Ji Yong, head of the troupe, who have just moved to the new flats.

After congratulating them on their moving to the new flats and having cordial talk with them, he took deep care of every aspect of their living as a real father would do. He bestowed upon them such great benevolence as presenting them with household articles in token of his visit.

He praised the artistes, noting that the artistes intensely loyal to the Party and the leader are the reliable sentinels standing on the ideological front to powerfully encourage the masses in the drive to implement the Party’s policies.

Noting that the Korean people’s age-old ideal and wishes are becoming a brilliant reality thanks to the high-pitched drive for effecting a great surge, he said that this stirring event in the era of the Workers’ Party has put on the horizon a rosy future of a thriving nation of Juche which will stand imposingly on this land.

Making the rounds of streets of the capital city taking on new looks day by day on the same day, he advanced highly important tasks which would serve as guidelines for turning Pyongyang into a more magnificent and beautiful city.

Noting that housing construction is of very weighty significance in settling the issue of the people’s living, he stressed that as an immediate task it is necessary to complete in the shortest possible period the construction of flats for 100,000 families in the city as modern as the apartment houses now standing in Mansudae Street and the newly built apartment houses for artistes.

He expressed great expectation and conviction that all the builders of the capital city would work new miracles in its construction in the new century and thus once again demonstrate the revolutionary spirit of the service persons and people of the DPRK, the successors to the great history and tradition.

He was accompanied by Kim Yong Nam, Choe Yong Rim, Ri Yong Ho, members of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee, Kim Yong Chun, Kim Ki Nam, Choe Thae Bok, Yang Hyong Sop, Kim Kyong Hui, Kang Sok Ju, Ju Sang Song and Hong Sok Hyong, members of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee, and Jang Song Thaek, Kim Yang Gon, Kim Yong Il, Pak To Chun, Choe Ryong Hae, Ju Kyu Chang, Ri Thae Nam, Thae Jong Su, Kim Phyong Hae, U Tong Chuk, Kim Jong Gak, Kim Chang Sop and Mun Kyong Dok, alternate members of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee.

Before this news release, the theater was known as the “State Drama Theater”.  KCNA reports only two performances here since 1996: here and here.

What is strange is that this is the second major renovation of the rarely-used theater in a decade.  Below is a satellite image of the theater’s first renovation in June 2000 (Google Earth):

Here is a picture of the facility as it appears today (Daylife.com):

The new housing for the theater’s “artistes” does not appear on available satellite imagery, but its location is easy enough to determine using KCNA photos.  Below is a picture of the new buildings as well as a photo of the location next to the Pyongyang’s central district market: