According to Voice of America:
Thai immigration authorities say they took more than 1,000 North Koreans into custody this year, compared with less than 400 in 2008 when Beijing tightened security for the Olympics.
Read the full article here:
Increasing Numbers of North Korean Refugees Head to Thailand
Voice of America
12/30/2009
According to the Choson Ilbo:
Around 30,000 foreign laborers live in the camps on Reem Island. They come from all over the world, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. The North Korean laborers live in a part of the camp 400 m from the entrance. “Money was pretty good about three to four years ago, but now it’s tough to find work,” said one North Korean worker.
Around 1,300 North Koreans work in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, according to sources. Altogether around 6,000 North Koreans work in the Middle East, 3,100 of them in Kuwait. Some 800 work in the UAE and Qatar, with another 300 in Oman and 250 in Yemen. North Korea has been sending workers to construction sites in the Middle East so they can earn hard currency to send back to their impoverished country.
The movement resembles the exodus of South Koreans who came to the Middle East in the 1970s and ’80s to work at construction sites, but the main difference is that the North Korean government takes away the money its workers earn there. When asked about their wages, one North Korean worker said, “A lot of us have many years of experience working overseas as carpenters or welders and make between $150 and $200 a month, which is about the same as the Pakistanis make.” But those wages are what the workers keep after they have made their “loyalty” payments to the North Korean government.
One source in Abu Dhabi said, “North Korean workers make between $300 and $500 a month, but the North Korean government confiscates $150 and even $250 as loyalty payments, leading to a lot of conflict.” North Korean labor export companies skim off an excessive amount of money from salaries. The level of discontent recently prompted the North Korean government to dispatch security agents who trawl construction sites on weekends to provide ideological “cleansing” sessions to workers.
Since the construction industry in the Middle East fell into a slump due to the global financial crisis, North Korean workers have been resorting to other means to make money. The most common method is bootlegging in Abu Dhabi, where alcohol is banned. But that is a criminal offense that carries to two to three months in prison and deportation. “The North Korean companies that sent the workers abroad are aware of the bootlegging but are turning a blind eye as long as the laborers pay portions of the profits,” one local source said.
Some North Koreans leave the construction sites and work as handymen or build fountains for private homes. In August, a North Korean worker was deported after wandering into the home of a high-ranking police officer. “There was an incident early this year where a North Korean agent brought home a worker who was caught making critical comments about the North,” a local source said.
Additional Information:
1. Here is a link to the full story excerpted above.
2. Here is the approximate location of the North Korean workers’ camp in the UAE.
3. According to IFES: North Korea established ambassador-level diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates on September 18, [2007]. A joint statement said the two countries aim to “enhance understanding and boost the links of friendship and cooperation between their two peoples.” Ties with such an oil-rich nation on friendly terms with Washington could be significant as the North moves to dismantle nuclear facilities.
4. This story highlights a strange DPRK-UAE-Unification Church connection.
4. Here is a link to a similar story about North Korean loggers working in Russia.
5. North Korean workers were recently deported from the Czech Republic.
According to the AFP:
South Korea said Monday it would provide 26 billion won (22.2 million dollars) for humanitarian projects in North Korea, the second donation this month to its communist neighbour amid easing relations.
The unification ministry said it would donate 15.2 billion won to the World Health Organization’s programme for malnourished children and 4.7 billion won to the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF.
“We decided to assist North Korean infants and children through private and international organisations, after considering the urgent situation in North Korea,” he told a briefing.
On December 18 the South shipped swine flu medication worth 15 million dollars to the North.
It was the first direct aid to Pyongyang from Seoul’s conservative government since it took office in February 2008.
Relations between the two Koreas have been interesting recently. Official assistance from the South Korean government is at a near-term low, and the South Korean government spent little of the funds it appropriated for inter-Korean projects this year (See: here, here, and here). South Korea has also tightened import rules for a number of North Korean goods (to protect local businesses), halted the export of luxury goods to the DPRK, and blacklisted DPRK businesses sanctioned by the UNSC. In addition, 2009 saw turmoil in the Kaesong Industrial Zone and a (predictable) naval clash along the NLL.
“Economic relations,” however, seem to have turned the corner recently. Despite several months of decline, inter-Korean trade increased in the past two months.
According to the Choson Ilbo:
Christian Dietrich, a member of the UN Security Council committee investigating Congo, told VOA that the North Korean ship Birobong arrived in the port of Boma, Congo on Jan. 21, where it unloaded some 3,400 tons of weapons, 100 times the amount seized in Thailand earlier this month.
Dietrich said the committee was told the weapons were “modern” but was unable to find out any details. Assuming all the weapons were AK rifles, the weight would be equivalent to about 800,000 of them, he added.
North Korea in May also sent military instructors to train Congolese government soldiers for about four weeks, around the time the North conducted its second nuclear test.
Dietrich said there are indications that North Korea was the source of state-of-the-art weapons carried by insurgents in eastern Congo. In some cases, Congolese government soldiers have sold their arms to neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe, he said.
Under UN Resolution 1807, adopted in 2008, the UN must be informed in advance of all arms transactions with and military training for Congo, but North Korea did not. The UNSC committee is a watchdog that oversees implementation of the UN resolution.
Additional information:
1. Here is a link to the story about the arms intercepted in Thailand (Including updates).
2. The DPRK has long been involved in African political, economic, military, and cultural affairs. When I read this story I immediately thought of Zimbabwe’s 5 Brigade which was trained by the North Koreans. Here are a few stories which are related to the DPRK and Zimbabwe.
3. The North Koreans also constructed the statue of Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa. The statue is located here.
According to CNN:
The Beijing-based Jinghesheng Investment Company has partnered with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea’s formal name, to exhibit — and sell — 60 oil paintings and 30 traditional Korean ink paintings.
“They were all carefully selected by the DPRK’s Ministry of Culture,” said exhibit director Li Xuemei. Although North Korean artworks may be available in some galleries in China and other countries, said Li, “you don’t really know where they came from, but ours are surely authentic artworks from DPRK.”
Inside a hall, the gallery showcases works of twenty North Korean artists affiliated with museums and art academies in Pyongyang. Li said the gallery receives as many as 100 visitors a day on the weekend and about 60 on weekdays.
The pieces depict landscapes and modern life. Many were painted by seasoned Pyongyang artists who hold honorific titles as “People’s Artists” and “Merit Artists.”
One oil painting, a socialist realist piece entitled “Huge Waves in the East Sea,” is three meters high and ten meters long and covers an entire wall of the gallery. Four artists collaborated on the painting using a wide scope of greens and blues to create textured and turbulent waves crashing into taupe gray rocks against a backdrop of blue sky.
The collection also includes watercolors, elegant portraits of Korean women in modern and traditional dress and wildlife.
Li said the artwork is only sold to elite customers, typically Chinese entrepreneurs in affluent cities like Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Dalian. She said 30 percent of the works on display have already been sold, but she declines to quote any prices.
“Many people chose to collect this art because North Korea is a country still closed to the outside world, although it is seeking to open up in the future,” Li said. “This makes North Korean artworks a good investment. Some artists have already passed away, making their work more unique and valuable.”
While the arts’ value may increase over time, their North Korean artists will not see any cash returns.
“In North Korea,” Li said, “art is not private property and the value made from the sales will go directly to the state.”
One artist and three North Korean government officials flew into Beijing to attend the opening of the show but stayed away from the media and declined to be interviewed.
…
While contemporary North Korean art is typically laden with a heavy message, the artworks showcased in the 798 art district leaves out traces of politics or propaganda. New collections of North Korean art will rotate through the gallery until in the coming months.
“We’ll show artworks on rotation,” Li said. “We’ll show different styles in the next collection.”
Additional Information:
1. The gallery is located in Beijing’s 798 district located here.
2. Pictures of the gallery and art can be seen here.
3. Nick Bonner has his collection on display in Beijing as well. His new web page is here. His old web page is here. Mr. Bonner recently showed some North Korean art in Australia.
4. Felix Abt offers pieces by artists at Pyongyang’s Paekho Art Studio here.
5. David Heather sells North Korean art here and here from the Mansudae Art Studio.
6. A separate web page claims to be the official site of the Mansudae Studio here.
7. The Mansudae Art Studio is located here.
8. Here is another page claiming to sell North Korean art. It seems to be based in Germany.
9. Here are a couple of books on North Korean art: Art Under Control in North Korea, North Korean Posters
10. Here is a book review of North Korean Posters which offers additional information.
According to Yonhap:
The U.N. development agency plans to restart its operations in North Korea in February after a two-year hiatus, a U.S. radio station reported Saturday.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman at the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), told Voice of America that the remodeling of its Pyongyang office was completed in September and works are underway to install furniture and other equipment as well as to connect the Internet.
The office will become “fully operational” by the end of February, he said.
Currently, Jerome Sauvage, head of the UNDP’s Pyongyang office, and two other foreign staffers stay there, with two others due to arrive in Pyongyang in February, according to the spokesman. The UNDP has already recruited 13 North Korean employees, he added.
The UNDP launched development projects in the North in 1981 — including agricultural development, human resource development and economic reform programs. But it withdrew from Pyongyang in early 2007 after suspicions arose over the reclusive communist regime’s misappropriation of development funds.
On her visit to Seoul last month, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said that her agency will reopen the office “with a small program — around $2.5 million a year and a very small number of employees.”
The UNDP, meanwhile, shut down its office in Seoul earlier this month as South Korea has transformed itself from a recipient of international assistance to donor.
Read the full article here:
UNDP to resume operations in N. Korea in February
Yonhap
12/26/2009
According to the US Treasury Department’s Press Release (h/t One Free Korea):
FinCEN Updated Advisory:
North Korea Government Agencies’ and Front Companies’ Involvement in
Illicit Financial ActivitiesVIENNA, Va. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today added an additional North Korean bank to its June 18 guidance to financial institutions regarding the involvement by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) government agencies and front companies in illicit activities. Based on new publicly available information, Kumgang Bank has been added to the list of North Korean banks. This update amends the FinCEN issuance of FIN-2009-A002, on June 18, 2009.
As further described in the guidance, the U.N. Security Council has called for enhanced monitoring of financial transactions, to prevent the financing of North Korea’s nuclear, ballistic missile, and other weapons of mass destruction (“WMD”)-related programs or activities. The Security Council’s action, combined with the potential that North Korea will attempt to evade these financial measures, illustrates the increased risk that North Korea and North Korean entities, as well as individuals acting on their behalf, pose to the international financial system and financial institutions worldwide.
FIN-2009-A002 can be read here.
Links to previous posts on sanctioned DPRK organizations (US and UN) can be found here.
UPDATE: Culture clash when North Koreans want to talk business and US general has other ideas
By Michael Rank
It was a clash of cultures, an accident waiting to happen, when the four-star United States general and his entourage of American business leaders came to Pyongyang to discuss security issues and the North Koreans wanted to talk business.
The North Koreans had assumed the general and his colleagues wanted to talk about investing in their isolated country, and were dumbfounded to discover that was one thing the visitors had absolutely no intention of discussing.
It wasn’t entirely the North Koreans’ fault – retired Air Force General Charles “Chuck” Boyd and his pals were from a high-powered Washington-based think tank called Business Executives for National Security (BENS), so business is definitely part of their brief – but not when it comes to North Korea.
The North Korean ministers whom Boyd met made no attempt to hide their shock when they discovered that the visitors had not come with thoughts of investing a handful of dollars at least in their country, even if it is under international sanctions, and that they were there to discuss the nuclear issue instead.
“I think they had a little bit of a misunderstanding about the nature of our objective, ” Boyd told North Korean Economy Watch in a telephone interview.
“I think they believed that we came with business leaders who were interested in investing in North Korea, and of course that we had to make that clear to them right from the outset that nobody [in the BENS delegation] had any intention whatsoever of making any investments in North Korea and in fact could not” due to international sanctions.
“They were not particularly pleased to hear that. They wanted to talk about investments, they didn’t want to talk about the linkage of those investments to a resolution of the nuclear issue,” said Boyd, who has been president and chief executive officer of BENS since 2002 and steps down at the end of the year.
“There were some tense moments as we worked our way through that, but i think there was clarity in everybody’s minds when we left” that the group had come not to discuss investment but “in a larger context of trying to talk about the benefits of leaving their isolation and entering into the globalised world.”
Boyd said the tone of the conversations he held with North Korean officials “varied a bit…some were softer in their argumentation, some were harsher. I suppose the tone of the meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Pak Ui-chun] was really quite warm.”
Kim Yong-nam, president of the Supreme People’s Assembly, told him how threatened North Korea felt by its neighbours. “To the extent that I could I think I tried to relieve him of some of his anxiety about the external threats to the country,” Boyd said. He told Kim that the division of the Korean peninsula was the fault of the Soviet Union, not the United States, and he hoped a Russian would attend their next meeting in order to underline this fact. “I think at the end of it we parted on pretty good terms,” Boyd said of his meeting with Kim, who is often reckoned to rank number two in the North Korean hierarchy after Kim Jung Il.
The delegation also included Ross Perot Jr, chairman of the board, Perot Systems Corp, Maurice Greenberg, chairman and CEO, C.V. Starr & Co, Inc, and Boyd’s wife Dr Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Boyd said BENS had tried to arrange a visit to North Korea for several years, and after being rebuffed numerous times “almost out of the blue they contacted us and issued an invitation.”
He acknowledged that his visit last week had not achieved any meeting of minds between the US and North Korea, but noted: “Progress comes about in tiny little steps from a broad front, and it may be that we had some tiny bit of influence. And if we didn’t is the world worse off for having gone there? I don’t think so.”
The North Koreans were “certainly left with [an impression of] the firmness with which the private sector is in support of the need for resolving the nuclear issue,” he added.
Boyd was a combat pilot in Vietnam and survived 2,488 days as a prisoner of war. He is the only POW from the Vietnam war to become a four-star general. He will be succeeded at BENS from January 1 by former US Army General Montgomery C. Meigs.
The official North Korean news agency KCNA, which rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good story, reported that the BENS group “had an exhaustive discussion with officials in the economic field of the DPRK on the issues arising in creating environment for investment.”
ORIGINAL POST: According to Yonhap:
The six-member delegation from the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), led by Peter Agre, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, had traveled to Pyongyang on a mission to explore future opportunities for collaborative research activities in various fields.
The U.S. team “left here for home by air on Tuesday after discussing the matter of cooperation and exchange in the field of scientific research,” the Korean Central News Agency said. It gave no further information.
Agre, director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute and president of the AAAS, said earlier that his delegation would meet with scientists, university and science policy officials in the North. He also planned to give a lecture for North Korean officials and students at the Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang.
While in Pongyang Agre suppsedly gave a lecture at Kimchaek University of Technology. According to Yonhap:
The broadcast aired by the non-profit corporation said Agre and other U.S. scientists will visit the Kimchaek University of Technology to give his lecture and hold talks with representatives from North Korean academia to discuss ways to advance bilateral scientific cooperation
Agre is a medical doctor and molecular biologist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of aquaporins. He is currently the chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Also in the Yonhap story:
Another U.S. delegation visiting North Korea, consisting of businessmen, met with the North’s Vice Premier Ro Tu-chol on Tuesday, state media said in a one-sentence dispatch. The team from the Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a non-partisan Washington-based organization led by Charles Boyd, a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general, arrived in Pyongyang a day earlier.
Michael Rank contacted BENS and received the following statement:
Regarding the North Korea trip: Following initial contact several years ago, the North Korean government recently invited a small group from Business Executives for National Security (BENS) to visit North Korea. BENS is a not-for-profit group of business executives with an interest in national security and foreign policy issues. BENS is not a trade organization.
The group hopes to learn first-hand the views of government officials in North Korea. The trip is solely for educational purposes and was coordinated with appropriate U.S. government agencies. The traveling party is now in North Korea. The travelers are: BENS President and Chief Executives Charles Boyd, Maurice Greenberg (Chairman and CEO, C.V. Starr & Co., Inc.) Corinne Greenberg, Ross Perot Jr. (Chairman of the Board, Perot Systems Corp.) Mark Newman (Chairman and CEO, DRS Technologies, Inc.), BENS Board Chairman Joe Robert and Dr. Jessica Mathews. Greenberg, Perot, and Newman are also board members of BENS. Ms. Mathews is President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Charles Boyd’s wife. Reggie Gibbs, a BENS staff member is accompanying the group. Further details about the trip will be available when the group returns next week.
UPDATE 1: According to the Joong Ang Daily:
[Stuart Thorson, professor of political science and international relations at Syracuse University] spent five days in the North Korean capital, meeting with faculty members at the Kim Chaek University of Technology and the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, and officials from the State Academy of Sciences. Kim Chaek University is the school that has maintained cooperation with Syracuse since 2001. The delegation included Peter C. Agre, the 2003 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. […]
Thorson said the Americans talked with North Korean scientists on issues such as developing young scientists and bringing more women into the field. The faculty at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology gave presentations on their research work. “We were quite impressed by it, especially since the level of their physical equipment is below what we have [in South Korea] and in the United States,” Thorson said.
The faculty “responded very well” to the Americans’ presence, he said.
“We were all delighted to have the young scientists [in North Korea] talking with us about their research,” he said. “A lot of [science] has been just kind of old people talking to old people about what they’d like to have happened. There were actually young people talking about what they’re really doing.”
The unlikely science partnership between the United States and North Korea dates back to 2001. With the help of Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea serving then as head of Korea Society, Syracuse University contacted the North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York. Often called the “New York channel,” the North Korean UN mission links the United States and North Korea.
Thorson said his previous experience in dealing with China helped him get started with North Korea.
“I had worked on a similar collaboration with China in the 1990s, so we were comfortable working with countries whose political system was very different than our own,” the professor said.
Thorson added that in working with China, he learned that science and technology are “very much based on shared protocols.”
“That helps us build trust,” he said. “As we share things in common, then I think we can begin to talk about other things sometimes, or perhaps even more importantly, people who talk to us can learn and begin to be more comfortable.
“This is especially important, in my view, to political science regarding North Korea and the United States, where in both countries, the other has been demonized and viewed as something other than a real place with real people,” Thorson added.
Syracuse found its partner in the Kim Chaek University of Technology. They’ve since cooperated in building a digital library at Kim Chaek in 2006, and Syracuse has helped North Korean students at the International Collegiate Programming Contest, run by the Association for Computing Machinery.
Their partnership led to the founding of the U.S.-DPRK [North Korea] Scientific Engagement Consortium in 2007. It’s made up of the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Syracuse University and the Korea Society.
Thorson pointed to the digital library as an example of a positive outcome for the U.S.-North Korea science exchange. When the New York Philharmonic visited Pyongyang in 2008, some accompanying journalists went to the library and even accessed their Facebook pages from computers there.
Though Thorson realizes U.S.-North Korea relations do have an impact on science exchanges, he also thinks the worse the situation, the more such non-traditional diplomacy becomes necessary.
“My impression is that as relations get worse between the two countries, both countries realize that these informal channels are all the more important,” Thorson said. “It’s all the more reason to keep at science diplomacy with North Korea. The more difficult the problem, the more effort it takes to try to resolve that.
“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be much fun,” he said. “It’s frustrating sometimes. It’s also rewarding.”
UPDATE 2: According to the Joong Ang Daily:
The Business Executives for National Security (BENS) is an American nonprofit organization established in 1982 by American entrepreneurs whose top concern is national security. Eight BENS members recently visited North Korea, led by the organization’s current president, former Air Force Gen. Charles G. Boyd. The U.S. delegation included AIG’s former CEO Maurice Greenberg, Chairman of DRS Technologies Mark Newman and Chairman of the Board of Perot Systems Henry Ross Perot, Jr.
They are said to have visited the North at the invitation of North Korean authorities, which have been in contact with BENS for several years. It is likely a coincidence that they visited Pyongyang after U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth’s visit to the North two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, we are paying special attention to their behavior because BENS helped abolish nuclear weapons in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, the U.S. removed more than 7,000 nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. In return, the CIS countries were promised safety, economic incentives and incorporation into Western society, in accordance with the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CRT) in 1991.
Companies under the control of BENS were responsible for removing and destroying the weapons and other nuclear materials, after securing a commercial contract with the U.S. government.
The resumption of the six-party talks is still clouded with difficulties, but if North Korea decides to give up its nuclear weapons, there is a high possibility that the U.S. companies will spearhead their removal.
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No.09-12-9-1
12/9/2009
Aid to North Korea and investment into inter-Korean cooperative projects by the South Korean government appears to be hitting a record low in 2009, dropping to a level not seen since the year 2000.
According to the South Korean Unification Ministry, between January and the end of November of this year (2009), the government dispensed a mere 6.1 percent of the nearly 1.12 trillion won allocated. Just over 68.3 billion won were spent on cooperative projects between North and South Korea. This is considerably less than last year, when only 18.1 percent (only 231.2 billion won of an allocated 1.275 trillion won) was put to use.
In each year since 2000, the South Korean government has failed to spend all funds set aside for inter-Korean cooperation. In 2000, 81 percent of funds were distributed, while in 2001 that fell off to 56.1 percent, and then in 2002 dropped to 50 percent. In 2003, this bounced up to 92.5 percent, then fell to 65.9 percent in 2004, rose to 82.9 percent in 2005, dropped back to 37 percent the next year, and jumped back to 82.2 percent in 2007. Looking at how the disbursed funds were spent, one can see that humanitarian aid was especially reduced.
Following the North’s nuclear test, rice, fertilizer and other government aid was suspended, while indirect assistance from private-sector organizations was also reduced. This led the government to spend only 0.9 percent (from January through November) of the 811.3 billion won set aside for humanitarian aid in 2009.
Despite the fact that the South Korean government has spent such a small portion of the inter-Korean cooperation budget over the last two years, it has been decided that if there is movement on the North Korean nuclear issue, a budget increase of 190 million won will be sought for inter-Korean cooperation next year.
NOKO Jeans are finally for sale on their web page here. However they include a not-so-subtle warning to American shoppers:
Important regarding ordering from the USA: at this time, goods of North Korean origin may not be imported into the United States either directly or indirectly without prior notification to and approval of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). You need to apply for this in order to import goods produced in North Korea. Contact OFAC here: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/. It is the buyer’s responsibility to get this approval.
OFACS is the same outfit that is supposed to go after you if you visit Cuba. I am not recommending you do so, but it semes to me that it would just be a lot easier to have a friend in Europe order them for you…
Read previous NOKO posts here.
