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Anti-Epizootic Vaccine Developed

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

KCNA
3/2/2007

The Veterinary Medicine Institute under the Academy of Agricultural Science has developed an efficient vaccine against swine epizootic disease. It is particularly effective against coli bacillus-caused toxemia.

Once a piglet takes the disease, there are symptoms of facial paralysis and melancholia without eating fodder before dying. It is easily infectious.

It has been known that there is no medicine for the disease but preventive measure.

The scientists of the institute have perfected the vaccine developed over 10 years ago, while the research into the epizootic disease is being deepened in the world.

It has been proved that the vaccine is harmless and can prevent piglets completely from dying of coli bacillus-caused disease.

Also the scientists have established a new vaccination system so as to raise the efficacy of vaccine.

The vaccine production centers built in various parts of the country are mass-producing vaccine for stock-breeding farms and rural households.

Posted in Academy of Agricultural Science, Agriculture | Comments Closed

Koreas lock horns over humanitarian projects, economic issues

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Yonhap
3/1/2007

South Korea’s five-member negotiating team to the ongoing ministerial talks on Thursday paid a courtesy call on Kim Yong-nam, the North’s ceremonial head of state, as the talks went into a third day in Pyongyang.

Lee Jae-joung, South Korea’s point man on North Korea, became the third unification minister to meet Kim, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, and Lee is to hold a press briefing to explain what they discussed later Thursday, pool reports said. The meeting was hurriedly arranged at the request of the South on Thursday morning.

At the Mansudae Assembly Hall, the North’s No. 2 leader received the South Korean delegation, which consists of Lee, Vice Finance Minister Chin Dong-soo, Vice Culture Minister Park Yang-woo, Lee Kwan-se, the assistant unification minister, and Yoo Hyung-ho, a senior official of the National Intelligence Service.

The meeting came as officials from the divided Koreas were engaged in negotiations on how to resume aid and family reunion events and other topics at their first high-level talks in seven months.

They had lunch together at the renovated Okryukwan, a North Korean restaurant famous for its cold noodle soup. After their one-hour meeting with the North’s titular head of state, the South Korean delegation will visit the North’s national orchestra, the reports said.

Earlier in the day, the South Koreans held a simple 10-minute ceremony to mark the 88th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement at the Koryo Hotel. As a gesture of goodwill, the North provided a birthday breakfast for Lee, who turned 63 on Thursday.

The two sides had no official schedule for negotiations for the day, but top negotiators and working-level officials held talks to discuss the topics proposed during a plenary session on Wednesday.

The South gave top priority to resuming face-to-face family reunion events in April and construction of a family reunion center at the Mount Geumgang resort as soon as possible, while the North called for holding economic talks this month and pressed for the South’s resumption of rice and fertilizer aid, the reports said.

“The North raised the issue of humanitarian aid during working-level officials’ meeting on Wednesday. But no direct mention on rice and fertilizer aid was made in a draft joint statement,” a South Korean official said, asking to remain anonymous.

North Korea has proposed to resume inter-Korean humanitarian projects on a full scale immediately, and also offered to hold a meeting to discuss ways of boosting economic ties sometime in March in Pyongyang.

The details for reopening reunion events for families separated by the border are likely to be worked out easily, but Seoul’s rice aid to North Korea might surface as a bone of contention, according to analysts. South Korea also holds the position it prefers to hold the the economic talks in April.

The South hopes to reopen the economic talks next month so as to use rice aid as leverage to make the North take quick steps in complying with a recent agreement over its nuclear disarmament in return for energy aid.

“Unlike previous ministerial talks, these involve the dual tracks of inter-Korean relations and the six-party talks, so difficult negotiations are ahead,” a top South Korean unification ministry official said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Kwon Ho-ung, the North’s top negotiator, avoided specifics about humanitarian projects in his keynote speech, but analysts said that the North hopes to link the resumption of emotional family reunions with Seoul’s food and fertilizer assistance to Pyongyang.

Shortly after the North conducted its missile tests in July, the South suspended food and fertilizer aid. After the North’s nuclear weapon test in October, the possible resumption of aid was blocked.

In retaliation, the communist nation immediately suspended inter-Korean talks and reunions for families separated by the sealed border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Seoul may offer to ship some of the fertilizer aid to Pyongyang shortly after the talks so that it can be used for rice seedling planting this spring. But the South maintains the position that more fertilizer and rice will be given in accordance with how much progress the North makes in implementing the steps agreed upon during the six-nation talks on its nuclear dismantlement, according to sources.

Not only a date for the resumption of economic talks with Pyongyang as the venue, they will also have to agree on how to cooperate in inter-Korean projects, such as reopening cross-border railways, they said.

The South’s chief negotiator has proposed test runs of reconnected cross-border railways in the first half of this year, and the launch of operations by the end of 2007, according to pool reports.

As a precondition for the operation of cross-border railways, Lee said it is necessary to make headway in the inter-Korea economic project, which involves exchanging raw materials from the South for the North’s minerals.

North Korea abruptly called off scheduled test runs of cross-border railways in May under apparent pressure from the hard-line military. It also led to mothballing an economic accord under which South Korea was supposed to provide raw materials in exchange for the North’s minerals. North Korea’s subsequent missile and nuclear weapons tests further clouded hopes of implementing the accord.

The tracks, one line cutting across the western section of the border and the other crossing through the eastern side, have been completed and were set to undergo test runs. A set of parallel roads have been in use since 2005 for South Koreans traveling to the North.

South Korea has repeatedly called on North Korea to provide a security guarantee for the operation of cross-border railways, but the North has yet to give an answer on the issue.

The reconnection of the severed train lines was one of the tangible inter-Korean rapprochement projects agreed upon following the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

In 2005, South Korea agreed to provide the North with US$80 million worth of raw materials to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap starting in 2006. In return, the North was to provide the South with minerals, such as zinc and magnesite, after mines were developed with South Korean investments, guaranteed by the Pyongyang government.

The talks, the 20th since the leaders of the two Koreas held their first-ever summit in Pyongyang in June 2000, come as the world is paying keen attention to whether North Korea will honor its promise to take the first steps toward ending its nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid.

The ministerial talks, the highest-level channel of regular dialogue between the two Koreas, had been suspended amid tension over North Korea’s missile tests in July and its nuclear weapon test in October.

On Feb. 13, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities and eventually dismantle them in exchange for energy aid and other benefits, while the U.S. agreed to discuss normalizing relations with the communist nation. Only two days later, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to resume ministerial dialogue after a seven-month hiatus.

In the deal, North Korea will receive initial aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for shutting down and sealing its main nuclear reactor and related facilities at Yongbyon, 80 kilometers north of Pyongyang, within 60 days. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will determine whether the North carries out the steps properly.

North Korea can eventually receive another 950,000 tons in aid if it disables the reactor irreversibly and declares that it has ended all nuclear programs. The cost of the aid will be equitably distributed among South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, according to officials.

Posted in Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, International Aid, Mt. Kumgang Tourist Special Zone, Railways, South Korea, Special Economic Zones (Established before 2013), Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

New Method of Breeding Terrapins Developed

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

KCNA
2/28/2007

Scientists in the Zoological Institute of the Branch Academy of Biology under the DPRK State Academy of Sciences have proved successful in research into the artificial breeding of terrapins.

The terrapin is efficacious for weaklings and for the treatment of circulatory troubles. The new method shortens the growth period of terrapins to one fourth.

At the end of several-year experiments, they found out raw materials of assorted feed needed for the rapid growth of terrapins and their composition rate, and an effective method for reducing incubation duration by more than ten days compared with the natural conditions.

The productivity of the male terrapins is higher than that of the females. They, basing themselves on this, developed a technique by which they can control the rate of female and male freely.

The scientists also redesigned structures of the terrapin breeding farm to suit the habitation of the terrapins so as to make them grow healthily.

Posted in Biotech, Branch Academy of Biology, Health care, Indigenous medicine, State Academy of Sciences | Comments Closed

North Korea Enacts Law Against Money Laundering

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

Korea Times
Park Song-wu
2/20/2007

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Tuesday confirmed that North Korea recently enacted a law that prohibits money laundering.

The standing committee of the North’s Supreme People’s Assembly adopted the legislation last October to ban financial transactions involving illegal earnings, the agency said in a press release.

The enactment apparently aimed at settling the U.S. financial sanctions on a bank in Macau that was blacklisted by Washington in September 2005 for its suspicious role in helping the North conduct illicit financial activities, it said.

Under the latest six-party agreement, reached on Feb. 13, the United States is to resolve financial sanctions within 30 days on North Korean assets worth $24 million that have been frozen in the Macau bank.

The NIS also confirmed that the North has a highly enriched uranium (HEU) program.

NIS officials made the confirmation during a closed-door National Assembly session as the Beijing deal on initial actions to implement the denuclearization of North Korea came under criticism for not mentioning the HEU program.

After ending the session, a lawmaker said on condition of anonymity that the NIS officials confirmed the existence of the HEU program in the North.

When North Korea’s uranium enrichment program came to the fore in 2002, Washington and Pyongyang accused each other of violating the 1994 agreed framework that eventually collapsed.

Seoul and Washington are reportedly sharing the view that Pyongyang has an HEU program, for which the North began purchasing large quantities of centrifuge-related equipment in 2001.

But what is not yet clear is whether the North has begun to produce weapons-grade uranium.

In a separate Assembly session, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Song Min-soon also faced the same question from lawmakers on why the Beijing agreement did not mention the HEU program.

He avoided speaking specifically on the sensitive issue that triggered the second nuclear crisis in October 2002. But he said it will be addressed as the latest agreement invoked section one of the joint statement adopted in September 2005.

“The Beijing deal is about initial steps, and it’s not a complete roadmap toward the denuclearization,” Song said. “But the recent agreement requires the North to declare all of its nuclear programs.”

In section one of the September statement, the North committed to abandoning “all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” and returning at an early date to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons treaty (NPT) and to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) also expressed doubts over Pyongyang’s willingness to abide by its pledges to implement initial measures for the denuclearization of North Korea.

Rep. Kim Yong-kap of the conservative party found problems with the deal reached in Beijing on Feb. 13 since key components of it, especially on the disablement of the North’s nuclear facilities, are overly “abstract.”

“Despite the North’s agreement to disable its 5 megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, it later changed the wording into a temporary stoppage of operations,” Kim said.

The North’s media promptly reported the result of latest six-party talks, but did not use the term “disablement.” Seoul officials interpreted it as an attempt to mislead North Koreans so they do not lose their pride.

“In addition, there is no deadline on the disablement. I am simply doubtful of the deal’s practicality,” he said.

According to a Chosun Ilbo-Gallup Korea poll, conducted on Feb. 19, 77.9 percent of respondents predicted that the North would not keep its pledges, while 15.8 percent of the 1,006 respondents trusted the North.

But Song said the Beijing deal was a good chance to reaffirm Pyongyang’s willingness for an early denuclearization.

He also dismissed the GNP’s claim that Seoul is determined to share the largest financial burden of aiding the North to achieve a second inter-Korean summit in the run-up to the December presidential election.

“We will not bear all the burden because all five parties have agreed to provide economic aid on the principle of equality and equity,” he said. “And the provision of assistance will be made in line with the principle of action for action.”

As a first step toward denuclearization, North Korea is to shut down its nuclear-related facilities at Yongbyon while allowing United Nations nuclear inspectors back to the nuclear complex to seal them off.

Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, said in Beijing on Feb. 13 that the deal is working under an “incentive system.”

For shutting down the Yongbyon complex, the North would receive the equivalent of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in emergency relief aid. An additional 950,000 tons of heavy oil or equivalent aid will be provided to the country upon its completion of disabling other nuclear-related facilities.

Posted in Banking, Black markets, Economic reform, Energy, Finance, Illicit activities, Nuclear, Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

Brisk Geological Prospecting

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

KCNA
2/6/2007

Great efforts are being directed to the geological prospecting in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The State Bureau for Direction of Natural Resources Development has recently dispatched geological experts, IT technicians and prospectors to the areas of Komdok and Kapsan to find out more nonferrous metal ore resources.

While concentrating forces on the survey of the foundations of major construction objects, the bureau is pushing ahead with the work of finding out more reserve coal and ore mines with abundant deposits and securing the sites for detailed prospecting.

The South Hwanghae Provincial Geological Prospecting Administration Bureau has surveyed the ingredients of sand in western coast areas in detail and secured quality sand resources available for hundreds of years.

The South Phyongan and North Hamgyong Provincial Geological Prospecting Administration Bureaus also found out more anthracite and bituminous coal fields in western and northern areas.

Geological corps under the North and South Hwanghae, Jagang and Kangwon Provincial Geological Prospecting Administration Bureaus have intensified geological prospecting work in their provinces, thus opening up a bright vista for excavating larger amount of non-ferrous metal ore.

The South Hamgyong Provincial Geological Prospecting Administration Bureau has completed in a short span of time the foundation survey and designing for major projects of national significance, and the Sumun and Paekam Geological Prospecting Corps under the Ryanggang Provincial Geological Prospecting Administration Bureau have also registered successes in the survey work for the construction of the Paektusan Songun Youth Power Station and other projects.

Posted in Coal, Copper, Energy, Gold, Graphite, Iron Ore, Mining/Minerals, National Resources Development Council | Comments Closed

U.S., N.K. open talks on BDA

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

Korea Herald
Lee Joo-Hee
1/30/2007

Officials from Washington and Pyongyang are in Beijing today for their second round of talks on U.S. financial sanctions against North Korea.

The discussions are likely to set the tone for the upcoming round of six-party talks scheduled to resume early next month.

The agenda is thought to include North Korea’s acknowledgement of illicit financial activity, a pledge to prevent any reoccurrence, and the lifting of a U.S. embargo on North Korean accounts at a Macau bank.

Washington imposed financial restrictions against Banco Delta Asia after charging the bank with helping North Korea launder counterfeit dollars and funds raised from smuggling restricted goods. The move prompted Pyongyang to boycott the six-party talks process in 2005.

Upon returning to the six-party process in December last year, North Korea demanded it must first solve the financial issue before discussing the nuclear question.

The United States remains adamant that the financial measures were separate from the nuclear issue but has offered to discuss it on the sidelines of the nuclear talks.

The U.S. side is led by Daniel Glaser, the Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.

The North Korean team is led by Oh Gwang-chul, president of the Foreign Trade Bank of Korea, the reclusive regime’s window for foreign banking.

The two delegations are likely to discuss the technical aspects of the issue, which North Korea claims was a political gesture by the United States as part of its hostile policy.

On Sept. 15, 2005 the U.S. Treasury Department banned all American banks from dealing with Banco Delta Asia for allegedly helping North Korean companies launder money from smuggled cigarettes and counterfeit $100 bills.

Washington and Pyongyang have been exchanging questions and information regarding the measures since their first discussion in Beijing on the sidelines of the six-party talks last month.

N. Korean financial officials arrive in Beijing for talks on U.S. sanctions
Yonhap
1/30/2007

A group of North Korean financial experts arrived in Beijing Tuesday for talks with their U.S. counterparts on removing U.S. financial sanctions on the North, a major hurdle to six-way negotiations on the communist nation’s nuclear weapons program.

The U.S.-North Korea financial talks come ahead of a new round of six-nation negotiations next week aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the new round of the nuclear disarmament talks will start Feb. 8.

The North Koreans, headed by O Kwang-chol, president of the North’s Foreign Trade Bank, arrived in the Chinese capital at 9:30 a.m. The North Koreans were expected to hold talks with a U.S. financial team led by Daniel Glaser, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury Department.

Upon arriving from Pyongyang, the head North Korean delegate said the sides would hold talks at their countries’ embassies here.

The two last met here on the sidelines of a December round of the nuclear talks, also held in Beijing. The working-group financial meeting seeks to remove U.S. sanctions imposed in September 2005 on a Macau bank suspected of laundering money for the North, which Pyongyang used as an excuse to stay away from the nuclear talks for 13 months.

Expectations of progress from the financial discussions, as well as the nuclear talks, have been significantly raised following a three-day meeting of top U.S. and North Korean nuclear negotiators in Berlin earlier in the month, at which the two agreed “on a number of issues,” according to Christopher Hill, the top U.S. nuclear envoy.

Hill said Monday (Washington time) that the next round of the nuclear talks could produce an agreement similar to a 1994 pact in which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear activities in return for economic and energy assistance. The 1994 Agreed Framework became defunct when the ongoing dispute over the North’s nuclear ambitions erupted in late 2002.

However, Hill made it clear that the goal of the six-party negotiations is to carry out a 2005 agreement in which Pyongyang agreed in principle to completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program in return for economic and diplomatic benefits.

“Whatever emerges in the next round, our job will not be finished until the full joint statement is finally realized and implemented,” Hill told Reuters in Washington.

“I am not too worried whether something might look like the Agreed Framework because we’re only looking at part of what we’re aiming at,” Hill added.

The top U.S. envoy to the financial talks Tuesday also expressed hope for progress.

“We are prepared to go through these talks as long as it takes for us to get through our agenda,” Glaser was quoted as telling reporters in Beijing. “I am hopeful we’ll make progress.”

Treasury officials have so far refused to confirm it, but recent reports said the United States may unfreeze part of North Korea’s assets at the Macau bank to help move the nuclear negotiations forward.

Pyongyang has about US$24 million in 50 accounts at the Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, and as much as $13 million is believed to belong to legitimate accounts.

Posted in Banking, Finance, Foreign Trade Bank, USA | Comments Closed

Disappearance of North’s Propaganda Chief

Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Donga
1/27/2007

Recently, rumors have been spreading in North Korea that Jeong Ha Cheol (74-year-old), the propaganda secretary of the Workers’ Party, has defected from North Korea, stirring public sentiment.

Party officials have been going door-to-door to remove traces of Jeong from publications without giving any reason. Officials are painting over Jeong’s face with black ink on any pictures that show Jeong accompanying North Korean leader Kim Jong Il or its former leader Kim Il Sung. They are also censuring his name with black ink if there are any passages that include his name and sealing the book. Moreover, writings by Jeong have been torn to pieces. All households which have a few dozens of those books now are required to get rid of them since most North Korea publications are propaganda books.

Jeong Ha Cheol, who studied philosophy at the Kim Il Sung University, was one of the most successful propaganda officials. He served as the editorial chief of the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun and the chairman of the Central Broadcasting Station before becoming the propaganda secretary of the Workers’ Party. It is a key post that oversees all the propaganda activities in North Korea, and Kim Jong Il also served in this post before being named as Kim Il Sung’s successor in the mid 1970s.

Jeong, who was considered as one of the closest aides of Kim Il Sung, accompanied Kim every time he paid a state visit to China and even received the Kim Il Sung Decoration, the most highly recognized medal in North Korea at that time.

In fact, rumors about Jeong erupted in December 2005. Some media outlets reported that Jeong has stopped appearing in public since October 2005. There were no news reports on his exile.

Some sources said that he was imprisoned at a concentration camp in North Pyongan Province because his faults were revealed during an intensive investigation into the staff of Central Broadcasting who was caught drinking during the daytime.

According to the sources, Jeong was sentenced as “a traitor against the party and revolution,” and was ordered to be erased from all the records, including publications. In short, he is unlikely to regain his power since he has been completely shunned by North Korean society.

All these people were involved in the so-called, “August Clan Incident.” The names of the children of Kim Sung Ae, Kim Il Sung’s third wife, who fell from political power and Seo Gwan-hee, former agricultural secretary of the Workers’ Party, who was shot to death on charges of espionage, were also removed from publications. You can see black marks quite often on North Korean political books. In North Korea, it is a principle that if one is accused of a serious crime, his or her family members and relatives (father’s side: up to second cousins, mother’s side: up to first cousins) are also sent to concentration camps or deep in the mountains, as it happened in the feudal age.

The most common cause that North Korean committee officials consider as a serious crime is a drinking bout. Criticizing Kim Jong Il or the communist regime after having some drinks can not be tolerated in the North, and that is likely the case with Jeong. It is a felony to shake the regime. Recently, Joo Dong Il, a high ranking official in charge of electricity, was dismissed for suggesting to Kim Jong Il on a private occasion, “How about we use the electricity used for unattended guest houses all across the country for the economic sector?”

However, some analysts speculate possibilities of Jeong’s involvement in serious corruption considering that North Korea lavishly spend money to purchase equipment from overseas for propaganda purposes every year.

Choi Yong Hae, the chairman of the League of Socialist Working Youth and who prepared the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, was also found guilty of grave corruption. Although Choi was dismissed, his name was not censured with black ink. Chang Sung Taek, a senior official of the Workers’ Party, was also blamed of serious corruption, but he was recently pardoned. Corruption charges are far more lenient compared to criticizing the regime or Kim Jong Il.

Jeong’s case is a good example that illustrates how insecure the power that top North Korean officials have once they lose the trust of Kim Jong Il. If North Korean officials are not cautious all the time, like walking on thin ice each day, they can be out of Kim Jong Il’s favor.

NK Secretary Jung Ha Chol Politically Banished
Daily NK
Han Young Jin
1/29/2007

A rumor has spread alleging that a former secretary for the Propaganda Department of the Chosun Worker’s Party Jung Ha Chol (74) has escaped North Korea, reported the Donga Ilbo on the 27th.

A source told Donga Ilbo “Though the reason has not yet been revealed, North Korean elite officials have recently been erasing remnants of Secretary Jung in published materials” and informed “Secretary Jung’s face has been deleted from all photos taken with Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il.” In addition, Secretary Jung’s name is being erased from all written materials and sealed with tape, and materials directly written by Secretary Jung are being deleted altogether.

With Kim Il Sung’s May 25th teaching in 1967, “North Korea’s revolutionary culture” arose and excluding statements and instructions of Kim Il Sung, any foreign editions and all publications displaying anti-authority or conflict with Kim Il Sung were either burned or erased.

Hence, we can surmise that secretary Jung has already been purged from North Korea’s political arena based on the evidence that his photo and name is being obliterated from published materials.

Secretary Jung graduated from the Kim IL Sung University majoring in Philosophy and worked as an editor for the Rodong Newspaper and Head of the Central Broadcast Agency. In 2001, he became the director and secretary for the propaganda department which following the secretary for the Chosun Workers Party is the next best position. Secretary Jung was even selected as Kim Jong Il’s entourage on his visit to China and was even awarded the Kim Il Sung honorary medal.

However, in December 2005 inspectors discovered one of Secretary Jung’s private parties held at a rural village during an agricultural supporting activity. In addition, there had been rumors that the First Minister for the Chosun Workers Party Lee Jae Kang and Secretary Jung had been in conflict. Whatever the unknown reason, whether it was Secretary Jung conducting parties, occurrences or comments made at the party or personal feuds, Secretary Jung was ultimately imprisoned at a concentration camp in South Pyongan, Buk Chang province.

The Donga Ilbo informed “Secretary Jung has been condemned as an anti-revolutionist and is being banished from North Korean society. His existence being deleted from all records indicates that his power will not be reinstated to him.”

“One the main reasons elite officials are ostracized in North Korea is for reproaching Kim Jong Il or the system at parties” and “It is likely Secretary Jung fell into this category” prospected the newspaper.

Another speculation suggested that Secretary Jung had been corrupted. As North Korea carelessly spends vast amounts of foreign currency on propaganda every year, it is possible Secretary Jung made a foolish decision.

However, even Choi Young Hae, former director for Socialist Youth League who swindled vast amounts of foreign currency while preparing for the 13th International Youth and Students Festival in 1989 did not get “deleted” from all publication but just simply demoted. This was the same for Jang Sung Taek who was once overthrown but his position eventually reinstituted. To criticize or compare Kim Jong Il or the regime is an enormous criminal offense. Hence, for Secretary Jung’s existence to be deleted from all published materials denotes that he could never return to the political areana.

Though there is no real evidence to prove that Secretary Jung Ha Chol has defected overseas, he has undeniably been obliterated from politics.

At present, Jung Ha Chol’s position as secretary of the Chosun Worker’s Party has been reassigned to Kim Ki Nam.

Posted in Central Broadcasting Station, League of Socialist Working Youth, Political economy | Comments Closed

N. Korea urges implementation of inter-Korean economic accord

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Yonhap
1/25/2007

North Korea has called upon South Korea to implement an earlier agreement to help revive its light industry in return for tapping into the communist nation’s natural resources, a senior unification official said Thursday.

During Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung’s first visit to the Kaesong Industrial Complex since he took office in December, Ju Dong-chan, head of the North’s Kaesong development agency “asked the minister to honor the agreement, saying it is not an aid, but only swapping of natural resources and raw materials,” the official said anonymously.

In July 2005, South Korea agreed to provide the North with US$80 million worth of raw materials to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap starting in 2006. In return, the North was to provide the South with minerals such as zinc and magnesite, after the mines are developed with South Korean investments, guaranteed by the Pyongyang government.

But the agreement was never carried out as North Korea abruptly cancelled scheduled tests of two cross-border railways in May 2006. North Korea’s subsequent missile and nuclear weapons tests further clouded hopes to implement the accord.

“Lee agreed in principle to honor the accord, but he held the position it is more important to create a favorable environment for carrying out the agreement,” the official told reporters.

Asked about the North’s denial of reports that it scrapped plans to change its partner for tours of Kaesong, the official said it is purely a matter of business, which does not require the intervention of the government.

Just hours after Lee returned to Seoul from Kaesong, an unidentified spokesman for the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee (KAPPC) said the North “has no formal agreement with the Hyundai side over the issue of tour of Kaesong.”

Despite its earlier contract with Hyundai Asan, North Korea requested a new deal with Lotte Tours Co. in 2005. However, the South Korean government said the change can happen only when Hyundai Asan voluntarily concedes or pulls out of the business.

Posted in Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, Copper, Gold, Graphite, International trade, Iron Ore, Kaesong Development Agency, Light Industry, Lumber, Manufacturing, Mining/Minerals, Railways, South Korea, Tourism, Transportation | Comments Closed

North Korea bites a golden bullet

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Korea Times
Donald Kirk
1/24/2007

Gold fever is rampaging through the ruling elite of North Korea in the quest for relief from seemingly incurable economic malaise exacerbated by more than a year as a total outcast from the international financial community.

Word from Pyongyang is that trading companies and even individuals are offering payments in gold for imports from across the border with China and also in barter deals for products imported from elsewhere. Gold also has become a form of currency in the internal reward system of payoffs and bribes manipulated by Dear Leader Kim Jong-il to guarantee the loyalty of high-ranking officials.

The rush to sell gold – and, to a lesser extent, silver – has sharply escalated in the 16 months since the US Treasury Department blacklisted Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in Macau, banning all firms doing business with US firms from dealings with that bank. The Treasury Department charged that the BDA had been the principal conduit through which North Korea was shipping counterfeit US$100 “supernotes” printed on a highly sophisticated Swiss-made press in Pyongyang.

It’s well known that the US ban forced the BDA to impose a freeze on North Korean accounts totaling $24 million, but less well known that the bank also stopped purchasing gold produced by North Korea’s historic gold mines, in operation, sporadically, since the late 19th century.

Output of the mines, in mountains about 160 kilometers north of Pyongyang, fell sharply in the late 1990s as a result of flood and famine but, with foreign expertise, has begun to pick up in the past few years.

The impact of the ban, moreover, goes far beyond a single bank in Macau. Although North Korea last spring sold $38 million in gold and silver in Thailand, Pyongyang has been frustrated in reviving its presence on the London bullion market, the world’s largest marketplace for precious metals, amid increased US pressure on the large international banks that are the major buyers of gold.

It was in the aftermath of the ban on the BDA that North Korea’s Chosun Central Bank coughed up the information required by the London Bullion Markets Association (LBMA) for listing as a “good deliverer” of gold. North Korea from 1983 to 1993 had been in the LBMA’s good graces, averaging a ton a month in sales to London buyers that included some of the world’s leading banks, but had slipped off the list after failing to keep up deliveries.

The fact that the Chosun Central Bank again is listed with the LBMA, however, is no guarantee North Korea will be able to sell its gold. The US Treasury ban on dealings with the BDA – as well as sanctions unanimously imposed by the United Nations Security Council after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in October – has spooked buyers in London.

While the LBMA disavows “political criteria” in deciding on eligibility for its “good delivery list”, an LBMA memorandum leaves no doubt how buyers are likely to respond to overtures from a country or company on an international blacklist. None of them, according to Stewart Murray, the LBMA’s chief executive, is willing to take delivery from a company or country that is subject to sanctions.

Or, as the LBMA memorandum puts it, “If, for instance, a bullion custodian considered that it was bound by national or international sanctions that were in force against a particular country, it would have to refuse to accept bars from a refiner in that country.”

The memorandum, moreover, does not mince words when it comes to stating the importance of a “good deliverer” rating. “Given the status of London as the world’s leading center for bullion trading,” it says, “the LBMA List has become the de facto world list of quality refiners and Good Delivery accreditation is a highly sought-after accolade.”

In recent years, “the List” – capitalized in the memo – “has grown primarily due to the listing of refiners in China and Russia” and now totals 77 refiners in 31 countries.

Investors see North Korea as competing on a world stage once sanctions are lifted. “What we’re doing is normal business,” said Roger Barrett, whose firm, Korea Business Consultants, operates in North Korea from headquarters in Beijing. By reviving old minesand developing new ones, he argued, “We’re creating jobs for people, in line with the UN basic charter, in line with economic growth.”

Barrett also believes North Korea may somehow get around the sanctions by finding new markets. “Why would you go to the trouble of going to London?” he asked. “They’re totally entitled to sell their gold.” The fact is, however, that London remains the place to sell gold in significant quantities on a regular basis.

Under the circumstances, Colin McAskill, chairman of Hong Kong’s Koryo Asia Ltd and the guiding light of the Chosun Development and Investment Fund, dedicated to investing in North Korea, accused top US Treasury officials of waging a campaign to make sure the ban on banks dealing with the BDA extends to gold and silver.

McAskill accused US officials, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Stuart Levey, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, of “using coercion, innuendo and sheer force to intimidate banks from dealing with North Korea”.

Among the victims of the US campaign is one of Koryo Asia’s projects, the Daedong Credit Bank, the only foreign bank based in North Korea, set up primarily to deal with accounts of foreign firms and embassies in Pyongyang. The freeze of North Korean accounts in the BDA, according to McAskill, includes about $7 million funds of Daedong Bank customers.

McAskill avidly supports North Korean demands for the US to lift the ban on the BDA – a move that would not only open up the frozen North Korean accounts but would provide the opening needed for Pyongyang to trade in a wide range of products around the world.

The financial issue is assumed to have ranked at the top of an agenda discussed in meetings in Berlin between the chief US envoy, Christopher Hill, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan. Hill, reporting on the Berlin talks in stop-offs in Seoul, in Tokyo and Beijing, seemed hopeful about “progress” in the next round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons, expected to open in Beijing next month, after the failure of negotiators to get anywhere in the last round before Christmas.

South Korean media said North Korea had agreed to shut down its five-megawatt reactor at its nuclear complex Yongbyon in return for the US promise of massive aid, the crux of the 1994 Geneva Framework Agreement that blew up in 2002 amid US charges of a separate, secret North Korean program for developing warheads from enriched uranium.

There was no assurance, however, that the US is ready to relent on the BDA or that the UN Security Council will consider lifting its own sanction – enough to dissuade banks in London from buying North Korean gold regardless of the US ban on the BDA.

McAskill believes the rationale for the crackdown on the BDA is flawed. He questions the validity of the counterfeit charge and, in any case, says most of the frozen funds are not those of the North Korean government, even though they’re tired up in North Korean accounts. “We want to get a breakthrough on the six-party talks by getting the sanctions eased or lifted entirely,” he said. “We’re at a very delicate stage.”

Whatever happens, McAskill sees North Korea as ripe for investment, with precious metals high on the list of potential exports. “North Korea wants to move back into legitimate business,” he said. “They have a wealth of minerals – gold, silver, zinc, magnesite, copper, uranium, platinum – that needs investment to extract.”

Posted in Central Bank, Copper, Gold, Graphite, Iron Ore, Korea Business Consultants, Koryo Asia Ltd., Lumber, Mining/Minerals, Thailand | Comments Closed

N. Korea Picks Hyundai as Partner for Kaesong Tour-Not

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Well it seems that reports of the deal were premature–Hyundai Asan is not a shoe in. the updated report is below. The original story in the Korea Times is posted belw it.

N.K. denies report it will keep Hyundai Asan as partnerfor Kaesong tour
Yonhap
1/24/2007

North Korea on Wednesday denied reports that it withdrew plans to change its partner for tours of Kaesong, a border town, and collaborate with Hyundai Asan Corp., the operator of tours to the North’s Mount Geumgang, the North’s official media reported.

According to the Korean Central News Agency, a spokesman for the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee (KAPPC) said it “has no formal agreement with the Hyundai side over the issue of tour of Kaesong and, moreover, there was no agreement with the latter in this regard in recent days.”

“The KAPPC’s stand (on the Kaesong tour project) is consistent and it feels no need to examine or consider any change,” it added.

Korea Times
1/21/2007
Lee Jin-woo

North Korea has hinted that it is willing to start the long-delayed Kaesong tourism project with Hyundai Asan instead of Lotte, a Unification Ministry official said on Sunday.

“When former Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok visited the Kaesong industrial complex on Dec. 8, North Korean officials said they have finalized their decision to carry out the project with Hyundai,” said the official on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The former minister stepped down from the post on Dec. 11. His successor, Lee Jae-joung, has not made any specific comment on the issue.

The official also said North Korea’s Asia Pacific Peace Committee has given a positive signal to Hyundai Asan Chairman Yoon Man-jun during Yoon’s visit to a joint inter-Korean tourist site at Mt. Kumgang in North Korea.

Pyongyang has not issued any official document to confirm the verbal promise of the committee, according to the ministry and Hyundai.

Pyongyang has asked Seoul several times to accept Lotte Tour, a subsidiary of Lotte Group, in place of Hyundai Asan, the North Korea-related business arm of Hyundai Group.

The South Korean government, however, has rejected the request, saying, “The contract signed between the North and Hyundai is still effective and legally binding unless the two sides agree to nullify the deal.”

On June 30, the former unification minister met with Lotte Tour Chairman Kim Ki-byung, asking the chairman not to get involved in the inter-Korean business.

Experts said the North and Hyundai are expected to have a tug-of-war over the Stalinist state’s request for a payment of $150 per tourist to Kaesong, the capital of the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392).

Pyongyang has set the higher admission fee, nearly 20 times more than the $20 Hyundai pays to North Korea for every South Korean traveler to Mt. Kumgang. Hyundai has claimed the demand is outrageous.

Since July 1, the North has banned South Korean visitors to the Kaesong inter-Korean industrial complex from visiting the city’s downtown area including historic sites.

Hundreds of South Koreans, mostly businesspeople and government officials, had been allowed to make an excursion to Kaesong during their visit to the industrial complex.

The Stalinist state also stirred much controversy by signing an overlapping contract with a small South Korean company, Unico, in 2005 despite its initial contract with Hyundai Asan to develop golf courses at the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Emerson Pacific Group, which has been constructing golf courses at the scenic resort area at Mt. Kumgang, for the project in Kaesong.

Hyundai plans to develop a total of 66 million square meters of land by 2012, including information-technology complexes and residential districts at the industrial complex. The project commenced at an historic inter-Korean summit in June 2000.

Posted in Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), Mt. Kumgang Tourist Special Zone, Special Economic Zones (Established before 2013), Tourism | Comments Closed

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