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Food distribution to resume for the first time in seven years

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2012-1-25

A month into Kim Jong-un’s ascension to power, it is reported that food distribution is likely to resume nationwide in North Korea.

Many experts evaluate this as a symbolic measure to propagate the construction of a powerful economy and improve the lives of the people. For the North Koreans, the most apparent and obvious economic accomplishment is the improvement of the food situation. Thus, North Korea is most likely to take action to normalize food rations as its top priority.

According to a statement made by a South Korean government official on January 20, “Kim Jong-un and his leadership will begin the food distribution as a way to prove to its people about changes forthcoming in the new regime.”He also added, “After years of propagation for the building of a strong and prosperous nation, they must demonstrate it to the people with noticeable results.”

The amount of rations to be provided is still unclear. However, the source emphasized that it was very likely for rice rations to resume, especially with the approaching national holidays, such as the Lunar New Year and Kim Jong-il’s birthday (February 16).

He also commented that “the food distribution will be a nationwide movement and the food ration system will go into effect based on the distribution network of available food supply.”

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), North Korea’s food production in 2011 compared to the previous year rose by 8.5 percent, sitting at about 5.48 million tons (of rough grains or 4.66 million tons of milled grains).

The minimum amount of food consumption in North Korea is 5.4 million tons, but a shortage of about 400,000 tons is expected, including the international food aid and industrial food imports. Among the recent years, this marks the largest deficiency in food supply.

However, such shortages can be overcome with additional food imports and distributing mainly rice reserves.

The last national food distribution in North Korea was in 2005, seven years ago.

North Korea is also likely to exert more effort in food processing production to improve the distribution of daily necessities. With relatively little dependence on raw material imports, North Korea is planning to improve the food situation through expanding the food processing production in agricultural, fishery, and livestock industries, with less competition with Chinese products.

Posted in Food, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kim Jong Un, Public Distribiution System (PDS), UN, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | 1 Comment »

Preciseness emphasized for the tax investigation of special economic zones

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
2012-1-18

North Korea is continuing to put forward new laws for the special economic zones (SEZs) such as Rajin-Sonbong and Hwangumpyong Island. Recently, North Korea announced special guidelines for the tax investigations of foreign businesses in the zones.

North Korea’s Academy of Social Science Newsletter Volume 4 (published on November 2011) released an article titled, “Suggestions to Improve Tax Investigations in the Special Economic Zone,” which included detailed instructions for the policy improvement for tax investigation for SEZs. Here, particular emphasis was placed on the enhancement of the tax investigation system — to be accurate and rational — for the foreign investment companies.

The article explained, “Based on the principles of equality and reciprocity for the construction of powerful economic state, the tax investigation system in the SEZ must be improved especially at the present time when SEZs are being constructed and expanded to increase economic trade with other nations.”

It also stressed tax officials must be equipped with, “comprehensive knowledge and experience who accurately understand the entire process of business management. They must be capable of creating new tax investigation methods and be able to discern the various forms of tax evasions.”

For the qualifications of the tax officials, the article recommended that the officials be selected based on their knowledge and experience; ability to develop techniques for tax investigation; awareness of rules and regulations of tax laws and bylaws, and regulations of rights and responsibilities of taxpayers; and capability of conducting research on foreign tax investigation policies.

The Academy of Social Science is a government agency of the DPRK, and the recent article on the tax investigation reflects that the government has already begun the process of implementing the tax investigation guidelines and laws in the SEZs.

The article emphasized establishing a tax investigation system acceptable to foreign companies. One can construe this as North Korea’s effort to attract more businesses to the SEZ, which is currently suffering from poor performance.

In addition, North Korea is believed to be placing weight on the tax investigation based on its past experiences with the South Korean companies in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC). In the past, the officials of the Central SpecialDirect General Bureau toured the industrial districts in China and showed keen interests in the tax management.

On December 8, 2011, the KCNA reported that the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) has adopted the Economic Zone Act for Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands. The law was revised and supplemented to include the Free Economic and Trade Act of Rajin-Sonbong. However, the details of these laws were not disclosed and some experts are predicting that these laws are likely identical to the Chinese laws in China’s flourishing SEZs.

However, on January 11, 2012, Yonhap News Agency of South Korea reported that China rejected the new Special Economic Zone Act of the DPRK because it is “not business-friendly.” The news reported, “China said the law was not business-friendly, telling North Korea that the law had some problemsregarding taxes, accounting, remittance of profits and stability of investment.” It is reported that North Korea is working on the revision of these laws and likely for a new special zone act to be passed by the Standing Committee of the DPRK’s Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA).

Posted in Domestic publication, Hwanggumphyong and Wihwado Economic Zones (Sinuiju), Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Rason Economic and Trade Zone (Rajin-Sonbong), Special Economic Zones (Established before 2013), Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

Korea Peace Foundation to donate flour to the DPRK

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Pictured above (Yonhap): Food aid to be delivered to the DPRK (2012-1-27)

According to Yonhap:

Representatives of a South Korean charity group plan to visit North Korea next week to deliver 180 tons of flour aid to North Korea to help ease its chronic food shortages, officials said Friday.

The planned shipment by the Seoul-based Korea Peace Foundation marks the first flour assistance to the communist country following the death last month of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The UNDP also made public that it will place a priority on the DPRK this year:

Radio Free Asia says the United Nations Development Programme will place a priority on improving food security in North Korea by reducing crop losses after harvests.

The U.S. based broadcaster said the UNDP plans to save more crops and improve seed production by revamping North Korea’s crop storage facilities and farm equipment such as threshers and grinders.

Around 15 percent of crops harvested in Pyeongyang are said to be damaged every year, while only 13 percent of the 150-thousand tons of seed produced meet international standards.

Food security is achieved by securing a certain amount of food, taking into account potential population increases, natural disasters and war.

Additional Notes:
1. I believe the “Korea Peace Foundation” is also the “Korean Conference of Religion and Peace (KCRP)”

2. Read about South Korea’s aid to the DPRK in 2011 here.

3. CNN also covered the story about South Korean food aid.

Read the full Yonhap article here:
S. Korean group to send first flour aid to N. Korea after Kim’s death
Yonhap
2012-1-20

Posted in 2012 aid from South Korea, Agriculture, Food, International Aid, Korean Conference of Religion and Peace (KCRP), South Korea | Comments Closed

Associated Press in Pyongyang

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

UPDATE 5 (2012-1-17): The Associated Press is opening a Bureau in Pyongyang. Martyn Williams reports:

The Associated Press has opened a news bureau in Pyongyang making it the first western news agency to have a reporter and photographer based in the North Korean capital.

The bureau represents a coup for the AP over the competition, but its close cooperation with the state-run Korean Central News Agency, necessitated to realize the deal, brings with it questions over editorial independence.

AP President Tom Curley and KCNA President Kim Pyong Ho officially opened the bureau in Pyongyang on Monday. It came six months after the two met in New York and signed a basic agreement towards the office.

The bureau will be housed inside KCNA’s headquarters and will be permanently staffed by two North Koreans: reporter Pak Won Il and photographer Kim Kwang Hyon.

AP didn’t provide details of the background of the two and declined to say if they were on the payroll of AP or KCNA.

Regardless of their employment status, they were almost certainly trained in the North Korean media-slash-propaganda machine with books such as “The Great Teacher of Journalists” — a heavy tome filled with advice to journalists by Kim Jong Il. Their appointment would have been approved by North Korean authorities.

The two have already contributed to AP’s coverage over the last few weeks on the death of Kim Jong Il.

Pak was credited as providing details for several AP stories on the funeral, including “Thousands Gather In Snow To Mourn Kim Jong Il.” Kim Kwang Hyon is believed to be the photographer responsible for several unattributed photographs issued by AP of the funeral.

Video footage of the office released by KCNA shows pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il hanging on the wall above some desks. A TV hangs on the wall and there also appears to be a refrigerator and microwave oven.

It’s this closeness with KCNA that has AP walking a delicate editorial line.

AP is based on a traditional of independent reporting, and KCNA is anything but independent. Its Japan-based website describes the agency as speaking “for the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government,” and its daily output is heavy with glorification of its leader and threats against South Korea and the U.S.

But when it comes to North Korea, KCNA is the only game in town.

North Korea has remained one of the few places in the world that has remained almost totally impenetrable to foreign journalists. Visits are strictly supervised and controlled, and information flow in and out of the country is just a trickle. This was demonstrated vividly in December when governments and media organizations were apparently unaware that anything was amiss in the days before the death of Kim Jong Il was announced.

Getting coverage from Pyongyang, albeit with assistance from the government’s news agency, is probably better than nothing.

The real payoff will come in the regular reporting trips by AP staffers that form part of the deal. Korea Bureau Chief Jean Lee and Chief Asia Photographer David Guttenfelder will oversee the bureau and are likely to continue visiting the country.

It also gives AP a leg up on competitors such as Reuters and AFP when major news breaks in Pyongyang, such as the recent death of Kim Jong Il.

UPDATE 4 (2011-9-29): The Associated Press has signed a deal for HD video from the DPRK. According to themselves (notice it is a new story not a press release!):

Associated Press President and Chief Executive Tom Curley said Thursday the agency has signed an exclusive deal to provide high definition news video from North Korea to broadcasters worldwide.

In a speech in Tokyo, Curley unveiled the three-year agreement with North Korean state broadcaster KRT and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

“Today’s announcement means that AP will be the only news agency to transmit broadcast quality HD video of key events in North Korea,” he said at the Japan National Press Club.

Associated Press Television News will also have exclusive rights to deliver HD video feeds for individual broadcasters wishing to transmit their own reports from North Korea.

The infrastructure will be established ahead of 2012, when the so-called Hermit Kingdom celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late leader Kim Il Sung.

The deal extends AP’s recent push into North Korea to a level unmatched by any other Western news organization.

AP announced in June that it had also signed a series of agreements with the Korea Central News Agency, including one for the opening of a comprehensive news bureau in Pyongyang.

Expected to launch early next year, the office would be the first permanent text and photo bureau operated by a Western news organization in the North Korean capital. It would build upon the AP’s existing video news bureau, which opened in Pyongyang in 2006.

In addition, the agencies signed a contract designating the AP as the exclusive international distributor of contemporary and historical video from KCNA’s archive. The agencies also plan a joint photo exhibition in New York next year. They already had an agreement between them to distribute KCNA photo archives to the global market, signed earlier this year.

“This is a historic and watershed development,” Curley said. “For AP, it extends further and deeper our global reach and shows the trust that is at the core of AP reporting. For the world, it means opening the door to a better understanding between the DPRK and the rest of the world.”

The latest deal also highlights AP’s broader digital transformation efforts in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

AP, which sees video as a critical part of its future, is investing at least $30 million into its video business. Under an 18-month plan, the agency is upgrading all infrastructure to eventually provide HD video that “will fit easily into digital platforms of any media customer anywhere.”

Curley told the group of Japanese journalists that while the U.S. is “ground zero” for the digital media shift, “the movement of information consumption to online platforms and devices is here to stay, and it will inevitably upend traditional forms of media everywhere in the world.”

Founded in 1846, the AP maintains bureaus in some 100 countries around the world and is the oldest and largest of the world’s major news agencies.

UPDATE 3 (2011-7-12): Reuters is also establishing a presence in the DPRK.

UPDATE 2 (2011-7-1): The AP is opening a bureau in Pyongyang. According to Journalism.co.uk:

The Associated Press is to open a bureau in the North Korean capital Pyongyang, following an agreement with state news agency KCNA.

The new bureau will be the first permanent text and photo office operated by a Western news organisation in the North Korean capital. It follows the opening of an AP television office in the city five years ago.

Run by a notoriously secretive regime, North Korea also has a poor press freedom record. It is ranked 177 out of 178 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Under the new agreement, AP will have exclusive global distribution of video content from the KCNA archive. The agreement has been negotiated over the past few months, with KCNA president Kim leading a delegation of executives to AP’s New York headquarters.

In March, chief executive Tom Curley and executive editor Kathleen Carroll were part of a delegation that traveled to Pyongyang.

Curley heralded the agreement as “historic and significant”.

“AP is once again being trusted to open a door to better understanding between a nation and the world. We are grateful for this opportunity and look forward to providing coverage for AP’s global audience in our usually reliable and insightful way.”

UPDATE 1 (2011-3-10): According to Yonhap, the AP is once again asking to open a bureau in Pyongyang:

Thee Associated Press (AP), one of the main news agencies in the U.S., has asked North Korean authorities to help it open a bureau in Pyongyang, a news report claimed Thursday.

Itar-Tass, a Russian news agency, reported from the North Korean capital that a delegation for AP, headed by its president and CEO Thomas Curley, made the request during its ongoing visit to Pyongyang.

Citing an informed Korean source, Itar-Tass reported that the AP delegation said opening a Pyongyang bureau “would make it possible to create in the United States an objective and truthful picture of events” taking place in the communist regime.

“However, there is no clarity so far on the issue of opening of the AP office,” the source was quoted as saying.

North Korea’s state media reported briefly on Tuesday of the arrival of the AP delegation, but didn’t elaborate on why AP was visiting and how long its delegation would stay.

A source in Seoul had earlier told Yonhap News Agency that Curley is scheduled to stay in Pyongyang until Friday and his visit may be aimed at trying to set up a news bureau in the reclusive state.

Among foreign news agencies, only Itar-Tass and China’s Xinhua have bureaus in Pyongyang, while a journalist from the People’s Daily newspaper of China is also based there.

Itar-Tass on Thursday said officials from Reuters, the London-based news agency, also visited Pyongyang earlier with a similar request.

AP Television News, the international video division of AP, opened a full-time office in Pyongyang in 2006, making it the first Western news organization to establish a permanent presence in North Korea. The Pyongyang office of APTN currently provides only video images.

Below is a report I posted in 2006 on the opening of the APTV office in Pyongyang.

ORIGINAL POST (2006-5-23): The Assoicated Press Television News is opening an office in Pyongyang. According to the Joong Ang Daily :

AP Television News, a British-based agency, opened a full-time office in North Korea yesterday, with three North Koreans to be on the permanent staff, said Toby Hartwell, marketing director of APTN in London.

With the bureau, the television service becomes the first Western news organization to provide regular coverage from the reclusive country.

The bureau’s staff will be recruited from the North’s state-run media. International staff from APTN will have frequent access to the country and work with them, Mr. Hartwell said.

Mr. Hartwell said APTN has been given access to the country, and he believes that will continue.

APTN is the international video division of the Associated Press. It delivers video content of breaking global news to broadcasters around the world.

Posted in Associated Press, Communications, Domestic publication, Foreign direct investment, Ministry of Post and Telecommunications | 2 Comments »

DPRK cell phone imports rise in 2010

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

According to the Korea Herald:

North Korea imported six times more mobile phones in 2010 than in 2009, a media report said Wednesday, indicating growing mobile penetration in the reclusive country.

North Korea bought 430,000 mobile phones from China in 2010, up from 68,000 phones the previous year, according to Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA). In 2010, the country spent US$35 million on importing mobile phones, seven times more than the $5 million outlay in 2009, the report said, citing recent data from the United Nations.

The number of mobile phone users in the communist country has grown rapidly in recent years, from about 90,000 at the end of 2009 to 430,000 a year later and more than 800,000 in the third quarter of last year, the report added, referring to data from Egypt’s Orascom Telecom.

Read the full story here:
N. Korean imports of mobile phones jumped 6 times from 2009-2010: RFA
Korea Herald
2012-1-11

Posted in Cell phones, China, Communications, International trade, Orascom Telecom Holding, Statistics, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Ri Chol out as JVIC chief

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

According to Choson Exchange:

[The] Choson Ilbo has just reported that Ri Chol has left his post as head of the Joint Venture and Investment Committee (JVIC).

As we argued last fall, the name of the game for Pyongyang’s elites is securing trade and investment deals. Two main investment organs exist, the JVIC and the Daepung Investment Group. We have in the past heard rumors of other similar international investment organizations being under consideration, also. From these overarching groups, down to smaller State Owned Enterprises, there is considerable competition to show that one’s organization can deliver.

Ri Chol was a close ally of Kim Jong Il’s and the organization he came to be associated with, JVIC, rose to prominence after he helped put together the Orascom deal and was given stewardship. He was even with Kim on his last official visit, to a joint venture supermarket in Pyongyang.

He also spent most of the 1980’s and 1990’s in Switzerland in various diplomatic capacities, not the least of which was acting as a minder to Kim Jong Il’s children as they studied at private school.

What might his departure portend?

A few possibilities come to mind.

– Has the JVIC fallen out of favor with the new leadership? If this is the case, Ri might be tasked with building a new organization, perhaps with a similar focus. It would seem redundant to add another, rather than reform this one, but redundancy is hardly unheard of in planned economies.

– Has Ri himself fallen out of favor? Is he being put out to pasture? Again, it is impossible to know, but it seems that such a long term friend of the Kims, who has a personal relationship with Kim Jong Un from his school days would be a key ally at this time, especially since his deals are driving economic growth in North Korea. (Though who knows? Perhaps Kim the Younger has never liked him.)

– If not an issue with Ri personally, the move could be a part of a factional reshuffling. Bartering and dealmaking for control of the commanding heights of the economy is no doubt underway as the new government consolidates its power. It might have been deemed necessary to grant control of the JVIC to another group of Pyongyang movers and shakers – of which Ri Chol is not a part.

– Also very possible is that the very top leadership is planning to give Ri some new responsibility elsewhere. JVIC may have been judged to be running smoothly enough that Ri’s skills would be more effectively used another important organization.

This of course is highly speculative. All we really know is that Ri Chol, with a track record of securing investment, has left the JVIC. Whatever the case may be, he is worth watching in the coming months, as Pyongyang is compelled to keep investments from China and elsewhere coming.

You can read a longer bio on NK Leadership Watch.

Posted in Choson Exchange, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, Joint Venture Investment Committee (JVIC), Joint Ventures | Comments Closed

On Christian aid groups working in the DPRK

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Below are some excerpts from a recent blog post at Foreign Policy:

Despite the perception of North Korea as a country hermetically sealed to the outside — and despite the very real risks — dozens, if not hundreds, of Christian missionaries operate inside the country, sometimes living there for months at a stretch, in the capital, Pyongyang, or in the Rason region, near the country’s Chinese border. Some run factories, distributing bread and soy milk to the poor. Others work for NGOs or universities, like the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, North Korea’s first privately funded university (launched in 2010), which is bankrolled mostly by evangelical Christian movements. Its founder James Kim, who has spent prison time in North Korea for proselytizing, likes to say that he has “unlimited credit at the bank of heaven.”

Of the five NGOs that formed the consortium that the U.S. government worked with to deliver food aid to North Korea until 2009, four are evangelical Christian organizations. One of them, World Vision, only hires candidates who believe in Jesus. Heidi Linton runs Christian Friends of Korea, an organization that has sent more than $55 million dollars in food, supplies, and medical equipment throughout the country since 1995. Linton explains to North Korean patients and hospital staff that the donors give out of their love for God. “You don’t go into a lot of detail at that point, but we love because God first loved us,” says Linton. “No, we cannot give Bibles, we cannot give tracts, but we can live out for them what it means to be a Christian.” Asked how many people have been converted, she demurs: “We plant the seed and God brings in the harvest, in his time and in his way.”

So how do you bring the morals and values of Christianity to the world’s most closed country? With infinite patience. A missionary from the United States with almost 20 years of experience working with North Korea explains: “We’re not allowed to visibly pray. You can’t bow your head, and you can’t close your eyes. But when you’re praying you’re talking to God,” she says. “All the education we’re giving them is designed to make them think the truth — of all sorts.” Linton brought four ambulances into North Korea emblazoned with the Christian Friends of Korea logo, which includes a prominent cross. “They’ve told us multiple times that we need to change our name and our logo,” she says. “And we said, ‘No, that’s why we’re here.'” Proselytizing inside North Korea “has to be done almost exclusively in a one-on-one setting, where you talk to someone, typically someone you know very well, about faith,” says Todd Nettleton, director of media development at Voice of the Martyrs USA, who says that the organization and its partners dropped 1,467,600 Gospel fliers via balloons into North Korea in 2011.

“The picture we have of missionary work, where you go and try to talk to as many people as possible, or where you’re on a street corner handing out missionary tracts, is so far from [what is allowed in North Korea] it’s not even on the same planet. It’s painstaking, risky work.”

…

Little is known about Christianity in North Korea under Kim Il Sung, because so few North Koreans defected. When his son, Kim Jong Il, took power in 1994 and famine hit, hundreds of North Koreans fled to South Korea; thousands more began traveling back and forth across the Chinese border searching for food, acting as conduits of information between North Korea and the outside world. The famine and the death of Kim Il Sung also “coincided with the opening of North Korea to NGOs, hence the increased presence of missionaries” eager for a chance to preach the Gospel in the closed country, says Marie-Laure Verdier, a Ph.D. student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who is studying Christian organizations working in North Korea.

…

The threat of violence or imprisonment hasn’t stopped the evangelical movement; it has just made them more cautious. Chinese border cities like Yanji, the capital of China’s Korean autonomous region, and Dandong, through which most of the official trade between China and North Korea passes, act as bases for hundreds of American and South Korean evangelical Christians who help North Koreans get out of the country and who attempt to get themselves inside. One missionary living on the border spoke off the record because he didn’t want to upset the Chinese regional authorities, which he likened to “a sleeping dog.” Proselytizing is illegal in China, too, and the Chinese government, at least publicly, supports North Korea’s effort to forcibly repatriate defectors. In March 2011, I visited a Western cafe in Yanji where missionaries congregate and saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt from Wheaton College, the evangelical Protestant liberal arts university outside Chicago. I asked one of her tablemates whether that’s what had brought them to Yanji. “Food’s great here, isn’t it?” he replied.

* * *

Despite the danger missionaries face, it’s far more dangerous for North Koreans who come into contact with Christians or evangelical paraphernalia. Defectors have spoken about seeing friends and neighbors executed for the crime of simply owning a Bible. North Koreans themselves are often converted or co-opted to smuggle the Gospel into North Korea at great personal risk. On a 2011 visit to the border, I saw food packaged with a Christian symbol for delivery into North Korea. “People come across the border, we make them Christian, and then we send them back,” said the missionary associated with the food distribution. “We had a North Korean Christian several years ago who took five Bibles in with him, and he was beaten, literarily to death, when they found out that he had the Bibles on him,” says Nettleton.

But the majority of the missionaries involved with North Koreans work with them only when they’re safely outside the country. “For the ones who come out, Christianity can do a lot more for them because they need so much healing,” says a Christian activist in South Korea. Tim Peters runs Helping Hands Korea, an organization that helps North Korean women and children who have already crossed into China flee to other countries. He told a story of a man in North Korea who, in late December after the death of Kim Jong Il, became interested in Christianity. But after speaking about it in his community, he raised the suspicion of security forces. He and his family fled North Korea the next day, and Peters’s team near the Chinese border is now helping them. “Because they were discovered listening to Christian radio, if they were to be repatriated the punishment would be extraordinarily harsh,” says Peters. In a way, they’ve succeeded: More than half of the roughly 20,000 defectors in South Korea identify as Christians. “North Korean defectors associate Christianity with democracy,” says Verdier.

Rights groups estimate that of the 24 million North Koreans, there are only tens of thousands of Christians there today, though the exact number is unknowable. “My understanding is that the underground church is extremely underground,” says Peters. South Korean churches have amassed war chests of millions of dollars to bring Christianity to — and build thousands of churches for — their “brothers in the North” when the regime falls. Ben Torrey, raised in South Korea by missionary parents, runs the Fourth River movement, an organization that enhances preparedness among South Koreans and North Korean defectors, training them “as agents of reconciliation, healing, and problem solving” so that they can eventually enter North Korea and “rebuild the country on a foundation of biblical principles.”

Is the death of Kim Jong Il a propitious time, though, for missionaries and Christian organizations working inside North Korea? One spokesman at a Christian group that does extensive work in North Korea said hopefully, “We don’t have any contingency plans [for the regime falling], but the wheels could fly off the wagon and the structure could disintegrate. Who knows?” Many Christians who work with North Korea are worried that new leader Kim Jong Un, in a desire to reinforce his new mandate, will be even more hostile to them than his father. “We understand that [the North Korean underground church] is being even more cautious at present,” says Peters.

Read the full story here:
Preaching the Gospel in the Hermit Kingdom
Foreign Policy Blog
Isaac Stone Fish
2012-1-6

Posted in International Aid, Religion, World Vision | Comments Closed

Friday Fun: Tourism, winter, and stamps

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Tourism: Koryo Tours issued a newsletter this week promoting their tours to the DPRK during the celebrations of Kim Il-sung’s 100th year:

April 15th 2012 marks North Korea’s biggest celebration in decades – the 100th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, who, despite his death in 1994 is still the country’s ‘Great Leader’ and ‘Eternal President’.

This historic day will see epic events and the completion of large-scale national programmes, all furthering what North Korean media calls the creation of a ‘strong and prosperous country’ – however flexible that concept may be. We invite you to come with us to experience this once in a lifetime occasion on the ground in Pyongyang

At present, the exact nature of the celebrations and corresponding tourist access is shrouded in the usual mystery – no one knows what visitors can see and do, but as always Koryo Tours will be first in line. Birthday travellers should be ready for sudden changes in itinerary and hotels – all part of the excitement of the country’s biggest holiday period ever!

We have several tours going on over this holiday, including one brand new one we just added to our website; all of them are open for application now.

In brief they are:

Kim Il Sung Birthday Short Tour
– Ideal for anyone wanting to see North Korea’s capital Pyongyang on this massive occasion. We’ll see all the city’s highlights and be there for the nation’s biggest occasion in history.

Kim Il Sung Birthday Long Tour
– In addition to capital sightseeing and anniversary events, this trip goes to the west coast city of Nampo – and for the first time, the surrounding industrial areas which Koryo Tours opened to tourism only this year. Finally, we’ll take in ancient city of Kaesong (buy your famous ginseng here) as well as the notorious DMZ, the concrete barrier that has divided
the peninsula for six decades.

Kim Il Sung Birthday Ultimate Tour
– The Big One! If you’ve ever wanted to (almost) fully explore the world’s most mysterious country in one trip, then sign up today. The tour’s complete version runs two weeks; those on tight schedules can book for first or second halves alone. Week one (Option A) takes us around Pyongyang, Kaesong and the DMZ, Mt. Myohyang and the giant gift halls to North Korea’s leaders, the west coast city of Nampo and much more. Choose week two (Option B), and you’ll see the rarely-visited east coast cities of Wonsan and Hamhung, North Korea’s second largest city, which Koryo Tours opened to tourists in 2010. From there we’ll see the stunning Mt. Kumgang area and the country’s most remote area open to travellers.

In its history, Pujon County has only seen one tour group (run by Koryo Tours); if you’re looking for a unique area of a unique country, you won’t do better than this. Option A is nearly closed so book today; Option B is still open for booking, and ideal for those
who have seen the main sites and want a second trip.

Option A is filling up fast so we do need to ask for early applications for this tour, Option B is still open for booking, and ideal for those who have seen the main sites and want a second trip. There are 15 places left for the Option A or Ultimate Option!

NEW!! – Kim Il Sung Birthday Week Tour
– Due to high demand we have added another week-long tour, so you can take in the country’s most fascinating sites and still catch the Big Event.

Check out our amazing programme and sign up now to be on the ground for the biggest birthday party of 2012!

While all tours are still open, we strongly suggest that you book sooner rather than later due to high holiday demand. Tours may need to be closed early, so don’t miss out; book now! (early bookings also apply to independent tours)

Winter: Today KCNA published photos of Pyongyang’s first winter 2011/12 snowfall :

Stamps: Today Joshua Pollack (armscontrolwonk.com) posted some new stamps from the DPRK:

Click images to see larger version from the source. I have an interesting book of North Korean stamps, but have not posted it. Here are some recent DPRK stamps highlighting Chinese/DPRK friendship. Here are some CNC stamps. Here is a stamp issued to raise awareness of bird flu.

Finally, this week’s issue of the Pyongyang Times, claims that the DPRK stamps below won the “best stamp award” at the 10th China Annual Best Foreign Stamp Poll on November 24:

UPDATE 1: A reader sent me a link to some additional DPRK stamps on the North Korean web page, Naenara. See them here, here, here, and here!

UPDATE 2: Thanks again to the same reader sending this stamp commemorating the sinking of the General Sherman:

Posted in Art, Domestic publication, Koryo Tours, Tourism | 1 Comment »

Fuller Center to building new village in DPRK

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

UPDATE 3 (2011-12-6): Accoridng to the Associated Press, six Americans from the Fuller Center are returning to the site to continue construction (just as the winter begins):

A group of Americans is in North Korea to kick off a project to build 50 homes for families working at a tree farm outside Pyongyang.

Six volunteers affiliated with the Fuller Center for Housing arrived Tuesday. Their trip comes at a time of improving relations between the U.S. and North Korea.

The 50-unit project will house the families of workers at a tree nursery in Osan-ri.

Participants with the nonprofit Fuller Center say they’ll be working side by side with North Koreans to build the homes.

They’re aiming to finish three homes this week, and other volunteers are expected to arrive in coming months to help complete the project.

In Americus, Georgia, Fuller Center President David Snell called the project a “true mission of peace.”

The United States and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the Korean War and do not have diplomatic relations. Diplomats from the two countries recently held talks about resuming six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

Below is the most recent Google Earth image of the Fuller Center’s Osan-ri project dated (2011-5-3):

I have tagged the facility on WikiMapia and you can see it here. The satellite image shows that some progress has been made since the last photo was published in September 2010 (below).

Previous reports of USA-DPRK engagement in 2011 can be found here.

UPDATE 2 (2011-7-13): Google Earth released new imagery of this area today (July 13). The imagery is dated 2010-9-14, and it shows quite a bit of progress on the Fuller Center’s project:

UPDATE 1 (2010-3-28): Radio Free Asia has reported (in Korean) that the development of the Fuller Center’s housing project in Osan-ri has been delayed.

After running the story through Google Translate it appears that the delay is due to bureaucratic hurdles with getting resources from China into the DPRK (please correct me if I am wrong).

Satellite imagery from March 2010 (Google Earth) shows that the project has been launched, but it has moved from its initial location to the east (just a tad):

A reader named “Bobby” wrote in, however, and told me the following:

The Google Translate version is a little wack but that’s pretty much what happened. The Korean version says that David Snell was originally going to buy the construction materials in China and deliver them directly to North Korea by truck but because there is too much to move they have to ship it by train. The delivery has been delayed because shipping it by train requires a lot of extra paperwork and customs obstacles. The workers can’t get visas until the materials arrive safely so they aren’t even able to enter the country yet.
(Also, I think you accidently blocked my name for commenting before.)

ORIGINAL POST (2009-12-18): The Fuller Center for Housing is a religious organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) which seeks to provide adequate shelter across the globe. The Fuller Center’s mission statement can be found here.

On November 11, the Fuller Center broke ground on their new project in the DPRK. According to Global Atlanta:

With help from U.S. volunteers, the Americus-based Fuller Center for Housing will work with the North Korean government to construct a 50-unit complex in a small farming community outside the capital city of Pyongyang.

The project will help alleviate a housing shortage caused by a 2006 typhoon that destroyed some 30,000 homes across the country.

North Korea is providing land, labor and heavy equipment for the project, a community of duplexes designed with a variety of measures to boost energy efficiency.

For example, the homes will have a wall of windows on the front. Facing south will allow in the most possible sunlight, reducing the use of electricity to light the homes, said David Snell, the Fuller center’s president.

The Paektusan Academy of Architecture, a government agency responsible for developing much of modern Pyongyang’s cityscape, designed the complex and will manage construction.

The two-bedroom, one-bathroom floor plans include a living room, dining room and an animal shed with multiple stalls on the back of the house. An upper-level attic space is designated as a “greenhouse” on a design posted on the Fuller center Web site.

The center is raising money for the homes from U.S. and European donors. Construction is slated to start in the spring, and the center will begin sending teams of six to eight American volunteers next summer.

Despite many Americans’ negative perceptions of North Korea, the center has started receiving volunteer applications before even officially opening the process, Mr. Snell said.

“The fact that it’s been a forbidden kingdom for all these years adds to the intrigue,” he told GlobalAtlanta.

Mr. Snell, who traveled to North Korea for the third time in the last 18 months to attend the groundbreaking, added that the center’s main mission is to build houses, but it often ends up bridging cultural divides in the conflict-ridden areas where it works.

“Absence of peace seems to be a common thread, so we’re starting to wonder if maybe we have a peacemaking component to our mission,” said Mr. Snell, who stopped in the Philippines and Peru to kick-start projects on his way home from North Korea.

Mr. Snell hopes to have an impact on relations between the U.S. and North Korea at a grassroots level. The nations are currently at odds over a raft of diplomatic issues, most notably North Korea’s evolving nuclear weapons program and belligerent antics on the international stage that befuddle American policy makers.

Such political differences won’t heal until people trust each other, and the housing project will give both countries’ citizens a chance to meet and work together for common good, Mr. Snell said.

“We all demonize our enemies, but I’m finding the Korean people to be just like you and me. We chuckle and laugh and tell stories, and they have the same aspirations for a better life and for peace,” Mr. Snell said. “This notion that we’re bringing peace is shared notion.”

The entire project has so far been an exercise in building trust. The idea came from Don Mosley, who heads Jubilee Partners, a refugee resettlement organization outside of Athens, and Han Park, an international affairs professor at the University of Georgia who has become a trusted unofficial liaison between the two countries.

More information, including YouTube videos of the groundbreaking and a map of the project, can be found on the Fuller Center‘s web page (HERE).

Posted in Construction, Fuller Center, Jubilee Partners, Real estate, USA | 1 Comment »

North Korean pilots in the skies over Vietnam (1960s)

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

Pictured above: North Korean pilots in North Vietnam (1968).

According to Yonhap:

North Korea dispatched dozens of pilots to the Vietnam War decades ago, with its communist ally short of specialists to operate MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighter jets in battles against the United States, according to a recently released dossier.

“On 21 September 1966 an official North Korean request to be allowed to send a North Korean Air Force regiment to help defend North Vietnam against U.S air attacks was officially reviewed and approved by the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Central Military Party Committee, chaired by General Vo Nguyen Giap,” read the documents taken from an official People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) historical publication.

North Korea’s Chief of the General Staff, Choi Kwang, and his Northern Vietnamese counterpart, Van Tien Dung, held talks three days later to detail Pyongyang’s role in the war.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington, studied the dossier and made it public on its Web site as part of North Korea International Documentation Project.

In 2000, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War, North Korea and Vietnam admitted for the first time that North Korea had provided military support in combat against U.S. aircraft.

North Vietnam sought North Korean pilots’ help in training and combat apparently to take advantage of their experience in shooting down U.S. fighter jets during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The newly unveiled dossier show details of North Korea’s military support.

“In late October or during November 1966 North Korea would send Vietnam enough specialists to man a Vietnamese MiG-17 company (a company consisted of ten aircraft),” the two sides agreed in the Sept. 21 1966 talks, adding North Korea would send more specialists to man a second Vietnamese MiG-17 company in later 1966 or early 1967.

“During 1967, after North Korea finished preparing specialists and after Vietnam was able to prepare sufficient aircraft, North Korea would send to Vietnam sufficient specialists to man one Vietnamese MiG-21 company,” they also agreed.

You learn more and download the entire report (PDF) at the Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP).

Posted in North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP), Vietnam | Comments Closed

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