More on Pyongyang’s facelift

January 21st, 2009

As mentioned earlier (here, here, here, and here) the DPRK is pursuing the goal of achieving a “strong and prosperous country (Kangsong Taeguk)” by 2012 (Kim il Sung’s 100th birthday).

Today the Choson Sinbun (via Yonhap) fills us in on some new policy details:

Choson Sinbun, a pro-Pyongyang paper published by Korean residents in Japan, said the People’s Committee of Pyongyang plans to plant 300,000 trees and build several “modern” parks across the capital under its 2009 urban management plan.

“The plan is characterized by the construction and modernization of parks and recreational gardens, and coincides with North Korea’s key aim of enhancing the cultural life and morale of its workers,” it said.

A greenspace will be built along the residential Mansudae area, where many apartment buildings are under construction, according to the report. A “folk park” and a “modern park” are also being planned for other areas in the city.

Antiquated facilities at a pond park at the edge of Pyongyang will be replaced by statues, recreation facilities and a beverage store, it said.

The urban remodeling project is being spearheaded by Jang Song-thaek, brother-in-law of leader Kim Jong-il, who reportedly wields nearly unrivaled power.

Read the full article here:
Pyongyang beefs up remodeling drive with more parks
Yonhap
1/21/2009

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Posted in 2012 Strong and Prosperous Nation (Kangsong Taeguk), Architecture, Construction | Comments Closed

DPRK looks to sell (un)spent fuel rods

January 21st, 2009

UPDATE:  A reader points out in the comments that the DPRK is in fact looking to sell its remaining UNUSED fuel rods…so I made a fairly substantial mistake here.  My confusion on the subject seems to have come from my reading of the Joong Ang Ilbo‘s coverage, but I take full responsibility for not paying close enough attention to the other stories.

Here is the specific quote: “The North asked us to focus on discussing how to handle the spent fuel rods as much as possible” (Joong Ang Ilbo)

The revised facts:

1. The DPRK has 14,800 fresh fuel rods—equivalent to just over 100 tons of uranium (RIA Novosti)
2. The materials are reportedly worth over US$10 million (Yonhap). 

ORIGINAL POST:
Hwang Joon-gook, a South Korean diplomat in charge of the denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, led a team of South Korean officials and civilian nuclear experts on a fact-finding mission to the DPRK  to decide whether to buy Pyongyang’s spent fuel rods.

The facts:
1. The DPRK has 14,800 spent fuel rods (Joong Ang Ilbo)
2. This is equivalent to just over 100 tons of uranium (RIA Novosti)
3. The materials are reportedly worth over US$10 million (Yonhap). 
4. The rods are apparently up to 15 years old (Yonhap).
5. The US alleges that the DPRK is enriching uranium as well.  Richardson has more information here.

Just last week, Selig Harrson reported that the DPRK told him “it has already weaponized the 30.8 kilograms (67.8 pounds) of plutonium listed in its formal declaration and that the weapons cannot be inspected.” This amount of plutonium could fuel four or five warheads.

According to NTI:

“Even if the D.P.R.K.-U.S. diplomatic relations become normalized, our status as a nuclear-armed state will never change as long as the U.S. nuclear threat to us remains, even to the slightest degree,” said the [DPRK’s] Foreign Ministry, which issued a similar message several days earlier.

For its own reasons, Russia does not consider the DPRK a nuclear power despite the fact that they have detonated a nuclear device—a fact that would raise eyebrows across the DPRK if reported by the local media. In fact, it was the Russians who supplied the DPRK with the Yongbyon reactors in the first place!

In support of Russia’s position, however, Yonhap offers the following:

North Korea detonated its first atomic device in 2006. The relatively small underground test had less than a kiloton in yield, below what is considered a successful nuclear test.

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Posted in Energy, International trade, Nuclear, Russia, South Korea | 2 Comments »

Jeju to offer pig farm to DPRK

January 19th, 2009

The people of Jeju Island have shipped tangerines to the DPRK for about 10 years.  Now they are offering a pig farm:

According to Yonhap:

South Korea’s Jeju Island will send equipment to build a pig farm in Pyongyang on Friday to raise the island’s local specialty, black pigs, officials said.

Black pigs, or “heuk-doe-ji” in Korean, are native to the semi-tropical island. They are covered in black hair, and the meat is popular for being chewy and rich in nutrients.

Jeju will send farm equipment worth 220 million won (US$159,190), such as pens, feeders, heat lamps and ventilators, later on Friday aboard a ship also carrying tangerines and carrots as part of the island’s annual aid to the North. When the farm is completed, possibly by May, the island will ship 100 black pigs that can farrow.

“We expect this will help provide nutrition for children and the elderly in the North and pass down our breeding expertise. Jeju Island is a clean area free from animal infectious diseases,” Kang Won-myoung, a provincial official handling the pig project, said over the telephone.

The Jeju provincial government set up the “South-North Black Pig Breeding Cooperation Project” with North Korea when a group of Jeju citizens and officials visited Pyongyang in late 2007. The project was suspended for about a year amid frozen inter-Korean relations until North Korea formally requested to start the farming last September, the island officials said.

The “Jeju Black Pig Farm” will be built inside Pyongyang Pig Farm, North Korea’s largest such facility, established in 1972.

A Norwegian company recently tried to invest in a pig farm in the DPRK.  Unfortunately it did not work out.  Read their story here starting on page 86.  

The DPRK is working to increase meat production as part of its 2012 “Kangsong Taeguk” campaign. 

Read the full story here:
S. Korea’s Jeju Island to build ‘black pig’ farm in Pyongyang
Yonhap
1/16/2009

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Posted in 2012 Strong and Prosperous Nation (Kangsong Taeguk), Agriculture, Economic reform, Food, Foreign direct investment, International Aid, South Korea | Comments Closed

More from Taiwan

January 19th, 2009

Although the P.R. of China and the DPRK are supposed to be as close together as “lips and teeth,” we have seen a couple of interesting stories emerging from Taiwan in the last few days.

Case 1: On Jan 8, the Straits Times reported that former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian embezzled money intended for the DPRK.

Case 2: Last Friday, the AFP reported that the US Treasury Depratment was moving on a Taiwanese couple who were allegedly facilitating shipping to the DPRK:

The US Treasury moved Friday to freeze the assets of a Taiwanese couple and their companies, linking them to North Korean weapons proliferation.

Alex HT Tsai and his wife Lu-chi Su were accused of providing support to the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID), identified by Washington as a proliferator four years ago, the Treasury said in a statement.

Tsai was last year indicted by Taiwanese authorities for forging shipping invoices and illegally shipping restricted materials to nuclear-armed North Korea, it said.

“He has been involved in shipping items to North Korea that could be used to support North Korea’s advanced weapons program,” the statement said.

The companies controlled by the couple Global Interface Co and its subsidiary Trans Merits Co. were sanctioned by the Treasury action.

“Proliferators depend on access to the international financial and commercial systems to support their dangerous trade,” said Stuart Levey, Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Our action today exposes a North Korean procurement channel, and we urge governments and companies worldwide to cut this channel off entirely,” he said.

Rad the full story here:
US freezes assets of Taiwanese couple and their companies
AFP
1/16/2009

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Posted in China, Military, Sea shipping, Transportation | Comments Closed

Russia to complete fuel supplies to DPRK this month

January 19th, 2009

According to RIA Novosti:

Russia is to supply a total of 200,000 metric tons of fuel to North Korea as part of a denuclearization deal. Moscow hopes that in exchange for heating oil deliveries Pyongyang will complete the phasing out of its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The full article can be found here:
Russia to complete fuel supplies to N.Korea in Jan.
RIA Novosti
1/16/2009

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Posted in Energy, Foreign aid statistics, International Aid, Oil, Russia | Comments Closed

DPRK won exchange rate continues to climb

January 15th, 2009

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 09-1-15-1
2009-01-15   

The exchange rate for the North Korean won shot up approximately 13-15 percent at the end of last year, and has maintained this high rate into January, according to an article in the on-line newsletter, “Open News for North Korea,” on January 12.

According to the inaugural edition of the newsletter, the exchange rate last year was around 3,200 won per USD, or 460 won per Yuan, with only slight fluctuations, but shot up to 3,630 won per USD and 530 won per Yuan in December. In the first weeks of the new year, it has fallen only slightly, to 3,540 won per USD, and 530 won per Yuan.

According to traders who import and export between North Korea and China, “The sudden rise in the exchange rate appears to be related to trade regulations on goods imported from the North,” and they stressed, “After North Korea protested to China about inferior Chinese goods leading to accidents around the country, China decided to set an example, and unilaterally imposed [trade] restrictions.”

Because business with China makes up almost 50 percent of North Korea’s trade, if DPRK-PRC trade, and in particular, North Korea’s exports to China, are restricted, this would cause a large shock to the foreign currency market,” and, “China’s regulatory measures were eased as January come around,” but, “this year, North Korea is strengthening crackdowns on domestic markets, making it difficult to expect the exchange rate to return” to last year’s lower numbers. According to the article, “There is a foreign currency crisis in North Korea, as well, the scale of which is so great it can’t even be compared to what is happening in the South.”

The black market price for U.S. dollars has shot up from a low of 200 won, in July 2002, to 3,200 won in July of last year, and has continued to rise, peaking at 3.500 won currently. This is a sixteen-fold increase in just over six years. The newsletter put this in perspective by explaining, “North Korea has experienced a foreign currency crisis like that seen in South Korea in 1998 every year since 2002.”

North Korea’s haphazard currency distribution and chronic trade deficit has led to a reduction in the country’s foreign currency reserves, while the failure of the authorities’ currency stabilization policies combined with the growing demand for U.S. dollars by North Korean residents seeking imported goods have led to the sharp growth in the exchange rate.

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Posted in Banking, China, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, International trade, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

DPRK agriculture update

January 15th, 2009

On May 12, 2008, The DPRK formally asked the UN World Food Program for emergency food assistance.  In June 2008, the UN WFP/FAO launched the “Rapid Food Security Assessment”.  They confirmed…

…a significant deterioration in food security in most parts of the country.3 Close to three quarters of respondents have reduced their food intake, over half are reportedly eating only two meals per day (down from three) and dietary diversity is extremely poor among two thirds of the surveyed population. Most families have daily consumption consisting of only of maize, vegetables and wild foods, a diet lacking protein, fats and micronutrients.

and

FAO forecasts that the October/November 2008 harvest will be 70-75 percent of an average year’s output due to inadequate fertilizer supplies, meaning the current food shortages will extend into the next agricultural year. The risk that the country will again suffer summer flooding remains, which could lead to further crop destruction and/or require general food distributions of emergency food aid. In such an event, WFP will have contingency stocks available in the country to rapidly respond. (UN Operations Report)

The UN launched a coordinated response lasting from September 2008-November 2009 which targets over 6 million people with 600,000 metric tons of food assistance.

But according to the Daily NK (Jan 13, 2009):

According to North Korean authorities, the total agricultural yield including rice, corn, potatoes and others reached its highest point since the food shortages of the 1990s this year, at 4.7 million tons.

According to the Joongang Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, a Chinese official involved in the agricultural business who had just gotten back from North Korea quoted a North Korean official as saying that they “had presumed the failure of last year’s harvest due to low temperatures in the Spring and Fall, but in fact recorded the highest level in recent years, 4.7 million tons.”

Regarding this, a researcher from the Korea Rural Economic Institute, Kwon Tae Jin said in a telephone conversation with the Daily NK that, “When I visited Pyongyang in December of last year, Ri Il Sok, Director of the Foreign Cooperation Team in the North Korean Ministry of Agriculture said to me that grain output last year was 4.67 million tons, up by 17 percent over a year ago.” (Daily NK)

Andrei Lankov, writing in tomorrow’s Asia Times (Jan 16), confirms the Daily NK story:

These worries seemed well-founded and the journalists who penned them were often among the most knowledgeable on North Korean issues. Furthermore, most of these stories were based on reports produced by reputable international organizations. By early September, North Korean watchers agreed almost unanimously that a great disaster was set to strike North Korea this coming winter.

Now it has become clear, however, that these were false alarms. The predicted famine has not materialized and does not appear likely to do so in the near future. North Korea has had its best harvest in years, and until next summer no North Korean is likely to starve to death – although some may remain severely malnourished.

This is good news. However, the contrast between the reality and recent predictions is remarkably stark. In recent years, we have come to believe that there are at least a few things about secretive North Korea which are known for sure. Yet the recent turnaround of events has again shed light on the severe limits of outside information about the Hermit Kingdom.

Lankov offers a couple of scenarios that could explain how this happened:

For example, why did reputable international organizations make such a serious mistake in estimating the North’s food shortage? It cannot be ruled out that international observers were deliberately misled by their North Korean minders. Perhaps foreign observers were shown the worst fields because the North wanted more food aid then would otherwise be available?

It also seems that some basic assumptions about North Korean agriculture are wrong. Unless the 2008 harvest was the result of incredible luck, it seems to indicate that fertilizer is far less important than previously believed. It is possible that North Korean farmers have devised strategies to deal with fertilizer shortages.

The false alarms of a disastrous famine in North Korea are a sober reminder that when dealing with the world’s most secretive society, predictions should be treated with the greatest caution.

To learn more, read the following documents/stories:
Emergency Operation Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Title: 10757.0 – Emergency Assistance to Population Groups Affected by Floods and Rising Food and Fuel Prices
UN World Food Program

2008 Agricultural Yield of North Korea
Daily NK
Kim So Yeol
1/13/2009

North Korea reaps a rich harvest
Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
1/16/2009

North Korean Economy Watch topic archives:
Food, Agriculture, Foreign Aid Statistics

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Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture statistics, Food, Foreign aid statistics, Statistics, UN, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Seoul supporting DPRK IT industry

January 15th, 2009

According to Yonhap:

A group of South Korean information technology experts and businessmen will visit North Korea next month on a rare trip to the communist country amid frozen cross-border exchanges, organizers said Thursday.

The 80-member group is scheduled to tour North Korea’s major IT centers and hold a joint software exhibition during its Feb. 7-11 visit, said the non-governmental South-North Cooperation for IT Exchange. They also plan to donate 5,000 IT books and journals to the North.

“IT books we have delivered so far were mostly Korean language books, and the North Koreans requested original texts. So we collected some foreign language texts this time,” said Kim Jin-hyung, a member of the team and professor from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

Through annual visits since 2006, the IT organization has delivered about 30,000 technical books and latest journals. Yoo Wan-ryung, chief of Seoul-based Unikotech Korea which has promoted investment in North Korea, participates in this visit, organizers said.

Read the full article here:
S. Korean IT experts to visit N. Korea
Yonhap
1/15/2008

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Posted in Computing/IT, Education, International Aid, South Korea, South-North Cooperation for IT Exchange | Comments Closed

CIA publishes 2008 “DPRK who’s who”

January 14th, 2009

UPDATE: The South Korean Ministry of Unifications offers a more comprehensive organization chart of North Korea’s various political organs. I should point out that this is a dejure (not defacto) organizational chart.

ORIGINAL POST:
(Hat tip to Mike Madden for the link)

After the ministerial shakeups in the DPRK were discovered last week, the US Central Intelligence Agency updated their list of DPRK VIPs.  It will come as no surprise that Kim Jong il managed to maintain control of his three titles: General Secretary Korean Workers’ Party, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, and Chairman of the National Defence Commission.

The full list can be viewed on the CIA’s web page here. 

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Posted in Korean People's Army, National Defense Commission, Worker's Party | 10 Comments »

Renewable Energy

January 13th, 2009

NCNK Newsletter Vol. 2, Issue 1
January 13, 2009
Download PDF here

A DPRK “Shangri-la” Powered by Solar Electricity
By Victor Hsu

In 1988 Bongsu Church — the first Protestant Church built in Pyongyang since the end of the Korean War — opened its doors for the first time. The following year the Korean Christians Federation asked if my organization, Church World Service, would provide a generator for the brand new church. A generator would enable parishioners to enjoy air conditioning during the hot summer months when the temperature can reach 85 degrees Fahrenheit and above. I suggested to the church officials that we install solar generators from China. However, lacking experience with solar power, they preferred the more familiar diesel-powered generators. But the seeds of interest in alternative sources of energy were just starting to grow. Soon after this exchange I learned that the DPRK was investigating the possibility of using another form of renewable energy — windmills.

I have been visiting the DPRK for two decades in many different capacities, most recently as the DPRK National Director of World Vision International (WVI). Over this time, I have learned, as have many of my colleagues from the United States and around the world, that knowledge-sharing and knowledge transfer enhance the benefits of humanitarian assistance. There is increasing evidence that the DPRK seeks out and appreciates this form of international cooperation.

Since 2000, various technical cooperation and assistance projects have involved NGOs and professional organizations in Europe and North America, especially in the field of agriculture and medicine.

World Vision International (WVI) has been active in DPRK since 1995, when a serious humanitarian crisis hit the country. In 2006, shortly after becoming DPRK National Director at WVI, I suggested to the DPR-Korean American Private Exchange Society (KAPES) that they designate a province where WVI could concentrate its humanitarian interventions. Subsequently, after discussions with the DPRK Mission to the UN, North Hwanghae Province was designated as a World Vision International humanitarian zone, and we were asked to work in Dochi-ri. An ambassador at the DPRK Mission to the UN, Ambassador Han Song Ryol, told me he could envision the province becoming a DPRK Shangri-la!

Dochi-ri is a small sprawling farming community nestled in hilly terrain in Yongtan County, just about a two hours drive south of Pyongyang. A river runs through this community of 12,000 residents and the farmers enjoy a man-made reservoir. This village traditionally grows corn but has begun soybean cultivation as part of the DPRK agricultural program to replace corn with the more nutritious soybean. Like many “ris,” or villages, in the DPRK, Dochi-ri is served by a clinic and a nurse. Itinerant doctors visit the village for non-routine medical interventions. The clinic, the houses, the small primary school and the kindergarten rely on a sporadic electricity supply.

WVI agreed to provide Dochi-ri with an organic fertilizer plant, the first of its kind in the DPRK, a potable water and sanitation system, a bakery and a soymilk processing facility. We also agreed to upgrade the clinic, replace the roofs of the clinic, kindergarten and primary school, and replace the school furniture. All these projects have been completed over the last 2 years, with the exception of the potable water system, which will be finished by mid-2009. The 12, 000 Dochi-ri residents are happy with all of the various renovations, but they are most excited by one innovation: the experiment with solar generators. After careful research and planning among the DPRK partners at the national and local level with the help of a Chinese company, WVI agreed to provide solar generators to the school (5kWh), the clinic (3kWh) and the home of the village engineer (2kWh). These were purchased in China and installed by Chinese technicians.

Chinese technicians and American engineers – the latter coincidentally in Dochi-ri to drill wells and install the water and sanitation system – trained the local people’s committee managers on the use and maintenance of the generators. Our engineers have visited Dochir-ri several times over the past two years after the generators were installed and were happy to respond to all of the villagers’ technical questions. WVI engineers complimented our North Korean partners on the quality of the maintenance. Whenever the solar generator issue comes up in the conversations, our technicians assure the managers that good maintenance of the batteries will ensure at least the minimum of their five-year life span. Our engineers have no doubt that this will be the case given the track record of the DPRK’s technicians. DPRK technicians are known for the meticulousness and thoroughness of their approach to learning.

The village technician’s home with its constant supply of electricity is now the constant envy of the “ri.” In fact, the villagers are requesting WVI to supply each of their homes similar generator. When I visited Dochi-ri in September 2007 the engineer invited the WVI delegation to his home to show us how he is able to have lighting in his house and enjoy TV and music from his CD player. Though he could not speak a word of English, his smiles and a halting “Thank you!” were enough for us to know how the solar panels are making a real difference in the life of this farming community.

A year after the first generators were installed, Dochi-ri villagers determined that they needed a generator to power the water tower for the school. The decision to “go solar” was easy, based on the positive experiences with the first three generators. A fourth solar generator was installed in 2007, and it now provides water for the school. In the past two years, the cost of solar panels has soared, and China is investing heavily in anufacturing them. We hope to see a similar effort to design more powerful, maintenance-free and efficient batteries to enable us to continue to bring solar power to Dochi-ri and other villages in the DPRK.

The experience of the community has been overwhelmingly positive especially with regard to this low-maintenance but highly efficient technology. Now Dochi-ri has ready access to organic fertilizer for its crops, a water sanitation system, an upgraded school, kindergarten and clinic, and bread and soymilk for the children’s lunches. With electricity in the school and clinic, Dochi-ri is beginning to become the Ambassador’s vision of a DPRK Shangri-la!

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Posted in Energy, International Aid, Solar, Wind, World Vision | Comments Closed

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