Category: Uncategorized

North and South Korean leaders to meet in Pyongyang in September

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The leaders of North and South Korea will hold a summit in Pyongyang in September, both countries announced Monday.

It will be the third in-person meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two first met in April, pledging to forge closer relations and work to formally end the Korean War in an agreement called the Panmunjom Declaration. They then held an impromptu meeting in May at the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas.

When he does go, Moon will be the third South Korean president to travel to the North Korean capital, and the first in more than a decade. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung met Kim Jong Un’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang in 2000 for the first inter-Korean summit. Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun also met Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in 2007.

[CNN]

The rise of North Korean smartphones

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2018 marks the tenth year that cellphones have been legally available in North Korea, but overall use remains low: according to the country’s state-run Sogwang outlet in January, more than 3.5 million – out of a population of 25 million – have mobile subscriptions.

Some experts believe that the number of mobile subscription has increased closer to 5 million, with approximately 40% of the population using smartphones.

North Korean mobile users cannot access the worldwide internet: use is limited to the country’s state-run intranet. Since the majority of smartphone users do not have access to the internet, according to one expert, users have to go to a technology service center where technicians install apps to their cell phone.

State media suggests that North Koreans are playing games, reading books, listening to music, doing karaoke, learning to cook, and even increasing crop output on smartphones. One of the most popular apps is “My Companion,” which can be described as a combination of Netflix and an ebook reader.

Choi Sung Jin, who defected from the DPRK in 2017, from Hoeryong – in the country’s north-west – said that he mainly used his smartphone to play games.

But some North Koreans are also using their phones for business: checking currency rates and transferring money, reported South Korea’s MTN in June. An app makes it possible for users to transfer money to other mobile users: users purchase a gift card, add funds, then register the card to the app to send the money through the receiver’s phone number. Amazon-style e-commerce is another rising smartphone feature in North Korea.

Despite all the progress, however, North Korea still lags years behind its southern neighbor, which leads the world in smartphone ownership (94 percent). North Korean phones do not come cheap: costing as high as $800, a huge price in a country with a GDP per capita of $1800.

[NKNews]

South Korean human rights commission to probe whether North Korean waitresses tricked into defecting

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A South Korean human rights commission said on Monday it will investigate whether a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who defected to the South two years ago came of their own free will or were tricked or coerced by an intelligence agent.

In April 2016, the 12 waitresses and their manager left a North Korean state-run restaurant in China to come via Malaysia to South Korea.  The Seoul government promptly announced their defection, but North Korea says they were abducted by South Korean agents and demands their repatriation.

The restaurant manager has previously told South Korean news agency Yonhap and other media that an agent from South Korea’s spy agency National Intelligence Service (NIS) used persuasion and threats to get him to enter the South with the workers.  Some of the workers say they were unaware they were entering South Korea until they arrived at the South Korean embassy in Malaysia.

The independent National Human Rights Commission of Korea has mounted a first state probe into the case in the wake of calls by a liberal interest group of lawyers and from Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations’ Human Rights Special Rappoteur on North Korea.

[Reuters]

Remains of Americans who died in the Korean War returned by North Korea

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A U.S. Air Force plane carrying what are thought to be the remains of 55 Americans killed during the Korean War arrived at Osan Air Base in South Korea on Friday morning, the 65th anniversary of the armistice that ended the fighting.

The exchange means that one part of the agreement reached between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 has been partially fulfilled — albeit more slowly than many had anticipated.

Trump said: “I want to thank Chairman Kim for keeping his word. We have many others coming. But I want to thank Chairman Kim in front of the media for fulfilling a promise that he made to me, and I’m sure that he will continue to fulfill that promise as they search and search and search.”

Earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement: “Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home.”

The return of the remains now would come after commercial satellite imagery appeared to show that North Korea had destroyed part of a satellite-testing facility that was part of the country’s missile-development program. Trump, who told reporters in June that North Korea had agreed to destroy that facility, said Tuesday that the United States appreciated the move.

[The Washington Post]

North Korea is in no hurry to do what the US wants

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Meeting in Singapore last month, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un captured the world’s attention and promised to work towards “new relations”. So, why has there been a lack of clear progress?

North Korea’s notoriety and ability to capture global headlines may have led to its power being overestimated. It appears Pyongyang has sought to disguise a position of relative weakness as one of unqualified strength. It framed the summit as one between equal nuclear powers. In fact, North Korea is a misfit power. Despite its new-found confidence as a nuclear-armed country, it remains a weak state preoccupied by its very survival.

North Korea’s economy, when local prices are taken into account, is roughly the same size as that of Laos, one of the poorest countries in south-east Asia, which has just a quarter of the population. The productivity of North Korea’s workers is the lowest in Asia and it suffers from an unusually low share of natural resources.

By drawing the US president into talks – and partially normalizing ties – Kim Jong Un appears to have played a weak hand well. And he not agree to a timeframe for denuclearization.

[BBC]

North Korea starts dismantling key missile facilities

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North Korea has started dismantling a missile-engine test site, as President Trump said the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, promised he would during their historic summit meeting in Singapore in June, according to an analysis of satellite imagery of the location.

The North Koreans have started taking apart the engine test stand at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert on North Korea’s weapons programs, in a report published on Monday on the website 38 North. The dismantling work probably began sometime within the last two weeks, he said.

North Korea has also started dismantling a rail-mounted building at the Sohae station where workers used to assemble space launch vehicles before moving them to the launchpad, Mr. Bermudez said.

Mr. Bermudez compared satellite photos of the Sohae facilities taken on Friday and Sunday to conclude that North Korea had begun taking “an important first step toward fulfilling a commitment made by Kim Jong-un.”

North Korea has used the Sohae facilities to launch its satellite-carrying rockets. Washington called the satellite program a front for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

[The New York Times]

Global slavery report slams North Korea

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Modern slavery is prevalent in North Korea, among other repressive regimes.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that 40.3 million people worldwide were subjected to modern slavery in 2016, with the highest concentration in North Korea where one in 10 people lived under such conditions. The report was compiled by the Walk Free Foundation, an anti-slavery campaign founded by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest.

The goal of the index is to pressure governments and companies to do more to end modern slavery by providing hard data on the numbers of people involved and the impact it has around the world.

“By unraveling the trade flows and focusing on products at risk of modern slavery that are imported by the top economies, it becomes clear that even the wealthiest countries have a clear and immediate responsibility for responding to modern slavery both domestically and beyond their borders,” the report said. “Developed economies are exposed to the risk of modern slavery not only when this crime is perpetrated within their national borders, but also when that risk is effectively transferred to them via the products they import.”

Modern slavery involves the use of threats, violence and deception to take away people’s ability to control their own bodies, to refuse certain kinds of work or to stop working altogether. Repressive regimes are of particular concern because their “populations are put to work to prop up the government,” according to the report.

The report cites coal, cocoa, cotton, timber and fish as among the products that may be tainted by modern slavery. In North Korea, coal exports are the area of greatest concern.

[AP]

Trump now preaching patience on North Korea denuclearization

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday there is “no rush” in its negotiations with North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“Russia has agreed to help with North Korea, where relationships with us are very good and the process is moving along. There is no rush, the sanctions remain! Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!” Trump tweeted.

On Tuesday, Trump also said there was “no time limit” on North Korea and that sanctions would remain in place. “A major topic of discussion was North Korea and the need for it to remove its nuclear weapons. Russia has assured us of its support. President Putin said he agrees with me 100%, and they’ll do whatever they have to do to try and make it happen,” Trump said.

“Discussions are ongoing and they’re going very, very well. We have no rush for speed … We have no time limit. We have no speed limit. We have — we’re just going through the process. But the relationships are very good. President Putin is going to be involved in the sense that he is with us.”

Although the Trump administration formerly called for an immediate denuclearization of North Korea, Trump and administration officials in recent months have backed off that demand.

Experts in nuclear proliferation and former diplomats with experience negotiating with the North Koreans have long held that any negotiation over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program would take years. An analysis co-authored by a prominent nuclear expert and a respected Korea analyst at Stanford found that it could take as long as a decade to implement an agreement in which Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons.

While Trump asserted that North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat” upon his return from Singapore, North Korea has not publicly confirmed that it has dismantled any of its nuclear weapons or ballistic missile infrastructure since the June 12 meeting with Kim Jong Un.

[CNN]

Economists who fled North Korea on the significance of special economic zones

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South Korea’s blueprint for railroad links through North Korea to China and Russia falls well short of Kim Jong Un’s vision for developing his impoverished nation, according to a defector who provides economic research to the government in Seoul.

Defector Kim Byeong-uk, 55, teaches North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul and runs a small private economic research firm. Kim’s research firm interviews defectors to gather information about facilities ranging from factories to schools and hospitals. Kim said: “What South Korea wants is to connect the Korean Peninsula to reach out directly to Russia and China, but what the North primarily wants is to shore up its own economy by bringing in more money from overseas to its special economic zones.”

Kim Jong Un has increased the number of special economic zones more than fivefold to 27 since succeeding his father as North Korea’s leader in 2011. While the regime in Pyongyang has focused on military and nuclear deterrence to ensure its survival, the time may have arrived for boosting the economy.

Kim’s wife, Kim Young-hui, who is a specialist on the North at the Korea Development Bank in Seoul, concurs with his view that most of economic zones in the North remain severely underdeveloped. “North Korea is dying to see an inflow of multinational and U.S. companies to its economic zones,” she said. “If Americans go to North Korea and start living there, then there’s virtually no chance that the U.S. would attack it or start lobbing bombs there. What could be a better security guarantee than having U.S. citizens in the country?”

She and her husband made their way to Mongolia before defecting to South Korea with their two sons.

[The Japan Times]

US retorts “The world is a gangster” after North Korea’s accusations

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday shrugged off North Korean accusations of “gangster-like” behavior and said sanctions on Pyongyang would only be lifted with “final” denuclearization.

Speaking in Tokyo after two days of intense discussions in Pyongyang, Pompeo insisted the talks were making progress and were being conducted in “good faith.”

In stark contrast, Pyongyang’s take was overwhelmingly negative, with the North warning that the future of the peace process was being jeopardized by overbearing US demands for its unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Speaking privately, US officials suggested the harshly-worded North Korean reaction was a negotiating tactic. But after two days of theatrical amity in Pyongyang it illustrated the gulf that remains between the two sides.

Pompeo said his efforts to push the North on disarmament had the backing of the entire international community.”If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster, because there was a unanimous decision at the UN Security Council about what needs to be achieved,” he said.