Category: North Korea

North Korea may be importing these smartphones, but they are connected to North Korea’s internal Internet which still allows the regime to control what information the public can access:

North Korea’s smartphone imports from China surged to a record high last year, a sign of a growing number of people there being connected to the net, according to data released Friday.

North Korea brought in US$82.8 million worth of smartphones from China in 2014, almost double the amount recorded a year earlier, according to the Seoul-based Korea International Trade Association.

It marked the largest volume since 2007, when related data were introduced.

Imports of portable data-processing devices, including laptops, also jumped 16 percent on-year to $23 million in 2014 despite a 3-percent decline in the North’s overall imports from China in the year.

Around 10 percent of the communist nation’s 24-million residents reportedly use smartphones, with its 3G network run by Koryolink, a joint venture with an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom. [Yonhap]

People living on border areas with China have long been secretly using cell phones off of Chinese towers so maybe some of these smartphone buyers will be doing the same thing to access the Internet as well.

Kim Jong Un to Visit Indonesia Marking First Official Trip Abroad / Sputnik International – http://t.co/xfTuZRsYfc

— Zachary Keck (@ZacharyKeck) January 26, 2015

Can someone please explain to me what diplomatic initiatives with North Korea the US government is pursuing currently that would make this a concern?

Putting North Korea back on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism would complicate not only future diplomatic initiatives between Washington and Pyongyang, but also Seoul’s efforts to improve relations with Pyongyang, according to a U.S. congressional report.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, which was dated Jan. 21, also said that redesignating the North as a terrorism sponsor is unlikely to inflict significant economic punishment on North Korea, particularly in the short term.

Redesignation “could have a significant impact on international diplomacy with North Korea,” it said, adding that the regime could take redesignation as a threat to its two track policy of nuclear development and economic development, with the latter goal partially dependent upon influxes of foreign investment.

Calls have risen for re-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism since the FBI determined the North was responsible for the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. U.S. President Barack Obama also said the administration would review such a possibility.

The CRS report said the U.S. has more to lose than gain from redesignation.

“Placing North Korea back on the list could forestall future diplomatic initiatives between Washington and Pyongyang, particularly if North Korean leaders, as well as Chinese leaders, interpret it as a sign that the United States is not interested in dialogue,” it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the only initiative I can think of is if appeasement is the strategy the US wants to pursue?

Gay North Korean soldiers spotted on South Korean CCTV http://t.co/m9M5TpXdLf #ROK #DPRK

— Tammy 진 (@KungPaoKimchi) January 26, 2015

Via One Free Korea comes this NY Times article that discusses how the Obama administration was able to pin down North Korea as the source of the cyber attack against Sony Pictures:

The trail that led American officials to blame North Korea for the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November winds back to 2010, when the National Security Agency scrambled to break into the computer systems of a country considered one of the most impenetrable targets on earth.

Spurred by growing concern about North Korea’s maturing capabilities, the American spy agency drilled into the Chinese networks that connect North Korea to the outside world, picked through connections in Malaysia favored by North Korean hackers and penetrated directly into the North with the help of South Korea and other American allies, according to former United States and foreign officials, computer experts later briefed on the operations and a newly disclosed N.S.A. document.

A classified security agency program expanded into an ambitious effort, officials said, to place malware that could track the internal workings of many of the computers and networks used by the North’s hackers, a force that South Korea’s military recently said numbers roughly 6,000 people. Most are commanded by the country’s main intelligence service, called the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and Bureau 121, its secretive hacking unit, with a large outpost in China.

The evidence gathered by the “early warning radar” of software painstakingly hidden to monitor North Korea’s activities proved critical in persuading President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, plus I recommend reading One Free Korea’s take on this issue as well.

For any English speaker interested in being a tool for arguably the most repressive regime on Earth they have job openings for you:

Looking to beef up your teaching resume? Like to get off the beaten path? North Korea, one of the most reclusive countries in the world, might be just the answer.

London-based Juche Travel Services, which arranges travel packages to the North, is now offering volunteers one-month stints teaching English and tourism management and development at the Pyongyang Tourism College.

Even though the North isn’t exactly known as a travel hotspot, Juche Travel’s David Thompson told the Mirror newspaper that the country wants to expand its tourism services in coming years and needs more foreign-language skills and travel expertise to do so.

The company hopes to run the program in May and November.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Bloomberg has an article published that looks at the importance of the wife and sister of Kim Jong-un:

One sports a Christian Dior handbag and favors Western clothes. The other carries a notebook and wears dark uniforms. These fashion opposites are the two most influential women in North Korea.

While Kim Jong Un’s wife Ri Sol Ju and younger sister Kim Yo Jong are currently allies in sustaining one of the world’s most reclusive leaders, their overlapping influence makes them potential rivals in a regime where family ties aren’t strong enough to protect against Kim’s penchant for purges.

These women of Pyongyang offer insight to an opaque regime that, while struggling to feed its people, is capable of maintaining 1.2 million men under arms and threatening neighbors with nuclear annihilation. Ri commands a growing following among the wives of North Korean elite while Kim Yo Jong now holds a senior position in the ruling Workers’ Party and serves as an adviser to her brother.

“Uneasiness is inevitable in a relationship like this,” Kang Myong Do, a son-in-law of North Korea’s former Prime Minister, Kang Song San, said by phone. “The wife wouldn’t like it if her husband got too close to his sister; the sister wouldn’t like it if her brother got too close to his wife.”

The sister would try to oust Ri if the first lady_ a “rag-tag commoner” compared to Kim Yo Jong — sought political power beyond the role of burnishing her husband’s public image, said Kang, who now teaches North Korean studies at Kyungmin University near Seoul.

Kim Yo Jong chooses to remain in her brother’s shadow at public events, while Ri locks arms with Kim Jong Un. In a photo released Jan. 21 by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, Kim Yo Jong hides behind a pole as she watches the back of her brother speaking to people at a shoe factory.

Still, Kim Yo Jong “has a lot of control over who has access to her brother, what they say to him, what documents they hand over — in short, she is a combination gatekeeper and traffic cop,” said Michael Madden, editor of the North Korea Leadership Watch blog.  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but for all we know Ri Sol-ju and Kim Yo-jong could be best friends and thus no potential of power struggle between the two. I think it is pretty clear that Ri Sol-ju is there soften Kim’s public image while Kim Yo-jong is a person he trusts who takes care of things behind the scenes.

Here is the latest on the North Korean rhetoric front:

North Korea Sunday described US President Barack Obama as a “loser” over his criticism on its regime, accusing him of being obsessed with hostility towards Pyongyang.

The comment from the North’s foreign ministry came after Obama spoke of the eventual collapse of the regime ruling what he called “the most isolated, the most sanctioned, the most cut-off nation on Earth”.

“We will keep on ratcheting the pressure, but part of what’s happening is… the Internet over time is going to be penetrating this country,” Obama said in an interview on YouTube from the White House last week.

“Over time you will see a regime like this collapse,” he said, adding the US was looking for ways to accelerate the flow of information into the country.

A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry lashed out at the remarks, describing them as “rubbish”.

“The recent wild remarks made by Obama are nothing but a poor grumble of a loser driven into a tight corner in the all-out standoff with the (North),” the spokesman told state news agency KCNA.

“We cannot but be shocked to find that Obama… is so preoccupied with the inveterate repugnancy and hostility toward a sovereign state.”  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

Obama Says North Korea’s Regime to Collapse Over Time / Sputnik International http://t.co/x8ITw1w0iA #NorthKorea #DPRK

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) January 23, 2015

After reading this article it struck me that North Koreans are doing what many small business owners in South Korea are already doing by setting up small shops in front of their homes in various neighborhoods:

More residents are enjoying the convenience of using home-run stalls selling simple items, compared to conventional marketplaces that come with restrictions in operating hours, Daily NK has learned.

“You can sell and buy goods from these residential stalls as long as you have an established level of trust with the owner,” a source based in South Pyongan Province told the Daily NK on Thursday. “More people are converting rooms in their homes and selling goods day and night.”

This foundation of trust is bolstered by three chief pillars: the customer has evidence of a steady source of revenue, and is neither an undercover official looking to crackdown on the operations, or a swindler hoping to cut and run with the goods. Passing muster can take time and requires a number of others within the right circles for validation.

According to the source, these home-operated stalls started popping up in the 1990s, mostly around schools to sell snacks to students. Starting a few years ago, more people have been converting or extending parts of their homes and selling electronics–namely televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines–and food in bulk.   [Daily NK]

You can read more at the link.