It appears that the South Koreans are giving into the unilateral wage hikes the North Koreans having been demanding to provide so called “Social Security” to their workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex:
As the North has rejected formal talks, the South is seeking a resolution through the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, a quasi-government organization, according to a senior unification ministry official.
“We are positively considering consultations between the committee and the (North’s) Central Special Development Guidance Bureau,” he told reporters on background.
The committee is ostensibly a North Korean organ but headed by South Korean government officials. Kim Nam-sik, South Korea’s former vice unification minister, chairs the committee.
The ministry official said it’s urgent to resolve the wage problem as 124 South Korean firms there will begin to pay March’s wages to around 53,000 North Korean employees on April 10.
“Once the wage issue is resolved, we can discuss the problem of the general labor rules,” he said.
His comments suggested the possibility of the South accepting the North’s decision on the 5.18-percent wage hike in a bid to buy time for dialogue on how to operate the Kaesong zone, which is susceptible to Pyongyang’s unpredictable measures. [Yonhap]
I think a lot of this growing trend has to do with the debt many of these people ran up to escape North Korea and then having a difficult time integrating into the hyper-competitive South Korean society:
A North Korean defector from North Hamgyong Province was given a prison sentence after getting caught smuggling drugs into South Korea from China last year.
The 38-year-old had looked in vain for a job and was desperate for money when she was approached by another defector who tempted her with the chance of some quick cash.
The defector told police she needed money to feed herself and felt rejected by South Korean society.
More defectors end up in prison here every year. In 2011 there were 51 defectors behind bars here, but that had risen to 97 in the first half of last year. Crimes range from drug possession, fraud and embezzlement to assault and murder.
A police officer said, “Defectors tend to be vulnerable to crime because they are often poor and face discrimination.” [Chosun Ilbo]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the construction site of a deep-sea fishing base on the east coast in an undated photo published by the North’s Korean Central News Agency on March 14, 2015. (KCNA-Yonhap)
Considering that this analysis is coming from David Albright this should be taken with some skepticism:
North Korea is estimated to have up to nine nuclear weapons built with highly enriched uranium, and uranium bombs could account for up to 60 percent of the North’s nuclear arsenal feared to grow to up to 100 weapons in five years, an American expert said.
David Albright, a top nuclear expert who heads the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, spoke about the forecast in an interview with Yonhap News Agency, saying highly enriched uranium is easier to make than weapons-grade plutonium.
Last month, Albright and Joel Wit, a security expert who runs the website 38 North, rang the alarm about the North’s growing nuclear capabilities with a surprising assessment that Pyongyang could expand its nuclear stockpile from 10-16 nuclear weapons to up to 100 weapons by 2020.
In that case, “40 percent of the arsenal would contain plutonium and 60 percent would contain weapons-grade uranium,” Albright said in the interview at his office in Washington. “The weapons-grade uranium cannot be forgotten by any means.”
Some experts have questioned the 100 weapons, including Olli Heinonen, a former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official. Albright said in response to such skepticism: “North Korea is not a country just starting to make nuclear weapons. North Korea has been making nuclear weapons for up to two decades.”
The worst case scenario is based on an assumption that the North has two centrifuges, not only the one at the country’s main nuclear complex, but also a secret facility whose existence has been widely suspected but has not been confirmed, he said.
“I went from deeply skeptical to believing that it’s possible … that they have another major centrifuge plant. We have to do more work … to see if that’s true. But I take the U.S. assessment intelligence that there is this earlier centrifuge plant much more seriously now than I did maybe five, six years ago,” he said. [Yonhap]
Via One Free Korea comes this news that the BBC may begin radio broadcasting into North Korea:
This is just asking for a caption contest!
The BBC is planning a new North Korea service to give the totalitarian state’s 25 million people an alternative to Kim Jong-un’s propaganda.
In a move that could plunge the corporation into confrontation with the North Korean dictator, the World Serviceis examining how to set up a special news channel that will get around Pyongyang’s ban on foreign media broadcasts.
The plan has echoes of Western broadcasts into the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War, when the BBC, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America all broadcasted to listeners behind the Iron Curtain.
However, it is likely to spark fury from Pyongyang’s volatile leadership, and could lead to the British embassy in Pyongyang being targeted for protests or being shut down altogether.
It could also put Britain in the firing line for North Korean-led cyberattacks, such as the one that targeted Sony Pictures last year over its film “The Interview”, which lampooned Kim Jong-un. [BBC]
You can read the rest at the link, but I have been a supporter of radio broadcasts into North Korea for years. Hopefully the BBC follows through with this, but according to One Free Korea they may be having second thoughts. So is the BBC being scared off by cyberattack threats?
Shown is a file photo of North Korea’s SA-5 ground-to-air missile at a military parade in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on March 13, 2015 that North Korea had test-fired seven ground-to-air missiles into the East Sea the previous day in an apparent saber-rattling against the South Korean-U.S. joint military exercises, Key Resolve, which Pyongyang denounces as a rehearsal for invasion. (Yonhap)
It is going to be interesting to see what other dirt the ROK government digs up on Kim Ki-jong:
Kim Cheol-jun, lead investigator from the National Police Agency, gives a briefing on March 13, 2015, on the probe into Kim Ki-jong, the man who is suspected of attacking the top U.S. envoy last week. (Yonhap)
The suspected attacker of the top U.S. envoy in Seoul contacted a South Korean man previously convicted of spying for North Korea before carrying out the attack, police said Friday.
Kim Ki-jong was arrested last week on charges of slashing U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on his face and wrist with a knife during a breakfast function in downtown Seoul. The attack left Lippert with wounds that required 80 stitches.
The 55-year-old faces charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction. Police said they are planning to ask the prosecutors to take over the case later in the day.
Kim has said he was acting alone. But a special task force investigating the case said the 55-year-old contacted more than 30 people — including a former spy for North Korea and a key member of a pro-North Korea organization here — in the run-up to the incident.
Kim Cheol-jun, the lead investigator from the National Police Agency, said authorities are delving further into Kim’s phone and bank transaction records to find out whether any of them had been involved. (……….)
Police said they also believe the attack was premeditated. Kim’s Internet browsing history shows that he had looked up Lippert’s blog, his height and South Korea’s criminal law a day before the incident, according to authorities.
He also appeared to have had an intent to kill, police said. He reportedly said he brought a knife because his previous attempt to harm a Japanese ambassador to Seoul years ago failed. He also slashed Lippert at least twice, leaving deep gashes on his face and arm that required more than 80 stitches. [Yonhap]
