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Kim Jong-un blasts North Korea weather service for ‘incorrect’ forecasts
Kim calls for meteorological observation in North Korea to be put on a 'modern and scientific basis' in rare rebuke of government agency
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 12 June, 2014, 2:24pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 12 June, 2014, 3:46pm
Agence France-Presse in Seoul
This file image shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the offices of the Hydro-meteorological Service in Pyongyang. Photo: AFP
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has censured his country’s weather service for “incorrect” forecasts in a rare public dressing down of a government body in the reclusive nation, which suffers regular natural disasters.
Kim criticised the science used in observations and called for the use of modern equipment in the unusual rebuke, which came during an inspection of the country’s Hydro-meteorological Service, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
“There are many incorrect forecasts as the meteorological observation has not been put on a modern and scientific basis,” Kim said, urging the agency to “fundamentally” improve its work and equipment.
Accurate forecasts are needed to protect the “lives and properties” of people from disasters caused by “abnormal climatic phenomenon”, he said.
Calling the weather service “very important work directly affecting the overall economic affairs”, Kim also underscored the need to “modernise meteorological observation equipment at a high level”, KCNA said.
It was not clear when Kim visited the agency, but public criticism of government officials during field trips by North Korean leaders is extremely rare.
Undated pictures released by KCNA showed Kim giving “field guidance” inside the weather service in the capital, some of his audience standing attentively with arms by the side.
El Nino now '90pc likely to strike this year', causing change in Hong Kong's weather patterns
North Korea has suffered regular chronic food shortages under the ruling Kim dynasty, with the situation exacerbated by floods, droughts and mismanagement.
In May, state media reported that North Korea was hit by its worst spring drought in more than three decades, threatening thousands of acres of staple crops.
During a famine in the mid to late-1990s, hundreds of thousands died.
I think they are dead fishes in bed. You can go to South Korea and look for North Korea defectors. If any of the defectors reciting NK propaganda while in bed with u, then it's likely that she is a spy.
I think they are dead fishes in bed. You can go to South Korea and look for North Korea defectors. If any of the defectors reciting NK propaganda while in bed with u, then it's likely that she is a spy.
Thinking of joining those organised tours to NK but scared fuck halfway, the police come in :o
The submarine and factory etc look like from the 60s....
Two Shot over Prostitution as Article 60 Enforced
Kang Mi Jin | 2014-06-18 18:50
Two men, one in his 60s and the other a student in his 20s, have been publicly executed in Yangkang Province for crimes relating to prostitution, as the North Korean authorities seek to enforce amendments made to the nation's criminal code in January.
An inside source in the region told Daily NK on the 18th, “Since they amended the criminal code at the start of this year, a number of people have been executed by firing squad in Hyesan.
“They are being killed as examples to others. In the spring, a man in his 60s and another in his 20s were publicly shot for facilitating prostitution. Previously the two might have been sent to a reeducation facility or something of that ilk, but punishments are much harsher now.”
According to the source, a couple in their 60s began by renting space near Hyesan Station to travelers waiting for the departure of one of North Korea’s highly erratic trains. With money earned from this activity, they started to run the lodging business on a more formal basis.
However, “Customers would ask the couple about prostitutes, so in the end they started doing that,” the source explained. “The number of men asking them for prostitutes rose, so they started to pay the university student, who was struggling with the cost of his own lodgings, to find more women.”
The cost of prostitutes in Hyesan depends upon the age group of the woman in question. Women aged up to 25 can earn approximately 100RMB per event, while single women aged 25 or more may earn approximately 70RMB and married women approximately 50RMB. Both the man and the woman must pay 10RMB each to rent the room. According to the source, “This is if you rent the room for two or three hours. The cost is doubled if it is rented for the whole night.”
The public execution of the two men was conducted at Yeonbong Airfield on the outskirts of the city. According to the source, a provincial security official began by telling the audience, “We will not accept any crime, no matter how trivial,” before announcing, “Let this execution be a warning to anyone who would aim to undermine or bring down our socialist fatherland from the inside.”
Some of those compelled to watch the deaths were reportedly critical of the decision to execute the men. The older of the two was seeking to avoid becoming a burden on his family in his old age, viewers alleged, while the student would “have just studied if he could have gotten food and such from his university.”
Others, however, were content at the outcome. “Young women, especially the wives of Party officials, said that people who do that kind of thing must be punished, and that ‘those who did prostitution should also be punished’,” the source recalled. “But then, that’s because most of the people who get prostitutes are cadres or people with money.”
Prostitution was one of five crimes added to Article 60 of the DPRK Criminal Code at the start of this year. Article 60 pertains to seditious acts. The five are: illegal phone contact with foreigners; viewing South Korean dramas or DVDs and listening to [foreign] radio broadcasts; using, trafficking, or dealing in drugs; human and sex trafficking; and aiding and abetting defectors and leaking state secrets.
The crimes cannot be classified as seditious by any reasonable definition of the term. Rather, they are a reflection of the most serious problems facing the North Korean regime today.
North Korea at Bottom of 'Global Peace Index' Barrel
Koo Jun Hoe | 2014-06-19 15:50
North Korea is one of the “least peaceful” countries on earth, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP)’s new 2014 Global Peace Index. The index ranks 162 nations with reference to 22 indicators.
According to the index, North Korea ranks 153rd of the 162, with a “GPI” of 3.071, two places higher than last year’s 155th. Surrounding it are nations in conflict such as Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
Now in its eighth year, IEP calculates a country’s GPI on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating a higher level of peace and 5 a lower one. Contributing factors include relationships with neighboring countries, number of internal organized conflicts, terrorist activities, violent crime statistics and number of armed services personnel.
Of these indicators, North Korea received a score of 5 for military expenditure, nuclear and heavy weapons, relations with neighboring countries, security officers & police and jailed populations. However, it received a score of 1 in areas including violent demonstrations, weapons import and export, and displaced people.
Meanwhile, South Korea ranked 52nd, while the U.S. and China came 101st and 108th respectively.
Tourism Locks Private Traders out of Sinuiju
Lee Sang Yong | 2014-06-20 22:03
The major North Korean border city of Sinuiju has been closed to visitors from other regions of the country, in a move believed to be linked to the state’s decision to permit tourists to remain in the city overnight. Other measures have been taken to ensure that minimum levels of interaction take place between local residents and the foreign visitors.
A source from North Pyongan Province explained to Daily NK today, “Since it became possible for foreign tourists to stay in Sinuiju, the control of citizens here has gotten much stricter. Unless you are a Party official or working for a state-run business, you can’t get into the city at all. That means that traders and ordinary people aren't being allowed to enter.”
“We are also completely forbidden from entering the hotels and inns where the foreign tourists stay,” the source added. “They warned us that people who come into unsanctioned contact with foreigners here for tourism will be punished.”
The restrictions, which mirror those placed on contact with foreign tourists in North Korea’s more established destinations, reflect the Kim regime’s aim of limiting flows of information in and out across the country’s northern border. While the authorities need to attract tourists on highly restricted tours in order to earn foreign currency, they simultaneously recognize that such tourists pose a threat to regime security if allowed to interact freely with local people.
Restrictions placed on entry into the city are of specific concern to traders, the source reported, since Sinuiju is a locus for obtaining many of the Chinese goods that are sold in the country’s network of public markets, or jangmadang. As a result, “Sinuiju-based runners are rushing around delivering goods to the interior,” the source revealed.
“There have always been orders not to take food from foreigners and things like that, but it’s extremely unusual for them to stop people from other regions entering the city,” the source explained. "At a time when the number of foreign tourists is growing, they've found it impossible to sit back and ignore traders coming in to get manufactured goods like shoes, cosmetics; that kind of thing.”
Prices vary for a two-day trip to Sinuiju with a Chinese travel agency, but the average is currently around 1100RMB (175USD). This price point makes it considerably less expensive than other tour options. There is active interest in the tours as a result, sources in Dandong report; at its peak, as many as 300 people travel to the city per day.
Pregnancy Test Kit Sales Rising
Seol Song Ah | 2014-06-20 18:30
Sales of pregnancy testing kits are rising in border regions of North Korea, Daily NK has learned. In the patriarchal North Korean society use of such kits had long been comparatively limited, but the desire to take control of issues of pregnancy in recent years has contributed to their popularity.
“Pregnancy testing kits are getting quite popular,” a source from North Hamgyung Province told Daily NK on the 19th. “It started with people going abroad and bringing them back then selling them, and now they're spreading.”
“Women tend to self-diagnose pregnancy by their menstrual cycle or confirm it with an obstetrician,” she went on. “However, there is a considerable margin for error there since a lot of obstetricians check with their hands [instead of machines].”
According to the source, big provincial hospitals are able to offer ultrasound technology to expecting mothers, but smaller local hospitals don't have this technology, resulting in misdiagnosis.
“At an obstetrician, they verify the patients’ marital statue first and then perform the diagnosis,” the source added. “It is still regarded as extremely odd for an unmarried woman to visit a hospital for this, and there is a negative social stigma attached to people who do.”
With the pregnancy test kits, women are finding that childbirth is their choice to a greater degree than had previously been the case.
The source added, “Married women often seek to delay childbearing because, as they say, ‘Having children makes you late to the market.’ It puts you at a financial disadvantage, so they try to delay it until they have made enough money.”
Contraception and abortions are both illegal in North Korea. Therefore, obstetricians offer abortions under the table. The source said that aborting an 8 week-old fetus costs 20,000-25,000KPW (North Korean won), while 24 weeks costs 40,000-50,000KPW and 32 weeks costs 70,000-80,000KPW.
“Pregnancy tests are economical and beneficial overall,” the source therefore concluded, adding, “Chinese ones are not always accurate in determining pregnancy even after 20 days, but Korean ones are good at catching pregnancy after just 14 days. That’s why people tend to prefer South Korean ones.”
South Korean pregnancy tests, which cost 80-100RMB in China, are twice the price of local ones, but they are more accurate, which leads obstetricians to try and get them from smugglers to sell on in the jangmadang (market). “They could sell the tests for twice what they cost and women would still buy them,” said the source.
However, she added, “Some people think of the tests as indicating a better quality of life, but others do view them as a negative thing that just increases sexual liberty.”
Kim's Advice Mobilized for Grass Compost Task
Oh Se Hyek | 2014-06-20 02:17
The North Korean authorities are promoting the idea that last year’s good harvest was down to the leadership of Kim Jong Eun as they seek to drive production of organic fertilizer for coming years.
In a lecture for members of the Chosun Union of Democratic Women, a source from North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on the 18th, “They said that the good farming of last year was the result of putting lots of humus on the fields, and that this was done in accordance with the instructions of the Marshal.”
The fertilizer in question consists of grass, which is cut in summer and then composted for use the following year. In North Korea the ordinary production period runs from mid-July to the end of August. The country is reliant on organic fertilization, including the application of night soil, because of chronic shortages of chemical fertilizer production capacity. Early encouragement to get the process of gathering grass underway may also imply that North Korea does not intend to use its scarce hard currency reserves on importing fertilizer from China, and does not anticipate receiving large scale fertilizer aid this year.
“Last year it was a ton per member (of the Union), but this year we have been set the target of 1.2 tons” the source went on to convey, adding, “Areas of grass get smaller every year but the work of getting grass from it gets bigger.”
The project is a source of predictable consternation. “If they start getting picky about meeting the target then grass thieves are going to appear, just like compost (made in part from night soil) thieves appeared at the start of this year,” the source warned.
It is not only urban areas of North Korea that lack grassy areas; in rural regions most areas of ground are cultivated, and grassy regions that do exist are in use to graze cows, sheep, and goats. The strongest grasses, which do not compost very well in any case, are used for firewood.
“Obviously if you were going to reach the target you’d have to go and get the grass from deep in the mountains or some other uninhabited region,” the source asserted. “Some women will deal with it by paying out ‘economic funds’." This means money paid to exempt oneself from labor mobilization; it costs approximately 15,000 North Korean Won to avoid participation in a project of this nature.
World Food Programme says sharp cuts in N. Korean food aid coming
Shortage of international aid means fewer meals for children and nursing mothers
June 20th, 2014
Joanna Hong
The UN World Food Programme has suspended food aid to North Korea starting from this month due to a lack of funds from the international community, Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday.
With the initial goal of reaching 2.4 million people, the WFP estimate that about 1.8 million North Koreans will now receive aid.
The decision to reduce the aid to North Korea was made on at a board meeting at the WFP headquarters in Rome June 3-6.
WFP spokesperson Frances Kennedy told RFA that school meals for 7-10 year olds will be halted in order to maintain feeding infants at orphanages and nursery schools, the WFP. 840,000 children and pregnant mothers will stop receiving the aid for now.
Dierk Stegen, WFP Representative to North Korea who was interviewed by RFA earlier this month, explained that if the situation on collected funds does not improve, then the only choice left is to downsize the scale of intended nutrition support for the North Korean people.
“We gathered just below 25 percent of what we need,” Stegen said. “If the lack of funds continues, then for the children and pregnant mothers we have no choice but to decrease the amount of food aid and nutritional support.”
From July 2013 until June 2015, the WFP made a $200 million budget to support 2.4 million people in North Korea’s vulnerable social classes. However, the funding shortage brought the budget down $62.5 million and the current amount of aid is estimated to be one-third of the intended amount.
In the WFP annual report, the foot shortage was declared a “state of emergency.” Malnutrition is particularly severe in Yanggang Province and North Hamgyeong Province, and is feared to worsen with this downsizing of food aid distribution.
“The factory producing enriched biscuits for children in Chongjin and Haesan is the only one operating,” Stegen said. These cities have the highest growth rate of 40 percent in the country.”
Although 2,000 tons of corn and 7,400 tons of wheat will arrive in mid-June, the decrease in aid will continue.
As of today, the international community is bringing in 35 percent of what is needed. In order to aid the children and women of North Korea, the WFP must collect $9 million every month until June 2015.
Picture: UNAMID, Flickr Creative Commons
Not chicken, but army!
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North Korea to try two U.S. tourists
American citizens could face lengthy prison sentences
June 30th, 2014
Chad O'Carroll
North Korea will try two American tourists who were detained earlier this year, a statement issued by state media outlet the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Monday.
Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle, who the KCNA said perpetrated “hostile acts” after entering the DPRK, were investigated by a “relevant organ of the DPRK”.
“Suspicions about their hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their testimonies,” the KCNA said, without giving details of when the two would be tried.
Based on previous cases, there is suspicion the tourists could face lengthy prison sentences.
“Judicial systems like theirs don’t have not guilty verdicts…They have correct judgments, guilty verdicts, and subsequent acts of great generosity,” said Christopher Green, international editor at the Daily NK.
“Not guilty is an admission of the state being wrong. The state is never wrong. The state (or party, or leader, whatever) represents the external canon against which right and wrong are judged,” he added
24 year old Todd, who was on a private tour with American company Uri Tours at the time of his arrest, ripped up a visa and tried to claim asylum upon his arrival in Pyongyang.
Fowle, a 56 year old, was detained for leaving a bible in a public place, sources previously told Kyodo News.
In November 2012, American North Korea tour operator Kenneth Bae was detained and sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor for “hostile acts against the state” * preaching Christianity. Bae was arrested while in possession of a valid travel visa for the DPRK and remains in prison.
Detained American in N. Korea resident of Bakersfield CA, says report
Miller was detained in April seeking asylum in the DPRK
July 3rd, 2014
Oliver Hotham
One of the two detained Americans due to be tried in North Korea for “hostile acts” was a resident of Bakersfield, California, a report by local TV outlet Eyewitness News claimed on Wednesday.
The report alleges that Miller, 24, was a resident of the southern Californian town, and that he graduated from Bakersfield High School in 2008.
The U.S State Department told Eyewitness News in a statement on Wednesday that they were “aware of reports that U.S. citizens Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle will face trial in North Korea”.
“Out of humanitarian concern for Mr. Miller, Mr. Fowle, and their families, we request the DPRK release them so they may return home,” the statement continued.
Matthew Miller was detained in North Korea in April while attempting to claim asylum in the country. A Korea Central News Agency statement at the time said Miller had been put into custody for “rash behavior in the course of going through formalities for entry into the DPRK to tour it”.
According to the KCNA report, Miller ripped up his tourist travel certificate and told border police that he had come to North Korea “after choosing it as a shelter”.
Miller is one of two Americans awaiting trial in North Korea, the other being Jeffrey Edward Fowle of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was detained in June for allegedly leaving a bible in a hotel room.
On Monday KCNA issued a statement saying that the two men will face trial, accusing the men of perpetuating “hostile acts” against the DPRK.
They are two of the three Americans currently detained in North Korea, the third being Kenneth Bae, who is serving a 15-year hard labour sentence for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.
The U.S. State Department strongly dissuades American citizens from visiting North Korea, and strongly recommends that visiting American do not engage in “religious and/or political activities”.
Picture: Eyewitness News
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