Pyongyang
Report

Vol 10 No 1 May
2008

·
Pyongyang
Report enters tenth year

·
Commentary: On the brink - Prospects for
US-DPRK settlement dim, yet again

·
News Reports

o
US-DPRK negotiations and the curious Syrian
affair

o
IT outsourcing in DPRK

o
NZ teacher returns to Pyongyang

Pyongyang Report enters tenth year

Pyongyang
Report enters its tenth year in 2008.  Our first issue came out 29 January
1999. At that time, although we published simultaneously on the web, we were
thinking primarily in terms of a printed version.  Our main aim was to bring together
extract from international media stories that would stimulate the New Zealand
media to approach DPRK more critically and discerningly.  There is a world beyond cliché
and propaganda was the message.
Since we were aiming at the media we needed to produce something which
was up-to-date (the media hates stale stories), and so had to come out fairly
frequently.  We decided four pages
would be the limit.  Short and
frequent was the model.

Time passed.  We were spectacularly ineffective with
the media. NZ media coverage is no more informed or thoughtful than it was
then.  We also found it increasingly
difficult to come out frequently.
Pressure of other commitments, and foreign travel, meant that the gaps
between editions was lengthened, as was the size as we moved into double
editions in an attempt to catch up. Other things were happening.  More people were reading it
electronically, and our email notification list grew substantially, becoming
quite international.  In recent
years Tim Beal’s commentary has been republished elsewhere, most notably
in the prestigious Japan Focus (as is
this one). That in turn often led to reproduction in other websites.  Publication in journals such as Japan Focus required a longer and more
academic treatment of complex issues, and references.  All this took us away from the original
structure and format.

This latest edition does away with the two
columns of the past, and goes for a simpler layout.  We are no longer so concerned about
length.  We give only the opening
paragraph of the commentary, to a link for the rest.   The eclectic collection of
snippets from the media is the same as before.  Readers of the web version get a link to
the original article.

We hope our readers find the new Pyongyang Report an improvement on the
old, or certainly no worse. We do not know how long we will be able to keep
this up; getting to the twentieth year seems unlikely.  As always, we welcome any support,
financial or otherwise, that will help us keep producing the newsletter.  In particular, we are on the lookout for
successors, so if you are younger than us, which isn’t difficult, and
would like to get involved, please let us know.

Finally a thanks to Stephen Epstein whose
critical scrutiny has not only engaged us in productive debate, but saved us
from many a typo over the years.

Tim
Beal and Don Borrie

Commentary

On the brink

Prospects
for US-DPRK settlement dim, yet again

Tim
Beal

Every time it looks as if US-DPRK negotiations
are on the verge of a breakthrough someone in Washington throws a spanner in the
works.  This is what happened in
2005 as the Chinese were forcing through the Joint Statement of 19 September
which seemed to put the negotiations, under the aegis of the Six Party Talks,
on a course for a successful resolution. The US Treasury designated the Macau bank used by North Korean
entities (and British companies and joint ventures in DPRK),  Banco Delta Asia,  as a “Primary Money Laundering Concern
under USA PATRIOT Act”. Although the allegations were subsequently
discredited, partly through the investigative reporting of the US
chain McClatchy Newspapers, the action put the Six Party Talks in limbo for
over a year, as well as having a serious impact on DPRK foreign trade, and
hence on the economy itself, which reportedly shrank 1.1% in 2006. Negotiations
between US Under Secretary of State Christopher Hill and DPRK Vice Minister Kim Kye-gwan resulted in a couple of agreements in 2007, one in
February the other in October, which seemed to offer a way forward. These hopes
have been dashed and prospects at the moment look dim.

Full version of this commentary available
at Japan Focus

If you do not have access to the web, and
live in New Zealand, a
printout can be obtained from  Rev
Don Borrie, 7 Thornley St.,
Titahi Bay, Porirua, NZ

Tel/fax: +64 4 236 6422; Email:
[email-masked]

News reports

US-DPRK negotiations and the curious
Syrian affair

DPRK
Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Issue of Implementation of October 3 Agreement

Pyongyang,
January 4 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK released
the following statement Friday as regards the delay in the implementation of
the October 3 agreement made at the six-party talks:

It is beyond Dec. 31, 2007,
the deadline set in the Oct. 3 agreement.

It is regrettable that
points agreed there remain unimplemented except the disablement of the DPRK's
nuclear facilities.

The disablement started
early in November last year and all the operations were completed within the
"technologically possible scope" as of Dec. 31.

At present, the unloading of
spent fuel rods scheduled to be completed in about 100 days is underway as the
last process.

However, the delivery of
heavy fuel oil and energy-related equipment and materials to the DPRK,
commitments of other participating nations, has not been done even 50 per cent.

The schedule for the monthly
delivery of heavy fuel oil as well as the delivery of energy-related equipment
and materials and relevant technical processes are being steadily delayed.

The U.S. has not
honored its commitments to cross the DPRK off the list of "sponsors of
terrorism" and stop applying the "Trading with the Enemy Act"
against it.

Looking back on what has
been done, one may say that the DPRK is going ahead of others in fulfilling its
commitment.

As far as the nuclear
declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is
concerned, the DPRK has done what it should do. ..//..

Source: KCNA, Pyongyang,
4 January 2008

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200801/news01/05.htm#1

U.S. Sees Stalling by North Korea
on Nuclear Pact

By HELENE COOPER

Published: January 19, 2008

WASHINGTON — A debate is under way within the Bush administration over
how long it can exercise patience with North Korea without jeopardizing
the fulfillment of a nuclear agreement that President Bush has claimed as a
foreign policy victory.

With North
Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out
Mr. Bush’s time in office before making any more concessions,
administration officials are grappling with how the United States should react.

The debate has fractured along familiar
lines, with a handful of national security hawks in Vice President Dick
Cheney’s office and at the State Department arguing for a more
confrontational approach with Pyongyang.

On the other side, Mr. Bush’s lead North Korea nuclear negotiator, Christopher R.
Hill, has argued that the United
States should continue a more restrained
approach, one that is widely credited with bringing about an agreement last
year that is intended eventually to lead to the denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula.

While the restrained stance still appears
to have support from Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, it is
coming under fire from conservative critics, both in and out of the
administration.

In a public departure from administration
policy, Jay Lefkowitz, a conservative lawyer who is Mr. Bush’s envoy on
North Korean human rights, said this week the North would likely “remain
in its present nuclear status” when the next president took over in
January 2009.

“North Korea is not serious about
disarming in a timely manner,” Mr. Lefkowitz told an audience at the
American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “We should
consider a new approach to North
Korea.”..//..

Source: New
York Times, 19 January 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/washington/19korea.html?ex=1358485200&en=58c9338e2f30a1b4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Rice
Rebukes Bush Envoy Who Criticized Policy on North Korea

By HELENE COOPER

Published: January 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, in a rare public rebuke, has upbraided a White House envoy
who criticized United States diplomacy toward North Korea that is aimed at
coaxing the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons.

Ms. Rice said the official, Jay Lefkowitz,
President Bush’s special envoy on North Korean human rights, was not
speaking for the administration when he told an audience at the American
Enterprise Institute last week that the United States “should consider a
new approach to North Korea” because the current approach was unlikely to
resolve the issue before the end of Mr. Bush’s term in a year.

Speaking to reporters aboard her flight to Berlin on Monday, Ms. Rice sharply disagreed, and said
Mr. Lefkowitz should stick to human rights and leave the talks over the
North’s nuclear policy to her, Mr. Bush and the other nations involved: Russia, China,
Japan and South Korea.

“He’s the human rights
envoy,” Ms. Rice said. “That’s what he knows. That’s
what he does. He doesn’t work on the six-party talks. He doesn’t
know what’s going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say
in what American policy will be in the six-party talks.”…//..

Source: New
York Times, 23 January 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/washington/23korea.html?ex=1358830800&en=aee8aa91cc671ca1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Slowly,
but Surely, Pyongyang
Is Moving

By David Albright and Jacqueline Shire

Thursday, January 24, 2008; Page A19

The optimism with which the October
agreement with North Korea
was welcomed has faded amid accusations that the North again is not keeping its
commitments. First came word that "disablement" of nuclear facilities
was slowing. Then there was the missed Dec. 31 deadline for North Korea to declare the full
scope of its nuclear program, including its plutonium stockpile and uranium
enrichment activities. And earlier in the fall, North
Korea was accused of helping Syria construct a nuclear facility
in its desert, reportedly a reactor.

The finger-wagging, told-you-so naysayers
in and out of the Bush administration should take a deep breath. There is no
indication that North Korea is backing away from its commitments to disable key
nuclear facilities and every reason to expect this process to unfold slowly,
with North Korea taking small, incremental steps in return for corresponding
steps from the United States and others in the six-party discussions.

Disablement of the five-megawatt reactor at
Yongbyon slowed in part because the United States
decided that unloading the irradiated fuel rods as fast as North Korea proposed could
needlessly risk exposing the North Korean workers to excessive radiation. North Korea
is unloading the rods and making steady progress on the other aspects of
disablement at the Yongbyon site. Could it be happening faster? Probably, and North Korea
would point out that promised shipments of heavy fuel oil are also slow in
coming.

North Korea's nuclear declaration was to be received by Dec. 31. On Jan. 2,
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States was still
"waiting to hear" from the North. Pyongyang
responded that the United
States had its declaration. After some
tail-chasing, it emerged that North Korea
had quietly shared an initial declaration with the United States in November.
According to media reports, this declaration stated that North Korea had a separated
plutonium stockpile of 30 kilograms and denied that it had a uranium enrichment
program. ..//..

Does this quantity of separated plutonium
make sense? Yes. ..//..

What about any enriched uranium? ..//.. But
we should not lose sight of an uncomfortable fact -- that U.S. policymakers misread (at best) or hyped
information that North Korea
had a large-scale uranium enrichment program. There is ample evidence that North Korea acquired components for a
centrifuge-enrichment program, but few now believe the North produced highly
enriched uranium or developed its enrichment capabilities in the manner once
claimed by the United States.

The success or failure of this latest
agreement with North Korea
must not hinge on the uranium issue. This is an interesting and relevant part
of its nuclear program, but it is still a footnote in the context of its
plutonium production. ..//..

North Korea is looking to the United
States to keep its promises on delisting it
as a terrorist state. Unfortunately, given the climate in Washington
and the perception that North
Korea is slow-rolling the declaration
process, this is unlikely over the near term. Pyongyang should be realistic in its
expectations. ..//..

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons
inspector, is president of the Institute for Science and International
Security. Jacqueline Shire is a senior analyst at ISIS and a former State
Department foreign affairs officer.

Source:
Washington Post, 24 January, 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012303282.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

What
A.Q. Khan Knows

How Pakistan's Proliferator Could Help in Pyongyang

By Selig S. Harrison

Thursday, January 31, 2008; Page A21

Either Kim Jong Il or Pervez Musharraf is
lying about whether Pakistan's
Dr. Strangelove, Abdul Qadeer Khan, gave centrifuges to North Korea for uranium enrichment.
Unless the truth can be established, the hitherto-promising denuclearization
negotiations with Pyongyang
are likely to collapse.

Khan has been shielded from foreign
interrogators since his arrest three years ago for running a global nuclear
Wal-Mart. Musharraf wrote in his memoir, "In the Line of Fire," that
the former czar of Pakistan's nuclear program provided "nearly two
dozen" prototype centrifuges suitable for uranium enrichment experiments
to North Korea -- a charge flatly denied by Pyongyang.

"Why don't you invite A.Q. Khan to
join the negotiations?" North
Korea's U.N. representative, Kim Myong Gil,
asked with a broad smile over lunch recently. "Where is the invoice? Give
us the evidence." ..//..

Why is Musharraf determined to keep Khan
under wraps?

The official answer in Islamabad
is that Pakistan's
sovereignty would be affronted by letting U.S. intelligence agents
cross-examine him. Khan is regarded as a national hero, and the United States is widely hated in Pakistan for invading Iraq
and Afghanistan
and for its insensitivity to civilian casualties. ..//..

Many Pakistanis say Musharraf is
stonewalling because he and some of his army generals collaborated with Khan
and fear exposure. Another possible explanation is that the documentary evidence
does not exist. Still another is that Musharraf changed his position on the
centrifuges and invented the "facts" in his memoir to curry favor
with the Bush administration; by strengthening its case against North Korea, in this view, he hoped to offset dissatisfaction
in Washington
with his ineffectual performance in combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This explanation cannot be dismissed, since
in a February 2004 New York Times interview Musharraf "emphatically
denied" U.S. reports of
Pakistani nuclear technology transfers to Pyongyang.
..//..

Selig S. Harrison, director of the Asia
program at the Center for International Policy, has visited North Korea 10
times and is the author of "Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification
and U.S. Disengagement." He has covered Pakistan since 1951, including for
The Post.

Source: Washington
Post, 31 January 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/30/AR2008013003214.html

US envoy suggests split over
N Korea

By Daniel Dombey in Washington

Published: February 6 2008 22:06

The US
administration is divided over whether its attempt to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons is
paying off, Christopher Hill, the US
official responsible for negotiations with Pyongyang, suggested on Wednesday.

But in testimony before the Senate, Mr Hill
issued a stout defence of the six party talks that seek to convince North Korea
to denuclearise, despite missed deadlines in recent weeks.

The Bush administration had hoped for a
breakthrough on North Korea
to cap its foreign policy record in its final year in office but the pace of
progress has become a hot topic in Washington.
North Korea has failed to
provide a complete declaration of its nuclear activities to the US’s
satisfaction, despite a December 31 deadline, and has also slowed down work
“disabling” its Yongbyon reactor, which has produced plutonium for
its nuclear bombs.

While acknowledging the other major parts
of disablement had been completed, Mr Hill said shifts at Yongbyon to remove
spent fuel rods had come down from three a day to one. He linked this to a
dispute over fuel oil, noting the US and other countries have so far
delivered only a fifth of the 1m tons promised…//..

Source: Financial
Times, London, 6 February 2008

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/98fb0ea6-d4fe-11dc-9af1-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=319b98a6-0c1a-11db-86c7-0000779e2340.html

North Korea Says Aid Holds Up
Disarmament Deal

By REUTERS

Published: February 16, 2008

BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea
appears committed to a nuclear disarmament deal but remains unwilling to
complete two big steps until complaints over aid and U.S.
concessions are solved, U.S.
experts just back from North
Korea said on Saturday.

Under disarmament terms announced in
October last year, North Korea was offered 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or
equivalent aid, and the United States agreed to move to take the North from a
sanctions list aimed at sponsors of terrorism.

In return, North Korea agreed to
"disable" its Yongbyon nuclear facility and fully declare all nuclear
activities by the end of 2007.

But those two steps have stalled after
North Korean complaints that the energy aid and U.S. concessions were not coming
soon enough.

North Korean officials appeared willing to
proceed with disarmament steps, but only after their own demands were met, said
Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University researcher who went to the North with two
other U.S.
experts on a non-government trip…//..

But he and Joel Wit, a former U.S. State
Department official who has long dealt with the isolated communist state, said
they were struck by North Korea's
candor and cooperation with U.S.
disarmament technicians at Yongbyon.

"The level of cooperation was
extremely good, better than I've ever seen in the ten years that I have been
visiting that facility," Wit said. ..//..

Source: New
York Times, 16 February 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-korea-north-nuclear.html?scp=2&sq=north+korea&st=nyt

North
rejects U.S.
offer as hopes for talks fade

By Kang Chan-ho

March 21, 2008

WASHINGTON  North Korea continued to insist during talks in Geneva last week that it doesn’t have any highly
enriched uranium and that it didn’t export any nuclear materials to Syria,
according to several sources in Washington who declined to be named.

Christopher Hill, Washington’s
special envoy to the nuclear talks, suggested to his North Korean counterpart,
Kim Gye-gwan, that North
Korea confidentially declare its highly
enriched uranium program, the sources said, while openly declaring less
controversial issues such as its level of plutonium.

But Kim refused to do so, the sources said.

“We did not have, we don’t have
and we will not have [them],” Kim told reporters in Geneva
last week, referring to the alleged secret uranium enrichment program and
connections to a nuclear program in Syria. ..//..

Source: JoongAng
Ilbo, Seoul, 21 March 2008

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2887687

DPRK
Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Blasts U.S. Delaying Tactics in Solution
of Nuclear Issue

Pyongyang, March 28
(KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs released the
following statement Friday blaming the U.S. for the deadlocked implementation
of the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks:

The implementation of
the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks is at a deadlock due to the
behavior of the U.S.

The U.S. has not fulfilled its
commitments as regards the lifting of the sanctions within the agreed period
but insisted on its unreasonable demands concerning the nuclear declaration,
thus throwing hurdles in the way of settling the issue.

As clarified in the
statement issued by the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on
January 4, the DPRK worked out a report on the nuclear declaration and informed
the U.S.
side of this in November last year. And when the U.S. proposed to have a further
discussion on the content of the report with the DPRK, the latter has shown so
far such magnanimity as responding to such negotiations.

Simple is the reason why
the DPRK responded to the negotiations on the issue of the nuclear declaration.

The Bush administration
was so absurd as to raise the issue of "suspected uranium enrichment"
in 2002, scuttling the DPRK-U.S. dialogue and straining the situation to an
extreme pitch of tension. This pushed the DPRK to its access to nuclear weapons
in the end.

The DPRK rendered
necessary sincere help in clarifying the issue raised by the U.S. side, taking into
consideration the face of the Bush administration which was to blame for the
former's access to nuclear weapons.

When the U.S. side claimed that the issue of
"suspected uranium enrichment" can be solved if the DPRK tells about
whereabouts of the imported aluminum tubes, the DPRK took such a measure as an
exception as allowing U.S.
experts to see even sensitive military objects and providing them with samples.
..//..

Explicitly speaking, the
DPRK has never enriched uranium nor rendered nuclear cooperation to any other
country. It has never dreamed of such things.

Such things will not happen
in the future, too.

Should the U.S. delay
the settlement of the nuclear issue, persistently trying to cook up fictions,
it will seriously affect the disabling of nuclear facilities which has been
under way so far with a great deal of effort.

Source: KCNA, Pyongyang,
28 March 2008

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200803/news03/29.htm#1

Interview
With the Associated Press

Christopher
R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Jakarta, Indonesia

April 4, 2008..//..

QUESTION: Talk to us more generally. The United States
also has nuclear weapons. Has that been ever brought up in your talks? Does it
make it hard for you to argue that North Korea
and Iran can’t have
nuclear weapons while the United
States has so many?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I mean --
Frankly, you cannot begin to talk about the differences in the history and the
country. So, no, in answer to you, it does not come up. What does come up from
time as the North Koreans say, “Well, country X has nuclear weapons, why
can’t we?” Well, the fact is, if you look at you look at Northeast
Asia, if you look at the Korean Peninsula, you can pretty quickly -- I think within a
few seconds, frankly -- understand why it’s very dangerous, very
destabilizing for North
Korea to be holding on the nuclear weapons.
So, what of the thinking that country X or country Y or country Z has nuclear
weapons, and why can’t they? The fact of the matter is, it’s very
destabilizing, and frankly it is hurting North Korea profoundly. And I hope
that they will come to understand that and give this thing up and get on with
life.

QUESTION: But the United States would never give up
theirs. Why is that?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I think
it’s a broad question. But the whole issue of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty and the role of a nuclear states under Article VI to begin a process of
reducing arsenals, this is something we actually worked on with the Soviet
Union and then with the Russians. So, you know, there has been some build-down
in arsenals, and I am sure in the future as we continue to work with other
nuclear states, there’ll also be build-down.

But I would really caution you in thinking
this is somehow related to the fact that we have a country, North Korea, that has a myriad of
problems and yet here they are trying to develop nuclear weapons

QUESTION: Let’s talk about rising
rice prices here in East Asia. …//..

Source: State Department,
Washington, 4 April 2008

http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2008/04/102967.htm

Progress Cited in Korea
Nuclear Talks Impasse

By Choe Sang-Hun

April 9, 2008

SEOUL, South Korea
— North Korea and the United States
made significant progress on Tuesday toward ending an impasse in talks aimed at
revealing the full scale of the North’s nuclear weapons programs and
dismantling them, top negotiators from both countries said. ..//..

Under a February 2007 agreement, North Korea
agreed to give a complete accounting of its nuclear activities by the end of
last year. It has said that it fulfilled its commitment last November. But Washington insists that North
Korea failed to clarify whether it had pursued a secret
uranium-enrichment program in addition to its known weapons program based on
plutonium and whether it has provided nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

North Korea has repeatedly denied having a uranium-enrichment program or
providing nuclear expertise or materials to Syria. But Mr. Hill has been trying
to get North Korea to at
least acknowledge such the validity of such suspicions, according to officials
in Seoul, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity given the delicacy of the talks.

Source: New
York Times, 9 April 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/world/asia/09korea.html?ex=1365480000&en=9f7cd36c7f7ef5cd&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

U.S., N.Korea
‘Agree’ on Nuke Declaration

The U.S.
and North Korea
on Tuesday reached tentative agreement on the declaration of the North's
nuclear programs, an issue that has been shelved for more than three months.
The top nuclear negotiators of the two countries were meeting in Singapore.
..//..

In their meeting, the two sides reportedly
agreed on wording in the declaration, which will not be released to the public,
regarding suspicions about the North's uranium enrichment program and transfer
of nuclear technology to Syria.
A diplomatic source said, "The wording in the declaration will probably
persuade the U.S. Congress." ..//..

Source: Chosun
Ilbo, Seoul, 9 April 2008

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200804/200804090003.html

Republicans
hit at US deal with N Korea

By Demetri Sevastopulo and Daniel Dombey in
Washington

Tuesday Apr 15 2008 19:40

Senior Republicans on Tuesday criticised a
tentative US deal with North Korea
that would allow Pyongyang
to avoid revealing the full extent of its nuclear programmes as part of a
broader agreement towards denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

Christopher Hill, the senior US envoy on
North Korea, last week briefed the House on a deal that would see North Korea
"acknowledge", in a secret document, US allegations about nuclear
proliferation to Syria and a possible rudimentary uranium-enrichment programme.

Under the deal, still being finalised, North Korea
would provide a full declaration of only its plutonium programme, which
produced the nuclear weapon it tested in 2006.

Critics have accused the administration of
backtracking on previous assurances that Pyongyang
would have to reveal the full extent of its past nuclear activities to complete
the second stage of the six-party agreement that would also result in the
lifting of US sanctions…//..

Gordon Flake, a Korean expert and executive
director of the Mansfield Foundation, said that while the original framework
for the deal was "solid", the latest arrangement "turns the
whole idea of a declaration on its head" because instead of providing a
full declaration, North
Korea would simply "acknowledge"
US allegations.

One congressional aide who supports
negotiations with North
Korea said House members were
"underwhelmed" by the briefing they had received from Mr Hill.

He said the agreement reached with Pyongyang "appeared to
allow the North Koreans to evade the obligation to provide the complete and
accurate declaration".

He added that Congress was likely to become
more involved in the debate as the next stage of the so-called six-party
process would require congressional action, including providing a waiver to the
Glenn amendment, which would prohibit the US from providing assistance to North
Korea because it had tested a nuclear bomb two years ago

Source: Financial
Times, 15 April 2008

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041520082049339021

IAEA
to probe Syria
atomic plant report

Mark Heinrich ,  Reuters

Published: Friday, April 25, 2008

VIENNA - The U.N. nuclear watchdog pledged on Friday to investigate
whether Syria secretly built
an atomic reactor with North Korean help but criticised the United States for delaying the
release of intelligence.

The United States revealed its
intelligence material on Thursday about the suspected Syrian atomic plant,
saying it was "nearing operational capability" a month before Israeli
warplanes bombed it on Sept. 6.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, lambasted Israel for the air strike, saying
his inspectors should have been able to verify beforehand whether undeclared
nuclear activity had been going on.

In light of (this, I) view the unilateral
use of force by Israel
as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the
non-proliferation regime," he said. ..//..

A diplomat close to the Vienna-based agency
expressed anger at the delay. "There is a lot of annoyance here about the
lateness in the day that the IAEA got this information. Had this been given to
the IAEA before this damn bombing, then the world might know the true
story," the diplomat said.

"Even right after the bombing, before
the place was totally cleaned up, it would have been easier." ..//..

The diplomat and analysts said the U.S. disclosure
did not amount to proof of an illicit nuclear arms programme since there was no
sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the plant into
bomb-grade plutonium.

"The absence of such facilities gives
little confidence that the reactor was part of an active nuclear weapons
programme," David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science
and International Security said in an email commentary. ..//..

Syria likens the U.S.
allegations to those made against Iraq about weapons of mass destruction
that were never found. It accused the United
States of colluding in Israel's air strike.

"The U.S. administration was apparently
party to the execution" of the air raid, a Syrian government statement
said, without giving details. A U.S.
official said Washington did not give Israel
any "green light" to strike the area. ..//..

Source: Reuters
in Canada.com, 25 April 2008

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=019bbf14-96b0-42ed-aefb-d5d2e073db9b&k=13268

FAQ:
What did Israel
bomb?

The Guardian, Friday April 25 2008

Do the new US
pictures prove Syria
was building a nuclear reactor?

Not definitively. The new pictures do
strengthen the impression that a reactor was being built before the Israeli air
raid last September, but there remain questions about the provenance of the
pictures and the timing of their publication, with the experience of Iraq
in mind. Analysts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear
watchdog, question why there is no sign of security measures around the site,
and say the building does not seem high enough for a reactor…//..

Is there anything significant about the
timing of the release of the new pictures?

Yes, it comes at a very sensitive moment in
negotiations over the North Korean nuclear programme, which could take Pyongyang off the US list of state sponsors of
terrorism. Some analysts have suggested the release of the pictures could be an
attempt by Washington
hawks led by Dick Cheney to derail that deal.

Source: The
Guardian, London, 25 April 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/25/israelandthepalestinians.usa

Skepticism
toward Bush claims about Syria
and North Korea

Many media accounts simply repeat
uncritically the rather dubious accusations of the administration.

Glenn Greenwald

Apr. 25, 2008

There are multiple reasons why substantial
skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the
structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a
nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea. Such
skepticism, however, is difficult to find in most (though not all) American
press accounts, which do little other than repeat Government claims without
challenge. ..//..

Beyond the lack of evidence supporting the
Israeli and American claims that "Syria was close to completing the
physical reactor," there are multiple other reasons for skepticism. This
article by David Sanger in The New York Times references several of them,
including the fact that "senior intelligence officials acknowledged that
the evidence had left them with no more than 'low confidence' that Syria
was preparing to build a nuclear weapon" and some of the photographs in
the video presentation 'seemed to go back to before 2002.'"

There are all sorts of reasons beyond those
for extreme skepticism here. After flamboyantly announcing that they had actual
video of North Korean nuclear scientists inside the Syrian building, it turned
out that the "video" was merely a compilation of rather unrevealing
still photographs patched together, in Colin-Powell-at-the-UN fashion, with
ominous narration making accusations with a level of certainty completely
unmatched by the "evidence" itself. The one "smoking gun"
photograph from the video -- the alleged North Korean head of that country's
reactor fuel plant standing in Syria (in a sweat suit) posing next to the head
of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission -- seems to raise more questions than it
resolves:

If two countries are engaged in a highly
covert and nefarious program to build nuclear weapons, are their leading
nuclear officials really going to pose together outdoors for a smiling, casual,
tourist-like photograph? At the very least, that photograph -- touted as the
most direct evidence -- hardly constitutes compelling or even minimally convincing
evidence of the administration's accusations. To the contrary, the whole
episode reminds one of Howard Dean's prescient reaction to the Colin Powell
U.N. slideshow, which Dean delivered in a speech on Febraury 17, 2003 at Drake University:

Secretary Powell's recent presentation at
the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual
microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence
presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness…//..

Source: Salon.com,
25 April 2008

http://archive.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/25/syria/print.html

The
curious Syrian nuclear affair

Financial Times editorial

Just over five years ago, a US secretary of
state, Colin Powell, made more than two dozen claims to the United Nations
Security Council about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass
destruction. In the build-up to war, many found it a compelling performance. But
all Mr Powell’s assertions were subsequently shown to be without
foundation. He might as well have shown the world a video game.

Not long after that, Israel started hawking “evidence”
uncovered by its spies that Saddam Hussein had moved his WMD to Syria.
It got some takers – but nothing more has been heard of this chimera.

Thursday’s Central Intelligence
Agency presentation to the US Congress – making the case that North Korea
supplied Syria with a nuclear reactor able to produce plutonium for nuclear
weapons – was also compelling. It would also appear to justify
retroactively the Israeli air strike on the site in Syria’s eastern desert last
September. But given the US
and Israel’s
recent record in these matters, it could also be just another dog and pony
show.

Taken purely on its own terms, the US
claim raises many questions. Where was Damascus
going to get the fissile fuel for this alleged reactor? Where was the plutonium
separator, or reprocessing facility for spent fuel? Where is the evidence for a
weaponisation programme? Why, moreover, did the US (and Israeli air force) bypass
the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog?..//..

This affair is very odd. The CIA’s
decision to go public now backs Pyongyang into a
corner at a critical moment in the six-power talks on North Korea’s nuclear
disarmament – leading some to detect the hand of Bush administration
hawks such as Dick Cheney…//..

Source: Financial
Times, London, 25 April 2008

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/731b1f0e-1307-11dd-8d91-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

North Korea and the Chimera in the Syrian Desert

Gavan
McCormack

Did
the month of April bring us nearer to the so-much desired grand bargain
settlement on North Korea?
The Singapore agreement between the US and North Korea on 8 April seemed to do
so, resolving the key plutonium issue so that North Korea would disable its
Yongbyon reactor and seal its plutonium wastes in preparation to handing them
over, and establishing broad agreement on the size of those stocks (for North
Korea, 30 kgs, which it has expressed readiness to prove by opening its
records, and for the US, "between 30 and 40 kgs"). On the other
issues - uranium enrichment and proliferation - North
Korea would admit nothing, but the US would state its "concerns" and North Korea
acknowledge them. This "declaration" process would complete the
second phase of the Beijing
agreement and open the path to the third and final stage - the grand peninsula
settlement. The State Department mission to Pyongyang that followed was assumed to be
working on the fine detail, bringing the two countries to the brink of
reconciliation, and therefore offering the prospect of relief for the poor and
hungry citizens of the North.

Suddenly
on 24 April, however, the White House intervened to pour cold water on such
hopes, accusing North Korea
of nuclear proliferation by aiding Syria to construct a
graphite-moderated nuclear reactor with a probable weapons purpose. ..//..

For
the Syrian proliferation issue to have been raised as it was late in April,
just as other issues were resolved and with North Korea on the brink of coming
in from the cold, was to repeat the common pattern of the Bush administration:
that the bar be raised whenever a solution seemed imminent. South Korea's president, Lee Myung Bak, hosted
by President Bush at Camp David just on the eve of this latest policy switch,
must be presumed to have known of the US shift, whether or not he
actively encouraged it.

The
beleaguered Bush administration seemed to be either reverting to earlier
"regime change" policies or possibly seeking a face-saving,
diplomatic cover to allow it to claim a diplomatic triumph in East Asia to make
up for the disasters elsewhere. After years of futile attempts to pin
responsibility on North Korea
for multiple crimes and breaches, the proliferation card, strongly urged by Israel,
may have seemed the best card left. ..//..

Gavan
McCormack is an emeritus professor of Australian National University,
a coordinator of Japan Focus, and
author of the just published Client
State: Japan in the American Embrace

Source: Kyunghyang
Shinmun, Seoul, 6 May 2008

http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=200805051800035&code=990309

Other news

The
N.Y. Philharmonic in North
Korea: Symbology and the Music

By Anne Midgette

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page C04

Today, the New York Philharmonic is playing
a concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is an
unprecedented event, and the media are making sure that the world knows it. In
the weeks since the impending concert was announced in December, we have been treated
to the spectacle of music pundits enjoying a chance to sound off on politics,
with indignant authority, strong opinions and very little actual knowledge.

On one side of the debate are those who
aver that the New York Philharmonic should not be dignifying the Kim Jong Il
administration with its presence. The other side maintains that this North
Korea performance, which will be broadcast nationally on North Korean
television and in this country by PBS, is an act of cultural diplomacy, proving
that music is a universal language with the ability to spread peace and harmony
(think Leonard Bernstein going to Moscow with the Philharmonic in 1959).

The problem with this argument is that it
partakes of the idea that we, the noble West, are going to bring the good
things of classical music to the benighted North Koreans. This attitude is all
too familiar in classical music in general: It is the same well-meaning
approach that gives so many outreach programs their tinge of benevolent
didacticism, the tone of a conductor speaking cheerfully on a podium to educate
his or her audience.

And another problem with this argument is
that, like many opinions, it is not informed by facts. For there is evidence
that North Korea
does actually have a considerable music life.

"In the State Symphony of North Korea,
they do Tchaikovsky from memory," says Suzannah Clarke, a British opera
singer who has performed frequently in North Korea. She adds, "The
Philharmonic could probably learn a thing or two." ..//..

Asia is a hotbed of Western classical music. This passion has evidently
not bypassed North Korea.
Much of the West harbors images of North Koreans as either wealthy soldiers or
starving peasants. But in Vienna,
Austria, there
is another image of them: as conducting students. The elite conducting class at
the University of
Music and Performing Arts
there has trained no fewer than 17 North Korean students in the past decade.
..//..

"The next batch," Stringer said,
"knew what to expect. They were so prepared they could nail every single
bit of our ferociously difficult entrance exam."

The students also do not fulfill anyone's
expectations of politically guarded wards of the state. "They have a
completely normal experience," Stringer says. "Once they're in the
walls of the school, politics disappear. There is no breathing down our necks
from the North Korean officials." He describes the students as generally
more open, easygoing and funny than their South Korean counterparts.

"Were they to be allowed to stay in
the West," he says, "a number of the ones I've seen would have a
serious chance of a prominent international career. It's phenomenal what they
come to Vienna
knowing how to do."

This is not a picture of North Korea that anybody in the United States,
even the music press, tends to espouse. Nor would many pundits imagine the
scene Stringer describes when North and South Korean students presented a joint
concert of their music in December 2006, and both ambassadors were invited.
Prepared for tension and hostility, the organizers were shocked when the
ambassadors chatted happily together, walked companionably to the reception
with their wives, and continued their lively conversation over glasses of beer.
..//..

Source: Washington
Post, 26 February 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022502621.html

'34
Percent of Army Cadets Regard US as Main Enemy'

By Kim Yon-se

Staff Reporter

A poll shows that 34 percent of first-year
army cadets called the United States
the main enemy of South
Korea, a former superintendent of the Korea
Military Academy (KMA) said.

Kim Choong-bae, president of the Korea
Institute for Defense Analyses, disclosed a past survey of 250 KMA entrants to
single out "the country's main enemy'' while serving as the military
academy's superintendent in 2004.

Kim was quoted by a newspaper as saying,
"While the majority ? or 34 percent ? picked the U.S., 33 percent said they regarded North Korea
as the main enemy.''

He said the result was unbelievable,
stressing the respondents were those who were supposed to be military officers.
The KMA did not make the result public during the Roh Moo-hyun administration,
which ended last February…//..

Kim hinted that he had been forced not to
notify the public of the result, expressing uneasiness about contents of some
high and middle schools textbooks.

Citing his meeting with the 250 cadet
freshmen, the military expert argued that the hostile sentiment against the
"ally" is due to "inappropriate'' education in schools.

In addition, according to a survey of a
group of conscripted soldiers conducted by the Ministry of Defense, about 75
percent of them said they have anti-U.S. sentiment.

Various polls on college students or
elementary school students have shown that major enemies of South Korea include North
Korea, Japan
and the U.S.

Meanwhile, North
Korea had been found to label the U.S. and Japan as its main enemies. There
has been no document or official commentaries from Pyongyang
which describe South Korea
as the main enemy of the North.

North Korea had reportedly defined the U.S.
a "mortal enemy'' and Japan
a "longstanding enemy,'' some military officials said.

Source: Korea
Times, Seoul, 6 April 2008

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/04/116_22029.html

Nosotek:
First European software firm based in DPRK

“Nosotek is the first European-invested
software development & research company in the DPRK, with the head office
in Pyongyang.”
- Interview with Mr. Ju Jong Chol (Vice-President of Nosotek)

Klaus-Martin Meyer: Mr. Ju, you are the
Vice President of a very interesting company named Nosotek (www.nosotek.com).
Could you please tell us something about this venture?

Ju Jong Chol: Nosotek is the first
European-invested software development & research company in the DPRK, with
the head office in Pyongyang.

It is founded by the General Federation of
Science and Technology (GFST) of DPRK and experienced European
IT-entrepreneurs. Felix Abt, the president of the European Business Association
(www.eba-pyongyang.org) is one of Nosotek’s directors.

Nosotek is jointly run by European IT
engineers together with their Korean counterparts. We have presently 50
engineers and a strong production line. We expect rapid growth thanks to our
qualified, experienced and committed staff.

Klaus-Martin Meyer: What are
Nosotek’s main products?

Ju Jong Chol: As we specialize on offshore
IT outsourcing services we already have produced a large range of software
products. Among our finished products, you find scientific software, video
games, web applications, embedded software and 3D virtualization tools.

In case our customer needs a field of
service where we don’t have experienced engineers in our own staff, the
GFST will help us finding good people among the scientists of the universities.
We can rely on sustainable DPRK and European engineering and business
ressoucces.

Klaus-Martin Meyer: The DPRK is not the
Silicon Valley or Bangalore.
What are the customer’s benefits to do Business with Nosotek?

Ju Jong Chol: Of course, we’re not
Silicon Valley or Bangalore.
But we take the challenge to compete with these locations. The DPRK government
took the strategic decision to give strong support to our IT industry which now
bears fruits.

In the DPRK, software engineers have an
average academic math level superior to their western or Indian counterparts.

Computer science education involves
understanding of deep low level processes: when was the last time you hired a
PHP programmer to realize he was quite at ease in assembler?

Klaus-Martin Meyer: Outsourcing to Asia is often identified with a risk of IP leak. Many
western companies are complaining that after outsourcing their partners start
copying their technology.

Ju Jong Chol: Then they are all invited to
do their outsourcing projects in the DPRK! Our country is well known to have strong
laws to protect secrets and we respect the value of IPs. And unlike what is
common in other countries like China,
there is only very little fluctuation of the workforce. Like in Japanese
companies, our employees usually enter the company after university and stay
their entire business life with the high personal motivation. This does not
only help to keep trade secrets, it also helps to keep the experienced persons,
who are needed for long-term partnership…//..

Source: North Korea Economy Watch 20 April
2008, reposted from http://www.interview-blog.de

http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2008/04/20/nosotek-first-european-software-firm-based-in-dprk/

News from New Zealand

NZ
teacher returns to Pyongyang

Christchurch based primary school teacher, Tim Kearns, is spending May in Pyongyang teaching in
local schools and offering teacher training using NZ methodology.

This is the second time Tim has been invited
to share his expertise with Korean colleagues. While in Pyongyang Tim will be
discussing further possibilities for NZ teachers to spend professional time in
the DPRK.

DPRK
scholars to study in NZ?

A DPRK senior scholars study programme
based with the Waikato Institute of Technology,(WINTEC) Hamilton, NZ, is
currently under consideration by authorities both in the DPRK and NZ.

In late June a WINTEC officer, Richard
Lawrence,  presently in China, is expected in Pyongyang, to advise on protocols and future
progress.

While in Pyongyang it is hoped that Richard will also
meet and discuss with the Korean Christian Federation the consolidation of
friendly relations with the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ.

Joint
study of migratory birds

Migratory birds whose international flights
include NZ , the DPRK and Alaska
will be the subject of a Joint DPRK NZ ornithological study during the coming
year. It is hoped that a joint research group will be on site in the DPRK, May,
2009 for the observation of transitory birds landing and departing on their
epic flight.

Colloquium
on DPRK-NZ relations

The NZ DPRK Society is presently
negotiating with NZ Government authorities, and university based strategic
policy groups with the intention of convening in 2009 a Track Two Colloquium on
current and future policy and relationships between the DPRK and NZ. It is
hoped that special attention will be given to agriculture, education, economic
joint ventures and technology including IT.

NZ-DPRK
Society urges emergency aid

The NZ DPRK Society is currently asking the
NZ Government to make further emergency food grants to NGOs ,including WFP, in
response to the food crisis in the DPRK.

Contributions
invited

Persons wishing to contribute in kind or
cash to the work of the Society, its projects, including this newsletter, are
invited to contact the Project Officer, Rev Stuart Vogel, 74 Parau St., Mt.
Roskill, Auckland 1041. [email-masked]

Further information may be obtained
from:
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~caplabtb/dprk/

Dr
Tim Beal

19 Devon Street, Kelburn Wellington, NZ

Tel: +64 4 463 5080 (day);+64 4 934 5133
(evening)

Fax: +64 4 934 5134; Email:
[email-masked]

Rev
Don Borrie

7 Thornley St., Titahi
Bay, Porirua, NZ

Tel/fax: +64 4 236 6422

Email: [email-masked]