Sephia pictures from a dark place

The Washington Post has an article highlighting the first Instagram pictures sent from North Korea. They are being sent by Jean Lee, the Associated Press bureau chief in Pyongyang, a Monster Island favorite.

The picture in this post is supposedly the very first one ever to come out of the reclusive country, which only came about after North Korea decided to allow foreigners in North Korea to have 3G access.

Will this taste of social media change anything? Does it ever?

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Who to believe? Who to believe?

Jean Lee of AP's Pyongyang Bureau

I've slightly mocked the over-seriousness of the reaction to North Korea's latest satellite-on-a-missile launch or nuclear detonation down in some mine, either of which would only really be a problem if they can actually succeed. And even then it's not entirely clear how much more of a rogue state they can become (the evildoers who would want their missiles already have other potential sellers and it would be the nukes the Norks already supposedly have that would be the true danger).

But what's also somewhat amusing (to me, anyway, but I'm easily amused) is how the media is reacting to it. Last night, I went to bed reading an Associated Press piece in the Orange County Register saying that South Korea has given a tentative bill of good health to the satellite that is orbiting Earth and most likely broadcasting the Great Leader's favorite revolutionary movies to any alien spaceship passing by:

A satellite North Korea launched aboard a long-range rocket is orbiting normally, South Korea said Thursday, following a defiant liftoff that drew a wave of international condemnation.

Washington and its allies are pushing for punishment over the launch they say is nothing but a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

The launch of the three-stage rocket — similar in design to a model capable of carrying a nuclear-tipped warhead as far as California — raises the stakes in the international standoff over North Korea's expanding atomic arsenal. As Pyongyang refines its technology, its next step may be conducting its third nuclear test, experts warn.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said the satellite launched by the rocket is orbiting normally at a speed of 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per second, though it's not known what mission it is performing. North Korean space officials say the satellite would be used to study crops and weather patterns.

Defense Ministry Spokesman Kim Min-seok said it usually takes about two weeks to determine whether a satellite works succesfully after liftoff. He cited data from the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Okay, so I made up the part about ET (or did I?). But AP themselves seem to be caught up in their own happy ending. Granted that the article does state that the Kwangmyŏng-3 satellite is not out of the space woods yet, but it's a generally hunky-dory piece, authored by the AP's man in Pyongyang, Jean Lee, about whom there are some serious questions regarding a quid pro quo between the AP and DPRK trading access for good press with a sprinkle of propagandizing.

Contrast it with the NBC News take:

The object that North Korea sent into space on Wednesday appears to be “tumbling out of control” as it orbits the earth, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The officials said that it is indeed some kind of space vehicle, but they still haven’t been able to determine exactly what the satellite is supposed to do.

In a statement, the White House said the rocket launch was a highly provocative act that threatens regional security and violates U.N. resolutions.

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday condemned the launch, calling it a "clear violation" of U.N. resolutions. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he "deplores" the launch.

I remember when "provocative" meant sexy. Missiles shot in the air, not provocative to me. Something explosive happening deep in a hole... well maybe.

Anyhoo, NBC News also reports that China is upset:

North Korea had warned of a possible delay to the launch for "technical reasons," although there was speculation that the real reason was political, that China was applying pressure behind the scenes. After all, Beijing had expressed "deep concern" over the test, and that is pretty strong for China, the North's closest diplomatic and economic ally.

So Wednesday's test would seem to be an extraordinary snub to China, when it might be assumed that North Korea's new young leader, Kim Jong Un, would want to get off on a good footing with China's new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping.

North Korea watchers have been speculating that Kim is angling for an early audience with Xi, which so far has been denied.

Launching a rocket in defiance of Beijing would hardly seem a great way of achieving it.

Beijing's initial response was a masterful piece of diplomatic contortionism -- expressing "regret" and calling on Pyongyang to abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions, but at the same time making clear that China isn't about to back sanctions against the North.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman called for a resumption of six-party talks, even though these have been widely discredited, and called for "all sides" to act calmly.

There was anger, dismay and some surprise as North Korea launched a rocket in defiance of its critics abroad. NBC's Ian Williams reports from Beijing.

International talks are a big favorite of Beijing, which likes the role of diplomatic ringmaster.

More than being ringmaster, Beijing loves its ring of satellite states and buffer territories: Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and North Korea. Still, maybe it's time for China to consider the Kushibo Plan and help us turn the lights out on the Kim Dynasty regime. Wise up, already, they are slipping from your control, PRC leaders, and it's high time you realize that.

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AP = acquiescence to Pyongyang?

Joshua Stanton of One Free Korea has been beating the drum about the Associated Press's accommodating news coverage of the DPRK in exchange for the right to have the first (and thus far only) Western news bureau in the Hermit Kim-dom, which he likens to The Onion. His recent post (first link above) was prompted by a series of tweets by Chico Harlan, the WaPo's Man on Pyongyang (see here, here, here, and here).

Jean Lee of AP Pyongyang
bureau (Twitter feed)

Frankly, I share Mr Stanton's disdain for the Pyongyang regime, even in the post-Kim Jong-il era, as well as his concern that AP is being used as a propaganda tool.

Having worked quite some time in news media, I may perhaps be a little more grounded in pragmatism than idealism. That means that, unlike Joshua, I do see some potential value in a major Western news service constantly having boots on the ground in North Korea, when/if some serious sh¡t goes down up north.

Even with a generally compliant media partner like AP seems to have been so far, it would be harder for Pyongyang to contain news and information about, say, a North Korean version of an Arab Spring, were that to occur. (And I think it may be coming.)

There are two other potential positives here. One is that AP has a chance to show regular North Koreans (or as regular as you can find in the North Korean capital where one must be a party loyalist) being regular North Koreans. It's humanizing, in a way that's an antidote to the way an entire country gets demonized if they have a leader whose the subject of angry political speeches or late-night comedians.

Second, I dare say there may even by a sort of Hawthorne Effect at work here, whereby the authorities kinda sorta behave better knowing that there are observers in their midst.

Ultimately it comes down to this: North Korea allows no one into its house unless they agree to play by their rules, not some froufrou "international norms" that everyone else abides by, and AP knows it. Perhaps they thought they could effect more positive change by doing it this way. For now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but Jean Lee and her editors back in Washington should know we're watching them (meant in a watchdoggedly diligent way, not a creepy way).

Pyongyang's position leaves us with two choices: go along to get in the door, or stay locked outside. Although I wouldn't want Reuters, AFP, the NYT, WaPo, LAT, BBC, etc., etc. to all choose this path, methinks it might be good that at least one agency is inside the lion's den.

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Millions of moviegoers would approve

If you're a regular visitor to Monster Island, you're no doubt familiar with North Korea's unexpected cell phone market.

Indeed, back in December 2008, I first blogged about North Korea's plans to implement a 3G network (that one includes a list of North Korean emoticons). I then reported in November 2010 that North Korean youth had led to a quadrupling of cell phone subscriptions in the DPRK (which autocorrect wants to change to dork), and again in April 2011 that their 18,750% growth over the past three years made them the fastest growing mobile market in the world.

[source]

At the time, I expressed my pleasure that the Norks were allowing such openness, perhaps the sign of positive pressure from China, which hopes to see North Korea follow Deng-esque reform:

Anyway, I'm thinking Orascom's North Korean adventure is a good thing. 300K subscriptions means there is one cell phone for every eighty people, and that number is growing. Simply put, the more subscribers there are, the harder it is for the authorities to monitor communications.

Well, unfortunately, there may be folks in Pyongyang who also visit Monster Island, and they may have taken note of what I'd written in the very next paragraph:

And while most or nearly all the current subscribers are regime loyalists, if events go sour in such a way that it turns people against the dynasty or the party or whatever (as they have done for much of the peasantry), then — boom! — you've got an instant means of communication for the opposition. Indeed, the Egypt-based Orascom may very well be paving the way for North Korea's own version of a popular uprising somewhere down the Jasmine Revolutionary road.

Certainly I'm not the only one who has suggested such things, though I was one of the first. And this week we get news that indeed the North Korean government may be sitting up and taking notice at the potential threat of all those cell phones: the regime has announced a ban on cell phones:

North Korea has warned that any of its citizens caught trying to defect to China or using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il will be branded as "war criminals" and punished accordingly.

Granted, this is just for a three-month period and be completely lifted in the spring, but it could be an ominous sign of things to come. This certainly isn't a first when it comes to draconian measures against mobile devices: In May 2011, we also got word that the regime was cracking down on unauthorized phones smuggled in from China.

Though I'm no fan of Selig Harrison, I share his view that the seemingly monolithic regime in Pyongyang is actually caught up in some serious factionalism, the kind you'd see in any Korean palace drama on the telly. And I'm holding out that the Michael Jordan-loving Kim Jong-un, who have long believed is just a figurehead, may somehow find a way to transcend the fears of the different cliques in the government and drag his country into the 21st century, or at least the 20th century (circa 1990s). And if cell phone usage returns, I can hold onto that hope.

If not, prepare for things to get ugly before they get any better.

"Arrest him!" [source]

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Morningstarbucks

Pyongyang is going to capitalist hell in a hand basket. They've apparently opened their first (?) Western-style coffee shop, which means decadence is just around the corner.

From the Korea Herald:

North Korea has introduced a Western coffee shop in Pyongyang, a source said Tuesday, the latest case of embracing foreign cuisine in a country grappling with chronic food shortages.

The North has been struggling to keep outside influences from seeping into the isolated country out of fear that they could eventually pose a threat to leader Kim Jong-il’s autocratic rule.

The North has routinely called on its 24 million people to guard against Western influences, describing them as part of psychological warfare designed to topple the communist regime.

The government, however, has set up Western-style restaurants in partnership with foreign companies and an international relief agency since 2005, according to the source.

In October, a coffee shop opened inside a national museum near Kim Il-sung Square through an investment by Helmut Sachers Kaffee, an Austrian coffee producer and bakery supplier.

The Austrian company has trained North Korean staff to make coffee and bread, said the source.

A cup of coffee costs 2 euro, a price that is out of reach for ordinary North Koreans who make an average of 3,000 North Korean won a month. The North Korean won was traded at 134 won to one euro in November according to an official exchange rate, though the euro is believed to be much stronger in markets like the U.S dollar.

I blame the Chinese. And by "blame them" I mean thank them for turning into crony capitalists themselves who want all the trappings of the West, and then letting them slowly but surely permeate into the DPRK.

Sure, the North Korean hoi polloi won't be able to afford an espresso or — gasp! — a cafe americano (do you think they'd serve that?), but the elite will be able to. And those same elite (who now have 1 million cell phones) will demand more and more of the Western conveniences and comforts enjoyed by Chinese in Beijing. Or rather, they'll tolerate less and less inconvenience. And Kim Jong-il will stand there on the dais and dismiss their cries by saying, "Let them eat scones."

Seriously, this is the death knell of the regime, though not necessarily the republic itself.

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Hear no evil dictators being deposed, see no evil dictators being deposed (redux)

Welp, if you're a North Korean laborer in Libya longing for some home-cooked Hamhŭng naengmyŏn, you're just s.o.l. for the time being.

Last April, when the Arab Spring was just starting to kick up some sand, we had reports that Pyongyang was in no mood to have workers returning to the Workers' Paradise bearing news that one by one the dictators of the Arab world were falling like dominos as the people in those countries rose up against them. Even though some of them were getting injured in the air attacks.

And now, with the death of Colonel Moammar Kadafi, we see that this policy is continuing:

North Korea has banned its own citizens working in Libya from returning home, apparently out of fear that they will reveal the extent — and final outcomes — of the revolutions that have shaken the Arab world.

Pyongyang had a close working relationship with the regime of Moammar Gaddafi before the popular uprising that unseated him. That revolution was completed with Gaddafi's death at the hands of insurgents last week - leaving Kim Jong-Il as one of a dwindling band of old-fashioned dictators on the planet.

An estimated 200 North Korean nationals are in Libya and previously worked as doctors, nurses and construction workers, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. They had been dispatched to the country in order to earn the hard currency that Pyongyang requires to fund its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Yonhap reported that the North Korean nationals have been left in limbo, joining their compatriots who are stuck in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries with orders not to return home.

North Korean media has so far failed to report that Gaddafi is dead and the government has made no moves to officially recognise Libya's National Transitional Council as the legitimate governing authority of the country.

The decision to ban its own nationals from returning indicates just how concerned the North Korean regime is of the news leaking out to its subjugated people.

An editorial in The Korea Herald stated that the one per cent of North Koreans who are aware of the Arab Spring uprisings will be top-level party and administration officials, as well as the trusted few who are permitted to travel to China on business.

"Pyongyang’s silence about the fall of the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and the bloody death of Gaddafi reveals Kim Jong-il’s awareness of the vulnerability of his regime in the process of a third-generation dynastic succession of power," the paper said.

And the DPRK nomenklatura are right to think this. With the Great Currency Obliteration of 2009, they have sown the seeds of resentment and may have lodged in almost every North Korean's head the notion that the regime is not on their side. 

This blanket ban on returning to North Korea comes as no surprise to me. I wrote a few days ago that the North Korean workers in Libya are "persona non grata" back home as far as the regime is concerned. Of course, it could be worse: the regime might have welcomed them home only to send them to reeducation camps or worse. Maybe Seoul should be looking into helping these folks stuck in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria gain asylum and eventual residency in South Korea.

Right now "s.o.l." means Sitting it Out in Libya.

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Daily Kor for Thursday, July 7, 2011: The world to Pyongchang, ...Pyongchang to the world

I'll have more on this later, but the big news today, of course, is that Pyongchang (aka Pyeongchang) has been awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics. And as you can imagine, the K-blogopshere commentariat has nothing but praise and congratulations for Korea on this accomplishment.

In case you didn't realize, I was being sarcastic.

1. Pyongchang County awarded hosting rights for 2018 Winter Olympiad in first round of voting (BBC, Reuters, UPI, NYT, Bloomberg, WaPo, AP via NPR, WSJ video, Yonhap, Joongang Daily)
2. Despite EU promises of food aid to North Korea, South Korea's Unification Ministry says it has no such plans for the time being (AP via WaPo)
3. Defense Ministry investigators find that marine who went on killing rampage on forward deployed Kanghwa-do Island base, leaving four dead, may have had an accomplice (Joongang Daily)
4. After finding no structural damage, local ward office in eastern Seoul says it plans to life eviction order on TechnoMart high-rise but will use monitoring equipment to pinpoint any further swaying and its cause (Yonhap)
5. North Korea has scoreless draw with Colombia, 0-0, in inconsequential match of FIFA Women's World Cup, insuring that neither team scored any goals during the tournament (AP via WaPo)
6. US State Department offers American citizens new recommendations for avoiding terrorism when traveling abroad (AP via WaPo)

Associated Press bureau... in Pyongyang?!

That's what AP is reporting, and I guess they'd be the ones that'd know.

From AP via WaPo:

A memorandum of understanding agreed by the AP and the Korean Central News Agency would expand the AP’s presence in North Korea to a level unmatched by any other Western news organization. It would build upon the AP’s existing video news bureau, which opened in Pyongyang in 2006, by allowing AP text and photo journalists to work in North Korea as well.

With the signing, the agencies agreed to begin work immediately on detailed planning needed to set up and operate the new bureau as quickly as possible. It would be the first permanent text and photo bureau operated by a Western news organization in the North Korean capital.

In addition, the agencies signed a contract designating the AP as the exclusive international distributor of contemporary and historic video from KCNA’s archive. The agencies also plan a joint photo exhibition in New York next year. They already had an agreement between them to distribute KCNA photo archives to the global market, signed earlier this year.

Wow. That is truly historic. That is, if it actually comes to pass. There are a lot of rest stops between Point MOU and Point B when it comes to North Korea. The DRPK government may easily decide there's a huge difference between fluff videos of people visiting Kim Ilsung statues, which they started to allow in 2006, and day-to-day reporting on the good and the bad, which is presumably what AP has in mind.

But imagine it does go ahead. This is AP reporting form Pyongyang. And while we all know that the North Korean capital is a showcase for foreign eyes, the Pyongyang regime can't control everything, nor are they wholly effective when it comes to keeping the contagion of foreign ideas in check.

What we might end up actually seeing is the North Korean government actually trying to be on better behavior when things go wrong (and it's not a stretch that they could). Right now we've been seeing the Jasmine Revolution spreading through the Arab world, and at least one thing preventing some of those governments from just mowing down all the protesters (this includes Iran last year, though Iran is not part of the Arab world) has been the international press.

Call me optimistic, but this makes a violent, bloody end to the regime less likely (though still well within the realm of possibility). It makes the future leader of North Korea, be that a ruling junta or The Kim Who Wasn't There, more likely to consider how everything looks to the outside world when taking power, maintaining order, and dealing with the hoi polloi.

Historic, truly historic. If it happens.

Another American detained in North Korea

Oh, God. Not another one. I hope this man (detained since November?!) isn't another friend of Robert Park — or Robert Park himself (oh, wouldn't that be a hoot?). I can just see a savvy kyopo religious zealot getting legal permission to enter the country under the auspices of conducting business, and then handing out Bibles or "What would Yesunim do?" bumper stickers.

Luckily for him, Jimmy Carter is already on his way to Pyongyang (AFP story here), so his time in the Pyongyang Palazzo may be short-lived.

UPDATE:
If this is something quite different from what Robert Park, Aijalon Gomes, or even Lisa Ling and Euna Lee, I will issue a retraction regarding my snarky suggestions above. But for now, all cases of Americans getting detained in North Korea have involved stupogance and/or a Moses complex.

UPDATE 2 (Thursday, April 14, 1:02 p.m.):
North Korea has released the name of the man they're holding, Jun Young Su. And he has apparently confessed what he did wrong.

What is Governor Richardson's aide doing in North Korea?

I'm curious about this trip by Dr Tony Namgoong Namkung, a close aide to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and a Kushibo favorite for president. I wonder if it has anything to do with all the goings-on in Pyongyang or if it's just a big coincidence (I suspect the latter; not everything flows from the machinations of the Pyongyang ruling apparatus).