NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, June 06, 2005

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NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, June 06, 2005

NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, June 06, 2005

I. United States

II. CanKor

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

1. US-DPRK Talks

Associated Press (“U.S. WITHDRAWS THREAT AGAINST NORTH KOREA”, 2005-06-06) reported that the United States met Monday with the DPRK and withdrew a threat to try to bring UN sanctions against it. The meeting was requested by the DPRK and held in New York, where the two sides had last met May 13, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. The US aim is to resume six-nation negotiations after a nearly yearlong impasse. McCormack and other Bush administration officials did not say if the talks in New York made progress in that direction. But in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he believed the DPRK want to return to the negotiations and resolve the international standoff.

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2. US on Six-Party Talks

Korea Times (“US ‘HOPEFUL’ OF N. KOREA’S RETURN TO 6-PARTY TALKS”, 2005-06-05) reported that officials from the DPRK and US spoke by telephone recently, possibly signally further talks between the two countries. US officials would not confirm the telephone conversation but said the US was “hopeful” that the DPRK would return to six-party talks aimed at ending the nuclear standoff. According to diplomatic sources, the report predicted US State Department officials were likely to soon visit DPRK diplomats at the United Nations in New York to hear from them the DPRK’s stance on whether to rejoin multilateral negotiations.

(return to top) New York Times (“NORTH KOREA REPORTEDLY HINTS AT NUCLEAR TALKS”, 2005-06-06) reported that the DPRK has contacted the Bush administration in recent days in what US officials believe could be the first indications that the DPRK is preparing to return to negotiations over its nuclear program, according to senior US and Asian officials. A senior US Defense Department official in Singapore, traveling with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said the administration would probably decide within weeks whether to push for United Nations Security Council penalties against the DPRK. (return to top)

3. US on UNSC Sanctions on the DPRK

Los Angeles Times (“U.S. MAY TAKE NORTH KOREA ISSUE TO U.N. “, 2005-06-05) reported that the US will decide within weeks whether to abandon the stalled six-party talks and take the issue to the UN Security Council. The talks have been stalled for nearly a year and the DPRK has continued to reject repeated overtures for more talks. The Bush administration increasingly believes the one-year mark is an appropriate time to cut off the DPRK’s opportunity to return to the talks the official said.

(return to top) Reuters (“RUMSFELD PLAYS DOWN QUICK DECISION ON N. KOREA”, 2005-06-06) reported that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played down the possibility of a quick decision to take the DPRK nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council. His comments sowed further confusion over the US’s handling of the crisis a day after a senior Pentagon official stated the US would be likely to decide within weeks on whether to refer the issue to the Security Council where sanctions would be imposed. (return to top)

4. US Mixed Messages to the DPRK

Korea Times (“US SENDING MIXED MESSAGES TO N. KOREA”, 2005-06-03) reported that while former US officials see the US’s DPRK policy as “confusing”, Pyongyang Friday noted that US President George W. Bush had referred to its leader as “Mr. Kim Jong-il.” “If the U.S. wants to send a mixed message, then it certainly is that,” Wendy Sherman, a former US envoy to the DPRK told Reuters last Saturday. The US should keep all options open but its approach was likely to leave the DPRK “very confused,” she said. Since US officials met with DPRK diplomats in New York in mid-May, the US has been accused of sending the DPRK contradictary messages, which Pyongyang has returned with hard-worded counteroffensives.

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5. US on PRC-DPRK Relations

USA Today (“CHINA, U.S. COME AT N. KOREA FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES”, 2005-06-02) reported that the PRC’s growing economic stake in the DPRK is complicating US efforts to isolate it. PRC investment in the DPRK has jumped from $1.3 million in 2003 to $200 million last year and continues to grow. Sung Wook Nam, a professor at Korea University in Seoul, says the PRC is investing in entertainment projects, hotels, restaurants and light industry and is taking advantage of lower labor costs and recent changes that have opened the DPRK economy to private enterprise. Those growing economic ties are frustrating US efforts to enlist PRC help in persuading the DPRK to return to talks.

(return to top) Associated Press (“HILL URGES CHINA TO USE INFLUENCE ON NORTH KOREA”, 2005-06-06) reported that Australia’s defence minister Robert Hill, who was participating in a security forum of defence leaders in Singapore, said he planned to urge the PRC this week to be more “proactive” in persuading the DPRK to return to the six-party talks. “They have considerable influence and we would like them to use all of that influence to encourage North Korea to return to the table,” Hill said following talks with US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. (return to top)

6. ROK-US on CONPLAN 5029

Chosun Ilbo (“KOREA, U.S. AGREE TO COMPROMISE N. KOREA ‘CONCEPT PLAN'”, 2005-06-06) reported that during a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Security Conference in Singapore on Saturday, ROK Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld agreed to improve and develop “Concept of Operations Plan (CONPLAN) 5029.” The apparent compromise solution was to change the plan from an “operational” format to a “concept” one. A concept plan, unlike an operational plan, includes no specific provisions for things like deployment of military units.

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7. ROK on June 15 Celebration Preparations

Joongang Ilbo (“SEOUL APPEALS TO PYONGYANG ON DELEGATION”, 2005-06-05) reported that the ROK Unification Ministry tried informally yesterday to negotiate with the DPRK over the size of the delegations the ROK wants to send to the DPRK to celebrate the anniversary of the inter-Korean summit. After Pyongyang told Seoul to drastically cut its numbers, ROK officials hinted they would reduce the number of government officials intending to go but would like to see the civic representatives kept at more than 600. “Our position is that the festivities should be conducted meaningfully with the participation of the civic organizations while the size of the government delegation is not that important,” the Unification Ministry said in a message sent to Pyongyang yesterday. The DPRK told the ROK on Wednesday that its desired government delegation of 70 should be trimmed to 30, and that it would accept no more than 190 civic representatives, even though the two sides had agreed to 615.

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8. DPRK Nuclear Imports

Yonhap News (“NORTH KOREA IMPORTS NUCLEAR MATERIALS FROM RUSSIA – JAPANESE REPORT”, 2005-06-05) reported that, according to US intelligence sources, the DPRK has imported about 150 tons of high-strength aluminium from an unidentified Russian exporter as part of its nuclear weapons program. The amount of high-strength aluminium is enough to produce about 2,600 gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Identifying the US sources simply as former ranking Washington officials and officials involved in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun said such moves by the DPRK have further escalated the international standoff over its nuclear ambition.

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9. Oil Exploration in DPRK

Business World News (“AMINEX TO HUNT FOR OIL IN NORTH KOREA”, 2005-06-06) reported that the Irish exploration company Aminex is about to sign a deal to hunt for oil over a large part of the DPRK. The deal with the DPRK government will involve production sharing of any oil found. Aminex chief executive Brian Hall says it will be the first production sharing agreement signed by the DPRK in many years. The forthcoming deal following an agreement by Aminex with the DPRK last year to let it gather and analyse oil and gas data gathered in the country during the 1980s.

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10. ROK Denies Joint Korean Asian Games Bid

Yonhap News (“SOUTH KOREA OLYMPIC COMMITTEE DENIES REPORT”, 2005-06-04) reported that the ROK Olympic Committee has denied a report that the port city of Incheon would jointly bid to co-host the 2014 Asian Games with DPRK capital Pyongyan, according to the Yonhap News Agency. While Incheon has been selected as the ROK’s bid city, the possibility of co-hosting the games with Pyongyang had been discussed only at the “theoretical level” according to an unidentified ROK Olympic official. “There are many steps that have to be taken and many parties to be consulted for Incheon to co-host the Games with Pyongyang,” the report said. Incheon’s mayor announced during a trip to Pyongyang on Thursday that the cities would bid to co-host the games, according to his office.

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11. Top Defense Chiefs Meeting in Singapore

Associated Press (“ASIA-PACIFIC DEFENSE MINISTERS END ANNUAL SECURITY FORUM”, 2005-06-05) reported that defense chiefs from the Asia-Pacific region have repeated their commitment to a peaceful solution to the DPRK nuclear standoff. The leaders met for a three-day security forum in Singapore, where they debated terrorism, maritime security, peacekeeping and weapons of mass destruction. Malaysia discussed piracy, the Philippines explained its guerilla problem, and Japan and the ROK worried over the DPRK nuclear program. US Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Japan’s defense minister singled out the PRC’s large amount of military expenditure and lack of transparency.

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12. US on Asian Nuclear Balance

Associated Press, Agence France Presse (“U.S. WARNS OF ASIAN NUCLEAR ARMS RACE”, 2005-06-04) reported that the US ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said the development of a nuclear weapon by the DPRK would put pressure on Japan and the ROK to consider building their own nuclear arsenals. He told reporters in Tokyo that if the DPRK were to test an atomic bomb, the strategic balance in the region would be changed. Schieffer is not the first official to suggest a kind of domino effect in Northeast Asia from any verified revelation that the DPRK possesses nuclear arms. But his remarks reflect the extent to which Japan, which lost 210,000 people in two atomic bomb attacks at the end of World War II, could pursue an option long considered out of the question. On getting the DPRK back to the six-party talks Schieffer stated, “We have to be very careful that getting North Korea back to the table does not become an end in itself. He continued, “The six- party talks were meant to resolve a thorny issue – they weren’t meant to be just an opportunity to talk about it endlessly and achieve nothing.”

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13. US on PRC Defense Spending

Bloomberg (“CHINA’S DEFENSE SPENDING ENDANGERS ASIAN BALANCE, RUMSFELD SAYS”, 2005-06-05) reported that the PRC has increased its defense budget to become the world’s third-largest military spender, putting the “delicate military balance” in Asia at risk, according to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

(return to top) The New York Times (“RUMSFELD ISSUES A SHARP REBUKE TO CHINA ON ARMS”, 2005-06-04) reported that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an unusually blunt public critique of the PRC, said Saturday that Beijing’s military spending threatened the delicate security balance in Asia and called for an emphasis instead on political freedom and open markets. In a keynote address at an Asian security conference here, Mr. Rumsfeld argued that the PRC’s investment in missiles and up-to-date military technology posed a risk not only to Taiwan and to American interests, but also to nations across Asia that view themselves as the PRC’s trading partners, not rivals. “Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment?” Mr. Rumsfeld asked. (return to top)

14. PRC Nuclear Power

The Associated Press (“CHINA SAID WEIGHING BIDS ON NUKE PLANTS”, 2005-06-06) reported that the PRC is still weighing bids by competing US, French and Russian suppliers of nuclear power technology before making a closely watched multibillion-dollar decision on equipping two new power plants, a senior official said Monday. The contracts, reportedly worth up to $8 billion, are expected to be the biggest in years in the world’s nuclear power industry, which is looking to the PRC to drive equipment sales as it tries to meet surging energy needs. Suppliers’ willingness to transfer technology to the PRC is among key issues still being examined, said Kang Rixin, general manager of the China National Nuclear Corp.

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15. Tiananmen Square Anniversary

The New York Times (“THOUSANDS AT HONG KONG VIGIL FOR TIANANMEN ANNIVERSARY”, 2005-06-06) reported that tens of thousands of residents lighted white candles at a vigil in one of Hong Kong’s largest urban parks on Saturday night to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square killings, the latest sign of the emotional hold the event still has here and in mainland PRC. The throngs contrasted with the heavy security in Beijing, where large numbers of uniformed and plainclothes officers prevented protests from forming. Organizers put the crowd here at 45,000, while the police estimated it at about half that size. The crowd was visibly smaller than in the last two years, when many in Hong Kong were deeply unhappy with economic stagnation here and the local political leadership.

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16. PRC on Tiananmen Square Anniversary

The Associated Press (“CHINA REJECTS U.S. APPEAL ON TIANANMEN”, 2005-06-06) reported that the PRC rejected a US appeal to account for prisoners still detained after the violent 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement and to re-examine its official verdict on the protests. Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan on Sunday said the PRC opposes US efforts to use human rights as an excuse to “interfere with other countries’ internal affairs,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Kong insisted that PRC leaders “took decisive measures” in 1989 that “successfully maintained the general situation of reform and development.”

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17. PRC on Tiananmen Square Anniversary

The Associated Press (“CHINA TIGHTENS SECURITY AROUND TIANANMEN”, 2005-06-06) reported that the PRC tightened security around Tiananmen Square on Saturday to prevent memorials on the anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Tiananmen Square, the symbolic political heart of the PRC, was open to the public. But extra carloads of police watched tourists on the vast plaza, where weeks of student-led demonstrations that drew tens of thousands ended in a military attack 16 years ago Saturday. Troops killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of protesters that day. There was no public mention of the anniversary in the PRC nor any sign of attempts to commemorate it.

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18. PRC Freedom of the Press

The New York Times (“WIFE SAYS JAILED REPORTER HAD BEEN HELPING CHINA”, 2005-06-03) reported that a prominent Hong Kong reporter detained by the PRC on spying charges was actually a patriot who worked behind the scenes to help Beijing improve relations with Taiwan and Hong Kong, his wife said in an open letter to the PRC’s president, Hu Jintao, which was released Friday. The reporter, Ching Cheong, the chief PRC correspondent of Singapore’s main newspaper, The Straits Times, often worked with a senior Beijing researcher to guide the PRC’s strategy for managing Hong Kong affairs, Mary Lau, his wife, said in the letter. That researcher, Lu Jianhua, a sociologist at the PRC Academy of Social Sciences, has himself disappeared and two of his colleagues said Friday that they thought he had been detained for leaking state secrets.

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19. Crime and Corruption in the PRC

Los Angeles Times (“SOME CHINESE POLICE RIDING A CRIME WAVE”, 2005-06-06) reported that an off-duty policeman gets into an argument with another driver at a traffic stop. He calls his buddies and they beat the other man to death. The victim turns out to be another cop. Pickpockets run the show at a busy train station. The cops look the other way because the thieves have set up a direct-deposit system that fattens the officers’ bank accounts. These two recent crime stories were exposed by the PRC’s tightly controlled state media, which aren’t known for shedding negative light on authority figures. Beijing regularly launches “strike hard” campaigns to fight crime, and this time the target appears to be the crime-fighters themselves. “Exposing the corruption is part of the measure to rein in the police,” said Nicolas Becquelin, research director at Human Rights in the PRC, based in Hong Kong. “There is a lot of public anger and resentment toward the state and authorities in general. They are concerned it would turn political. They are trying to defuse the resentment.”

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20. PRC Floods

The Associated Press (“204 ARE KILLED IN CHINA FLOODS”, 2005-06-06) reported that flooding has devastated villages and crops in southern PRC, killing at least 204 people and leaving 79 missing at the start of the summer flood season on Wednesday, the government said Sunday. Hunan province was the worst hit, with the death toll rising to 75 Sunday, the official New China News Agency said. Forty-six people in the province were missing. Three days of torrential rains last week bred away mountain villages in Hunan and damaged tens of thousands of homes, schools and other facilities, the agency said. Flooded roads and highways hampered rescue and evacuation efforts, it said. More than 200,000 people have been evacuated.

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21. PRC Freedom of Religion

The Associated Press (“GROUP: DETAINED CHINESE PRIEST RELEASED”, 2005-06-06) reported that a Roman Catholic priest from the PRC’s unofficial church has been released by authorities after spending two months in detention, a US-based religious monitoring group said Monday. The Rev. Zhao Kexun, an administrator of the diocese in Xuanhua, a district in the northern province of Hebei, was taken away by government security agents March 30 as he returned from a service at a private home. Zhao, 75, was released June 1, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. It was not immediately clear why he was taken, where he was held or what his condition was.

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22. Cross Strait Relations

The Associated Press (“REPORT: TAIWAN TEST-FIRES CRUISE MISSILE”, 2005-06-06) reported that Taiwan successfully test-fired a locally developed cruise missile capable of striking southeastern areas of mainland PRC, a newspaper reported Sunday. The missile — fired from the Jiupeng Missile Base in southern Taiwan — cruised about 300 miles before hitting a dummy target at sea off outlying Green Island, the China Times quoted an unidentified military source as saying. The report did not specify the date the test was conducted. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry declined comment.

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23. Japan AIDS Issue

The Associated Press (“JAPAN STRUGGLES WITH SURGE IN AIDS CASES”, 2005-06-06) reported that a rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use. Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll. Many also fear a silent AIDS epidemic is brewing among the nation’s sexually active middle- and high-schoolers. Other sexually transmitted diseases — chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and the human papillomavirus, or HPV — are also on the rise.

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24. Yasukuni Shrine Issue

Agence France Presse (“JAPANESE FM CALLS CHINA’S WAR SHRINE CRITICISM ‘ABSURD'”, 2005-06-06) reported that Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has called the PRC’s criticism of visits to a war shrine “absurd” and defended a controversial history textbook, accusing Beijing of ignoring Tokyo’s pacifist record as a donor. The PRC has said relations were at a three-decade low due to an annual pilgrimage by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.46 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted war criminals. “As soon as he visited the Yasukuni shrine, China said Japan was turning to militarism and we were not peaceful. This is absurd,” Machimura said. “We gave them aid, even by issuing deficit-covering bonds. At least in the 90s, we were the world’s biggest provider of aid” to the PRC.

(return to top) Los Angeles Times (“WAR SHRINE CONTROVERSY GROWING”, 2005-06-06) reported that the controversial Japanese war memorial that casts such heat and anger across Asia is a quiet place in the midst of Tokyo’s bustle, a sanctuary of reverence for the nation’s war dead and for carefully burnished memories of the cause for which they died. Calls are mounting here for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to abandon his annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, the privately funded Shinto memorial that honors nearly 2.5 million Japanese soldiers, including men the outside world regards as war criminals but whom the priests of Yasukuni venerate as patriots. “I understand the prime minister visits the shrine out of his personal beliefs; however, a prime minister should also think how his conduct will affect the national interest,” former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone told an economic symposium. An outspoken Japanese nationalist who abandoned his own visits to Yasukuni in 1985 after PRC protests, Nakasone told the gathering that “it would be an admirable political decision to stop visiting the shrine.” Nakasone is one of eight former prime ministers urging Koizumi not to visit the shrine this year. (return to top)

25. Japan-US Missile Defense Program

Agence France Presse (“JAPAN AIMS TO START MISSILE DEFENSE DEVELOPMENT WITH US FROM 2006”, 2005-06-06) reported that Japan aims to start developing next year a missile defense system that it has been researching with the US, the defense agency chief said. The defense agency will include in its budget for the next fiscal year some “several billion yen (tens of millions of dollars)” for the project, Yoshinori Ohno told Japanese reporters in Singapore Sunday. “We have completed the joint technology research stage,” Ohno was quoted by the Asahi Shimbun as saying at an international conference, where he met US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “We are now moving toward the development stage,” he said. “We would like to expand the scope of the missile defense system so we will have the capability to respond to decoys that are used to avoid interceptors against ballistic missiles,” he was quoted by Kyodo News as saying.

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26. Japan Chemical Weapons Disposal Program

Agence France Presse (“JAPAN TO BUILD HUGE CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL COMPLEX IN CHINA”, 2005-06-06) reported that Japan will spend more than 200 billion yen (1.9 billion dollars) building a chemical weapons disposal center in the PRC to process Japanese weapons left there after World War II. The chemical weapons recovery and disposal facilities will be built in the Haerbaling district of Jilin province, where most of Japan’s abandoned chemical weapons are believed to be buried, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said. The project is expected to be the largest overseas endeavor ever to be undertaken by the Japanese government, it said, without citing sources. The cost of the project may increase further if the disposal process takes longer than expected, it said.

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II. CanKor

27. CanKor #208

CanKor (“AFTER CHENEY BLAST, RARE DPR KOREAN PRAISE FOR BUSH”, 2005-06-03) A DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman offered rare praise to President Bush, saying that the fact that the US leader addressed the DPRK leader as “Mr. Kim Jong Il” improved the tone for talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs. This praise for Bush comes a day after the North labelled Vice President Dick Cheney a “bloodthirsty beast”‘ after he had called Kim Jong Il “irresponsible.”

(return to top) CanKor (“DPRK HACKING CAPABILITY COULD DISRUPT US MILITARY”, 2005-06-02) Defence analysts at an annual conference on cyber security at Korea University in Seoul claim that the DPRK has raised its cyber-terror capabilities to a level where it could seriously disrupt the US military. One expert claims that the Pyongyang Automated Warfare Institute has produced 100 cyber-soldiers per year since 1981, and currently runs a hacking unit of some 600 elite soldiers. (return to top) CanKor (“CHINA AND USA VIEW DPRK FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES”, 2005-06-01) China’s growing economic stake in the DPRK is complicating US efforts to eliminate the country’s nuclear arsenal. Chinese investment in the DPRK has grown from $1.3 million in 2003 to $200 million last year. China therefore rejects economic sanctions and also opposes the Proliferation Security Initiative, two major coercive measures in the US diplomatic arsenal. (return to top) CanKor (“WFP CONDUCTS FIRST NATIONWIDE FOOD INSPECTION “, 2005-05-27) According to the website Reliefweb, the United Nations World Food Programme is conducting its first nationwide household food inspection in the DPRK. During 10 days WFP monitors will visit 300 family homes. This survey comes as food stocks from the previous harvest run dry and the country enters the lean season. The state’s PDS rations are at 250 grams of cereals, half the daily survival requirement, and may be reduced to 200 grams in July. (return to top) CanKor (“PINK AND TANGERINE BUSES ON PYONGYANG’S STREETS “, 2005-06-02) Amid reports of another food crisis in the DPRK, a rare visit to the capital reveals slight improvements brought on by trade. Among numerous curiosities, the anonymous journalist finds more vendors who hawk their wares, more stylish clothes imported from China, and a new fleet of Chinese double-decker buses in a palette of pink, green, tangerine, and deep blue. (return to top) CanKor OPINION (“NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: AS GOOD AS IT GETS”, 2005-05-30) CanKor’s OPINION section presents views on the (lack of) results of the NPT review conference and the prospects of next week’s ROK-USA summit. Canadian military analyst Gwynne Dyer explains why he believes the situation is “less bad than it seems,” even though the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review closed on 27 May without even a final document. (return to top) CanKor OPINION (“WIDE GAP BETWEEN USA AND ROK AT JUNE 10 SUMMIT”, 2005-06-03) Former New York Times Tokyo correspondent Richard Halloran writes that when the ROK President the US President in Washington on June 10, relations between the two countries will be so bad that the main question will be whether the deeply troubled alliance can be salvaged at all. (return to top)