NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, October 18, 2006

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NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, October 18, 2006

NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I. NAPSNet

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. NAPSNet

1. Rice on UN Sactions

Washington Post (“ESCALATION NOT THE AIM ON N. KOREA, RICE SAYS”, 2006-10-16) reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States would not take measures to exacerbate tensions in northeast Asia. “We have no desire to see this crisis escalate,” Rice told reporters as she flew on the first leg of a week-long tour of Japan, ROK, PRC and Russia. “In fact, it is our goal to see a de-escalation of this, despite North Korean actions.” On her trip, Rice plans to discuss various ways implementing the UN resolution. “What we are not looking for is inspecting every ship. This is not some random inspection.” She said inspections would be “information-driven,” based on tips and other intelligence about DPRK intentions. A senior State Department official traveling with Rice, and involved in shaping the inspection policy, said the administration was seeking broad cooperation from each of the countries she is visiting and would be willing to provide assistance that would make every suspect DPRK shipment subject to scrutiny at seaports, airports and border crossings. Rice stressed that the Bush administration was focused on “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” not destabilizing the DPRK government. Rice said she will reassure Japan and the ROK that they can rely on the U.S. nuclear deterrent in place of developing their own programs. She also said she would begin a broader discussion with other countries on how “we maintain in northeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific a security environment that is not given to an arms race.”

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2. PRC – DPRK Relations

Agence France-Presse (“SENIOR CHINESE ENVOY IN N KOREA: REPORTS”, 2006-10-18) reported that a senior Chinese envoy is visiting the DPRK. Tang Jiaxuan, one of China’s top diplomats who held talks with US President George W. Bush in Washington last week, is believed to be in the DPRK, Jiji Press and Kyodo News said, quoting unnamed sources in Beijing. The PRC government declined comment.

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3. US News Network in the DPRK

Associated Press (“DIANE SAWYER BEGINS A RARE WEEKLONG SERIES OF ABC NEWS REPORTS FROM NORTH KOREA”, 2006-10-18) reported that ABC News’ Diane Sawyer began a planned weeklong visit to the DPRK with a live shot from Pyongyang that opened Tuesday’s edition of “Good Morning America.” The visit was months in the planning, but it enabled Sawyer to stand in a courtyard and report as Americans woke up that the DPRK considered United Nations sanctions imposed for its nuclear test to be “a declaration of war.” While ABC isn’t the only network to send correspondents to the DPRK (Dan Rather went for CBS earlier this year), it has cultivated a relationship with authorities there for a decade. Bob Woodruff went to the DPRK in 2005, the first extensive reporting there by an American network since 2000. APTN, the video wing of The Associated Press, in May became the first Western news organization permitted to open a bureau there, where it transmits pictures and interviews to television and online members. The Japanese news organization Kyodo opened an office in Pyongyang this summer. Previously, the only foreign news organizations allowed a regular presence there were the Russian agency Tass and Xinhua from China.

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4. Documentaries Provide Inside Look into DPRK

New York Times (“INSIDE NORTH KOREA: A U.S. DEFECTOR’S TALE”, 2006-10-18) reported that “Crossing the Line,” Daniel Gordon and Nick Bonner’s third documentary, had its world premiere Monday night at the Pusan International Film Festival. “This was the story that we thought we could never tell,” said Bonner after the premiere. “But we said to the North Koreans, if someone does not make this film soon, you won’t ever have any record.” The documentary is Gordon’s third surprising look inside the usually secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea centering on the story of James Dresnok – former US soldier, defector, and for the past 44 years, a resident of Pyongyang. The first, “The Game of Their Lives” focused on the DPRK’s1966 World Cup soccer team that defeated the Italians and made it, against all odds, to the Cup’s quarter-finals. Then “A State of Mind” followed two young girls participating in the Mass Games that involve tens of thousands of performers. “Game of Their Lives” made Gordon and Bonner minor celebrities in the DPRK, and with each film they have used that good will to delve deeper into the country. “We have taken an apolitical viewpoint, with interviews from both sides of the spectrum,” wrote Gordon in an e-mail. “Our previous films have been shown both in North and South Korea and worldwide. We take this as a significant acceptance of their neutrality.”

(return to top) Korea Information Service (“‘DEAR PYONGYANG’ BUILDS BRIDGE BETWEEN LIFE IN N. KOREA AND OUTSIDE WORLD “, 2006-10-18) reported that a documentary “Dear Pyongyang,” won the NETPAC Asian award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Director Yang Yong-hi uses footage taken during her visits to her brothers in Pyongyang over the past 10 years. Since the day she saw off her three brothers at the Japanese port of Niigata at the age of six, Yang, a second-generation ethnic Korean film director born and living in Japan, has harbored a growing anger towards her parents who sent their boys away out of their allegiance to the DPRK. They were never able to return. The images reveal their seemingly happy life, but the dismal conditions of the DPRK are also obvious. One of her brothers says “I am happy,” but the reality is that her brothers live on money sent from their family in Japan and electricity is often cut off, forcing her nephew to use candles to play piano. Yang, a graduate of a media studies program in New York, changed her nationality from DPR Korean to RO Korean last year, hoping that could broaden her freedom as a filmmaker. Yang says it took years to understand her father’s political choices. Filming her father with a video camera over 10 years, she learned the reasons why her father and other first-generation Koreans in Japan who were born in the ROK chose the DPRK as their ideological home. “Young people couldn’t have hope for their future. The first generation was so poor, and the young people saw that they wouldn’t be able to study or go to university, and even if they graduated from the University of Tokyo they wouldn’t be able to find an employer. They really had low status in Japan,” she said. Many dreamed of a better future in the DPRK, which had a rising economy with a stable, nationalist leadership under Kim Il-sung, while in the ROK a series of military coups resulted in the suppression of democratic movements. (return to top)

5. ROK on PSI

Chosun Ilbo (“SEOUL SHIFTING POSITION ON ROLE IN PSI “, 2006-10-18) reported that the ROK government will decide on the “appropriate level” of the ROK’s participation in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a senior official said. The remarks are subtly different from the government’s earlier position that any more participation in the PSI is unnecessary since an inter-Korean maritime agreement already allows the ROK to inspect DPRK ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

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6. Japan on Nuclear Weapons

New York Times (“JAPAN TELLS RICE IT WILL NOT SEEK NUCLEAR WEAPONS “, 2006-10-18) reported that the government of Japan assured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today that it has no intention of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, despite the DPRK’s detonation of a nuclear device. “The government of Japan has no position at all to consider going nuclear,” said Taro Aso, Japan’s foreign minister. “There is no need to arm ourselves with nuclear weapons, either.”

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7. Yasukuni Shrine Issue

The Associated Press (“84 JAPANESE LAWMAKERS VISIT WAR SHRINE “, 2006-10-18) reported that dozens of Japanese lawmakers paid their respects at a war shrine vilified as a symbol of the country’s past militarism, amid concerns Tokyo may build up its armed forces against the threat posed by the DPRK’s nuclear test explosion. Eighty-four parliament members, including a top adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, attended the annual fall festival at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors executed wartime leaders among millions of war dead. Ninety other lawmakers were represented by their aides.

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8. PRC-India Relations

Xinhua (“CHINA TO PROMOTE COOPERATION WITH INDIA, SAYS SENIOR CPC OFFICIAL “, 2006-10-18) reported that the PRC is ready to make active efforts to push for friendly cooperation with India, said a senior official with the Communist Party of China (CPC). “To develop friendly cooperation between China and India, the two largest developing nations, accords with the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and will help the peace and development of Asia and the world at large,” Luo said.

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9. PRC Public Safety

Agence France-Presse (“BEIJING DOUBLES PLAIN-CLOTHES POLICE TO MAKE PUBLIC ‘FEEL SAFER'”, 2006-10-18) reported that Beijing has doubled the number of plain-clothes police officers on the beat in a bid to make people feel more secure. A 1,200-strong plain-clothes team under the PRC capital’s Public Security Bureau was put in place this week to combat street crimes such as theft, robbery, fraud and drug dealing, the China Daily reported.

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