NAPSNet Daily Report Thursday, January 27, 2005

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NAPSNet Daily Report Thursday, January 27, 2005

NAPSNet Daily Report Thursday, January 27, 2005

I. United States

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

1. DPRK Nuclear Issue

Seoul Shinmun (“WASHINGTON SOURCE: “NORTH KOREA HAD BOUGHT A COMPLETE NUCLEAR WEAPON.””, None) reported that the US said that it was a separate nuclear weapon that the DPRK has been developing on its own. A source in Washington said, on January 26, that the US obtained intelligence that the DPRK bought a complete nuclear weapon from the outside world, and that this was under investigation. The source was quoted as saying: “The US administration surmises that it would be one of the countries among former Soviet Union states and Pakistan from which North Korea bought the weapon.” Among them, the US said, “It will be more likely Pakistan which transferred an enriched uranium technology to North Korea.” It is not clear whether the nuclear weapon means a nuclear warhead or a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and how many nuclear weapons the DPRK purchased.

(return to top) Reuters (“N.KOREA HAS BOUGHT COMPLETE NUCLEAR BOMB – REPORT”, 2005-01-27) reported that the DPRK appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a ROK newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington. The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying. The DPRK is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight. (return to top)

2. Qaddafi on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Donga Ilbo (“QADDAFI: “NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR ISSUE SHOULD BE RESOLVED LIBYAN STYLE””, 2005-01-27) reportedc that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said on January 25 (local time) that “Libya provided the world with peace by giving up on nuclear weapons,” and that “North Korea and Iran should do the same.” The Libyan leader said that “the nuclear issue in North Korea is a serious and dangerous issue, and the people of Korea are living in the midst of the threat of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities,” and emphasized that “North Korea must give up their nuclear weapons and South Korea needs to take the initiative in the process of finding an amicable solution.”

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3. DPRK on Inter – Korean Relations

Associated Press (“NORTH KOREA WARNS OF RISING MILITARY TENSION WITH SOUTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that the DPRK on Thursday again accused ROK ships of violating its waters, saying such acts would lead to a serious military clash between the two countries. Over the past week, the DPRK has accused ROK warships of infiltrating its waters and ROK troops of transporting heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone. On Thursday, the DPRK again accused ROK warships of violating its waters. “This is … quite a dangerous military hostile act that may give rise again to a grave military collision,” the DPRK’s Cabinet newspaper, Minju Joson, said.

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4. ROK Defense Spending

Yonhap (“SOUTH KOREA TO BOOST MILITARY R&D SPENDING”, 2005-01-27) reported that the ROK plans to increase the proportion of the annual national defense budget spent on research and development to 10 percent by 2015 from this year’s 4.5 percent, officials said Thursday. The plan, which was approved by Minister of Science and Technology Oh Myung earlier Thursday, is aimed at developing the capability to produce high-tech weapons, ministry officials said.

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5. ROK, Japan on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Jiji Press Ticker Service (“JAPAN, ROK DELEGATES TO 6-WAY TALKS TO MEET IN SEOUL”, 2005-01-27) reported that Japan and the ROK are arranging a meeting in Seoul between their chief delegates to the six-party talks to address the DPRK’s nuclear standoff, informed sources said Wednesday. Kenichiro Sasae, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, will visit Seoul, possibly on Friday, for talks with Song Min Soon, ROK deputy foreign minister, the sources said.

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6. US Media President to Visit DPRK

Joongang Ilbo (“ABC NEWS PRESIDENT TO VISIT NORTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that the president of ABC News, one of America’s major networks, will visit the DPRK next month, company officials confirmed on Wednesday. David Westin was invited by the Foreign Ministry in Pyeongyang to visit for four days from Feb. 5. ABC officials told the JoongAng Ilbo that Mr. Westin was visiting to meet with DPRK officials, hinting that he may also meet with the DPRK’s leader Kim Jong-il. A Washington source said the visit had been planned for months and was the DPRK’s way of showing its willingness to have a dialogue with the US.

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7. UN on DPRK Human Rights

Reuters (“U.N. RIGHTS ENVOY URGES REFORM IN NORTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that a U.N. human rights investigator accused secretive DPRK of widespread abuses on Thursday and urged the DPRK to abolish capital punishment and forced labor, and release political prisoners. Vitit Muntarbhorn, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK, denounced the practice of “collective punishment based upon ‘guilt by association,'” imposed on family members of people accused of a political or ideological crime.

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8. UN on DPRK Food Supply

The Associated Press (“U.N. AGENCY APPEALS FOR FOOD FOR N. KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that the World Food Program on Thursday appealed for 500,000 tons of aid to feed 6.5 million DPRK residents this year, warning that the DPRK still faces severe shortages as world attention focuses on helping tsunami survivors. DPRK residents’ ability to feed themselves has been hurt by soaring prices as the DPRK opens private markets in an effort to diversify its economy, the U.N. agency said. “Millions of children, women and elderly people are barely subsisting because they lack both the quantity and quality of nourishment they deserve,” the WFP’s director in the DPRK, Richard Ragan, said in a statement by the agency.

(return to top) Kyodo News (“WFP SAYS FOOD MONITORING IN N. KOREA CUT BY 20-30% SINCE OCT.”, 2005-01-27) reported that the World Food Program said Thursday it has been forced to reduce the number of its trips aimed at monitoring food distribution in the DPRK by about 20-30 percent since October, mainly due to the DPRK’s cancellations of the visits. The WFP, which does not provide food to areas where its staff cannot visit, is worried the cuts will hurt its ability to distribute food to hungry people in the country, a WFP statement and an agency spokesman said. (return to top)

9. DPRK Energy Supply

International Oil Daily (“GAZPROM COURTS NORTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that a delegation from Russia’s Gazprom, headed by Chief Executive Alexei Miller, made its first-ever visit to the DPRK last week. According to media reports from Pyongyang, the Gazprom delegation declined to disclose the purpose of the visit, citing commercial confidentiality. The company issued a short statement saying the delegation had top-level talks on cooperation in the oil and gas sector with the DPRK’s Premier Pak Pong Ju and other oil and gas officials. Industry analysts say Gazprom is interested in the DPRK as a market for possible gas supplies from Russia, mainly from the huge Kovykta field in Eastern Siberia.

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10. DPRK Urban Renovation

Yonhap News (“N. KOREA RENOVATING PYONGYANG FOR OCT. ANNIVERSARY: REPORT”, 2005-01-27) reported that the DPRK is giving an extensive face-lift to Pyongyang to ready it for October 10, when the DPRK will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of its Workers’ Party, a pro-DPRK newspaper said Thursday. The Choson Sinbo, run by a Pyongyang-aligned organization of ethnic Korean residents in Japan, said the overhaul has already been under way for major streets and monuments in the DPRK’s capital city, with completion due by October.

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11. Japan on Japan – DPRK Relations

Donga Ilbo (“JAPAN CALLS IT A “DE-FACTO NOTICE OF SEVERING RELATIONS” AND VOWS FOR A “STRICT RESPONSE””, 2005-01-27) reported that the Japanese society is expressing extreme resentment towards the DPRK’s incessant claim for “complete fabrication” against Japan’s examination results that the Japanese repatriated abductee Megumi Yokota’s remains are fake. “North Korea’s response is very insincere,” Japan’s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said and added, “The Japanese government has no choice but to consider strict and detailed measures.” “Pyongyang’s delivery of the memorandum is a de-facto notice to sever relations. The Koizumi administration, which has been passive in restricting the North, mindful of the six-party talks, is mired in a difficult situation,” reported the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

(return to top) The Japan Times (“LATEST SANCTION THREAT AGAINST NORTH KOREA LIKELY AN EMPTY PROMISE”, 2005-01-27) reported that Japan on Wednesday again threatened to impose economic sanctions on the DPRK after the reclusive state formally dismissed Tokyo’s protest against its probe into the fate of 10 missing Japanese. But it remains to be seen whether Japan will actually impose the sanctions, particularly as optimism is growing that six-party talks on the DPRK’s nuclear program might resume as early as next month. (return to top) The Associated Press (“JAPAN SOUNDS OUT U.S., CHINA, SOUTH KOREA ON TOUGHER MEASURES AGAINST NORTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that Japan has told the US, PRC and ROK that it is ready to take tough measures, including possible economic sanctions, against the DPRK because of a dispute over the DPRK’s abduction of Japanese citizens, an official said Thursday. A Foreign Ministry official hinted strongly Thursday that Japan would start drawing up plans for slapping sanctions on the DPRK, saying the government had communicated its willingness to pursue tougher action against the DPRK to its closest partners in the six-nation nuclear talks. (return to top)

12. DPRK on Japan-DPRK Relations

Xinhua (“DPRK URGES JAPAN TO SETTLE FORCIBLE DRAFTING ISSUE”, 2005-01-27) reported that the Association of Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting and Their Bereaved Families on Thursday accused Japan of maintaining a non-humanistic attitude toward the forcible drafting issue and urged it to return remains of Korean victims and make relevant compensation. “Though it is nearly 60 years since the defeat of Japan, the Japanese authorities have hatched and employed every possible plotand trickery to evade their state responsibility for the hideous human rights abuses such as the forcible drafting of Koreans and have not yet made any apology or any compensation to the Korean victims and their bereaved families,” the association said in a statement.

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13. Japan on Maritime WMD Searches

Asia Pulse (“JAPAN EYES CHANGES TO CONVENTION TO ALLOW WMD SEARCHES AT SEA”, 2005-01-27) reported that the Japanese government on Wednesday solidified plans to join a global movement to revise an international convention to allow inspections of ships suspected of smuggling weapons of mass destruction or missile-related goods on the open sea. This movement aims to put into effect the US-backed Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to prevent the spread of such weapons to such countries as the DPRK and Iran through a multinational partnership. The changes will add smuggling of weapons of mass destruction and missile-related cargo to the list of crimes on the high seas.

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14. KIS University Alumni in the ROK

Joong Ang Daily (“NORTHERN ALUMNI NOW ENVOYS IN SOUTH”, 2005-01-27) reported that in Seoul’s diplomatic community, three ambassadors share a rare distinction: All are alumni of the DPRK’s Kim Il Sung University. Ambassador Li Bin of the PRC, Ambassador Perenlei Urjinlkhundev of Mongolia and Ambassador Duong Chinh Thuc of Vietnam have met regularly ever since they formed an alumni group in 2002. At the dinner gatherings, the three, fluent in Korean (each with a hint of a Pyeongyang accent), talk about their school days and Korean politics and economics.

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15. DPRK World Cup Match

Bloomberg (“NORTH KOREA GETS GO-AHEAD TO STAGE WORLD CUP SOCCER MATCHES”, 2005-01-27) reported that the DPRK got the go-ahead to host World Cup qualifying matches, including a meeting with Japan, following a report by Asian soccer’s ruling body which visited the country last week. The DPRK is scheduled to face Japan, Iran and Bahrain at home between March and June. The Asian Football Confederation sent a delegation to check facilities, including the main stadium in Pyongyang which uses an artificial surface.

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16. Inter – Korean Trade Relations

Yonhap (“SEOUL SETS IMPORT CEILING ON N. KOREA PRODUCE”, 2005-01-27) reported that Seoul has set a ceiling on imports of agricultural produce from the DPRK as part of its efforts to keep third-country products from enjoying trade benefits reserved for the DPRK, officials said Thursday. Some companies have profiteered by exploiting the customs-free status reserved for inter-Korean trade by selling PRC goods under false pretenses.

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17. ROK on POW Repatriation

Agence France-Presse (“SEOUL UPSET AT CHINA AFTER SOUTH KOREAN HANDED OVER TO NORTH KOREA”, 2005-01-27) reported that the ROK expressed regret Thursday after the PRC handed back to the DPRK a ROK former prisoner of war who had managed to escape the DPRK. Beijing routinely repatriates DPRK defectors fleeing their impoverished homeland into the PRC. But this time they sent back Han Man-Tack, a ROK captured by DPRK forces during the 1950-53 Korean War and held as a POW. The foreign ministry called in the PRC’s ambassador Li Bin to express “regret” over the incident, a foreign ministry official told AFP.

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18. Russo – ROK Relations

The Vladivostok News (“RUSSIA, S. KOREA TO ESTABLISH JOINT ECONOMIC ZONE IN NAKHODKA”, 2005-01-27) reported that a Russian-Korean industrial complex is scheduled for construction in southeast Primorye in Russia’s Far East as part of an effort to consolidate the region’s scientific and intellectual resources and create conditions for favorable economic relations between the two countries. Officials and businessmen from the ROK city of Phochon met with a Russian delegation in the Far Eastern port of Nakhodka on Wednesday to hold talks on mutual cooperation, Nakhodka’s mayoral press service reported.

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19. Japan Ban on Foreign Workers

Los Angeles Times (“RULING IS BAD NEWS FOR FOREIGN WORKERS”, 2005-01-27) reported that Japan’s Supreme Court ruled 13-2 that local governments could bar foreigners living in Japan from positions of authority in the civil service, overriding constitutional guarantees of equality. Tokyo’s city government barred Chong Hyang Gyun, a second-generation ROK nurse, from taking a promotion exam because a promotion could have led to a foreigner becoming a boss. “Working in Japan as a foreigner is the same as becoming a robot that pays taxes,” Chong said after the verdict.

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20. Sino – Japanese Trade Relations

Washington Post (“CHINA PASSES U.S. IN TRADE WITH JAPAN”, 2005-01-27) reported that the PRC overtook the US as Japan’s largest trading partner last year, the latest sign of Beijing’s rising economic clout and the role that the booming PRC market plays in boosting the global economy. The figures are a milepost in US-Japan economic relations. The American market remains extremely important for Japanese exporters. But the PRC’s displacement of the US as the largest destination for Japanese goods underscores how the PRC has helped keep the world’s second-largest economy from falling back into recession.

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21. Death of Zhao Ziyang

Reuters (“ZHAO DEATH SHOWS LIMITS OF CHINA’S MEDIA FREEDOM”, 2005-01-27) reported that a glance at the newspapers and glossy magazines jostling for space on the PRC’s news stands shows how much the media has changed since the PRC embraced market reforms more than 20 years ago. But the death of ousted leader Zhao Ziyang, who sympathized with student demonstrators in the 1989 Tiananmen movement, serves as a reminder that though the titles may have come a long way since Mao’s days, the content is still strictly controlled. Newspapers now report previously taboo subjects such as industrial accidents and social problems, but Zhao’s death last week, which authorities feared might spark dissent, was buried on back pages and left off broadcasts altogether.

(return to top) The Associated Press (“CHINA TO HOLD MEMORIAL FOR ZHAO”, 2005-01-27) reported that the PRC will hold a memorial for Zhao Ziyang this weekend at its main cemetery for revolutionary heroes, a government official said Thursday, after more than a week of wrangling over how the deposed Communist Party leader will be officially remembered. The “body farewell ceremony” will take place Saturday morning at the Babaoshan Cemetery in Beijing, said the PRC Cabinet official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Such a ceremony is a lower-status event than a state funeral. (return to top) Agence France-Presse (“CHINA ROUNDS UP, BEATS MOURNERS FOR DEPOSED LEADER ZHAO: WITNESSES”, 2005-01-27) reported that the PRC has detained dozens of people, some of whom have been severely beaten, for trying to mark the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang, witnesses said. At least three people, including a woman in her 70s, were punched and manhandled by police officers outside the government offices which receive complaints in the PRC capital, witnesses said. Also last week, an estimated 80 to 90 petitioners were rounded up near Zhao’s traditional courtyard home in Beijing for trying to get inside to pay respects and express condolences to his family, petitioners said. (return to top)

22. US on Uighur Prisoner

Agence France-Presse (“US TO PUSH CHINA TO RELEASE UIGHUR MINORITY LEADER REBIYA KADEER”, 2005-01-27) reported that the US said it would push Beijing to release a prominent advocate of women’s and minority rights ailing in a PRC prison. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Randall Schriver said Wednesday concerns over 58-year-old Rebiya Kadeer, among the most prominent members of the PRC’s Uighur ethnic group in the largely Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, would be raised with the PRC government.

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23. PRC Energy Supply

Xinhua (“COAL SHORTAGE RISES TO BE CHINA’S TOP CONCERN IN ECONOMY”, 2005-01-27) reported that coal shortage will take the place of electricity shortage to be the most prominent challenge to the PRC’s economy this year, an official with the State Reform and Development Commission (SRDC) said here Thursday. “China faces overall power shortages of coal, oil and electricity, among which coal shortage will rise to be the first concern,” said Cao Yushu, deputy secretary-general of the commission, said at a regular news conference, “To balance the demand and supply of coal will be the major task for China’s economic control in 2005.”

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