NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, November 29, 2004

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"NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, November 29, 2004", NAPSNet Daily Report, November 29, 2004, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-daily-report/napsnet-daily-report-monday-november-29-2004/

NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, November 29, 2004

NAPSNet Daily Report Monday, November 29, 2004

I. United States

II. CanKor

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

1. US on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Asahi Shimbun (“U.S. OFFER TO N. KOREA STILL ALIVE”, 2004-11-27) reported that the US is still willing to offer a generous assistance package that the DPRK rejected two years ago, but time is running out on the “bold approach” offer to get Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. If Pyongyang had agreed to eliminate its nuclear weapons program, the US was willing to establish diplomatic relations, sign a peace treaty, provide infrastructure construction assistance and help the DPRK return to the fold of the international community, the sources said.

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2. DPRK on US-DPRK Relations

Yonhap (“N. KOREA RIDICULES BUSH AS ‘IGNORANT'”, None) reported that the DPRK ridiculed US President George W. Bush as an “incorrigible ignoramus” Monday, citing a recent series of gaffes he allegedly made at international meetings. Bush “has become an object of denunciation and ridicule for making a series of remarks that showed his ignorance and lack of common sense,” the DPRK’s Korean Central Broadcasting Station said in a commentary.

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3. US on US-DPRK Relations

Donga Ilbo (“U.S. MODERATES SUGGEST POSSIBILITY OF MILITARY FORCES USE AGAINST THE NORTH”, 2004-11-29) reported that leading moderates of the US who have emphasized the importance of negotiation with the DPRK are now laying stress on the possibility of using military force. Robert L. Gallucci, the Dean of Georgetown University, who had played a leading role in the success of the US – DPRK Agreed Framework in 1994, criticized that when it comes to the negotiations with the DPRK, giving more carrots and using less sticks are very critical, but the Bush administration has failed to do so.

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4. PRC on DPRK Nuclear Talks

The Associated Press (“CHINA URGES MORE FLEXIBILITY IN NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR TALKS”, 2004-11-29) reported that PRC Premier Wen Jiabao urged the countries involved in the stalled six-nation DPRK nuclear talks to be more flexible so that the discussions can resume, a PRC official said. “There are some difficulties and problems, so he (Wen) wishes the parties concerned can show some flexibility and come back to the six-party talks,” Liu told reporters in the Laotian capital.

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5. PRC, ROK, Japan on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Reuters (“CHINA, JAPAN, S KOREA VOW COOPERATION OVER N KOREA”, 2004-11-29) reported that leaders of the PRC, Japan and the ROK vowed Monday to strengthen cooperation in resolving the crisis over the DPRK’s nuclear programs and to tighten security and economic ties. An “action strategy” issued after a meeting in the Lao capital of PRC Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and ROK President Roh Moo-hyun also promised stronger cooperation on energy security in the region.

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6. DPRK on Nuclear Talks

Reuters (“U.N.: N.KOREA LOOKING FOR SIGNAL FROM U.S. ON TALKS”, 2004-11-25) reported that the DPRK wants a change in the political atmosphere before it will attend talks on its nuclear plans and has asked the US to send a signal to that effect, a senior UN official said Thursday. Jean Ping, president of the UN General Assembly, told reporters after talks with ROK President Roh Moo-hyun that the DPRK had given him a message for the US during a visit to Pyongyang. “It was a message that the US should give us signs that will improve the climate for negotiations,” said Ping, who is Gabon’s foreign minister.

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7. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Reuters (“MEETING ON N.KOREA NUCLEAR TALKS SET FOR DEC. -REPORT”, 2004-11-26) reported that the six states involved in negotiations to dismantle the DPRK’s nuclear programs will meet in Beijing next month to set the date for formal talks, ROK’s KBS television said on Friday. “The members of the six-party talks have tentatively agreed to hold an unofficial meeting in Beijing some time between December 15 and 23,” a senior ROK government official was quoted in the state-run KBS television report as saying.

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8. KEDO LWR Project

Associated Press (“CONSORTIUM EXTENDS FREEZE ON NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PROJECT”, 2004-11-29) reported that an international consortium said Friday it had extended for another year a freeze on a project to build two light-water nuclear reactors in the DPRK. The four main partners in the New York-based Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization — the US, Japan, ROK and the EU — had previously suspended the project for a year through Dec. 1, 2004. The freeze will be extended until Dec. 1, 2005, the KEDO group said in a statement.

(return to top) Korea Herald (“REACTOR PROJECT IN N.K. SUSPENDED FOR ANOTHER YEAR”, 2004-11-29) reported that a US-led international consortium responsible for building two nuclear power plants in the DPRK decided yesterday to continue the suspension of a $4.6 billion project for another year, officials said yesterday. “The Executive Board of Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization has decided to continue the suspension of the Light Water Reactor Project in North Korea for another year, beginning Dec. 1, 2004,” said the consortium in a news release. (return to top)

9. Russia on Inter – Korean Summit

Joongang Ilbo (“RUSSIAN ENVOY PUSHES FOR INTER-KOREAN TIES”, 2004-11-29) reported that Konstantin B. Pulikovski, presidential envoy to the far eastern region of the Russian Federation, said in a recent interview with the JoongAng Ilbo that a summit meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and DPRK leader Kim Jong-il in the Russian region is very possible. With the local media recently reporting on the possibility of a summit meeting, the envoy said that Russia was more than willing to assist the two nations.

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10. DPRK on Portrait Removal

Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK (“WARNS HACK WRITERS AGAINST INVOLVEMENT IN ANTI-DPRK PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFAR”, 2004-11-27) reported that media in some countries are now busy spreading false rumor that portraits of leader Kim Jong Il are no longer displayed in the DPRK. We categorically refute this misinformation as it is revelation of their utter ignorance of the true reality in the DPRK where the leader and the people are firmly united in thought and sentiment and the servicepersons and people deem it their life and soul to devotedly defend the leader.

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11. DPRK Stability

Yonhap (“N. KOREA’S KIM WARNED OF CEAUSESCU-STYLE COLLAPSE: MAGAZINE”, 2004-11-29) reported that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il warned his confidants in early 1990 about the possibility of the DPRK facing the same fate as the regime of the executed Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, Newsweek magazine reported on its Web site Monday.

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12. DPRK Economic Reforms

Chosun Ilbo (“NORTH KOREA MOVES STEP CLOSER TO MARKET ECONOMY”, 2004-11-28) reported that the DPRK Cabinet has endorsed moves to establish markets in every corner of the financially-strapped state and extend business hours late into the evening, according to an article published in Chunichi Shimbun on Saturday. The document records how Kim Jong-il ordered that markets be set up to facilitate the smooth running of the country’s socialist economy.

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13. DPRK Intellectual Property Policy

Yonhap (“NORTH KOREA TO OPEN COPYRIGHT AGENCY IN TOKYO: REPORT”, 2004-11-29) reported that the DPRK will open a copyright agency in Tokyo to prevent unauthorized use of its publications overseas and to generate income through their legal sale, a newspaper participating in the project said Monday. The copyright agency will monitor the piracy of DPRK publications, visual products, art and computer programs outside the country, especially in Japan and the ROK, and claim royalties for their use, said Chosun Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang organ of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.

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14. ROK on Special Envoy to the DPRK

Yonhap (“PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE DENIES SPECIAL ENVOY FOR N. KOREA”, 2004-11-29) reported that the ROK’s presidential office on Monday denied a report that the government will send a special envoy of President Roh Moo-hyun to the DPRK by the end of the year to produce a breakthrough in the standoff over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons ambitions. “It is not true that the government is seeking to dispatch a presidential envoy to North Korea,” Roh’s deputy spokesman Kim Man-soo said. “It is also untrue that President Roh has already been briefed on it.”

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15. DPRK on Food Aid

Sydney Morning Herald (“NORTH KOREA WANTS AID WORKERS OUT”, 2004-11-29) reported that the DPRK is asking UN aid agencies to cut their foreign staff in the country by half, and has indicated it wants all international non-government organizations to quit once current programs are ended, UN officials said. Although the North Koreans still want foreign food aid to continue, it appears they wish the close monitoring of the aid’s distribution – applied to satisfy donors that food is going to needy civilians, not the 1.1 million-strong army – to be wound up.

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16. ROK on Food Aid to the DPRK

Yonhap (“SEOUL TO CONDUCT SECOND INSPECTION OF RICE AID TO N. KOREA”, 2004-11-29) reported that the ROK government is scheduled to conduct its second monitoring of food aid delivery to the DPRK in two separate locations in early December, the Unification Ministry said Monday. Two four-member teams are planning to visit the North’s food distribution centers in Nampo on the western coast and Heungnam on the eastern coast between Friday and next Monday, ministry officials said.

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17. Inter – Korean Trade Relations

Yonhap (“SOUTH KOREA TO IMPORT NORTH KOREAN CHICKEN, DUCK MEAT IN 2005 “, 2004-11-29) reported that ROK consumers will be able to buy DPRK chicken and duck meat starting early next year, the Agriculture Ministry said Monday. The ministry said a local import company had requested a commercial license to import 100 tons of those products. The meat is expected to be first supplied to food processing companies before being made available to stores that sell poultry.

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18. DPRK Environmental Issues

Kyodo (“N. KOREA REPORTS SEWAGE CONTAMINATION IN DRINKING WATER”, 2004-11-29) reported that much of the DPRK’s water is not drinkable because of sewage contamination from leaky pipes and a lack of personnel qualified to check supplies, according to a joint report compiled by the DPRK government and the UN. Natural corrosion has broken down galvanized steel pipes built 40 years ago, the report says. Sewage and water pipes often run through the same trenches.

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19. DPRK Disappearance

Yonhap (“N. KOREAN ARMY GENERAL’S SON HAS GONE MISSING, SOURCE SAYS “, 2004-11-28) reported that DPRK authorities are trying to locate the oldest son of Gen. Oh Guk-ryol, a top-ranking officer in the DPRK’s army, a source in Seoul said Sunday. “Pyongyang has recently confirmed that Oh Se-wook is missing,” the source familiar with the DPRK situation said. “It is working clandestinely to figure out whether Oh has defected to another country or was murdered.”

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20. IAEA on ROK Nuclear Experiment

Reuters (“U.N. NUCLEAR AGENCY REBUKES SOUTH KOREA”, 2004-11-27) reported that the UN nuclear watchdog agency rebuked the ROK on Friday for secret experiments that could have led to the development of an atomic bomb, but spared it the humiliation of being hauled in front of the Security Council. At a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency here, governors approved a statement in which Seoul escaped with relatively mild criticism.

(return to top) The Associated Press (“NUCLEAR INSPECTORS TO RETURN TO SOUTH KOREA”, 2004-11-28) reported that the U.N. nuclear watchdog will send a group of inspectors to the ROK next week for additional investigations into the country’s past secret nuclear experiments, officials said Monday. The group of IAEA inspectors will arrive next Monday and conduct a four-day investigation, an official at the Science and Technology Ministry told the ROK’s Yonhap news agency. The visit is the fourth by IAEA inspectors since the ROK’s admission made earlier this year. (return to top)

21. US – ROK Relations

Yonhap (“S. KOREA, U.S. TO ESTABLISH VICE MINISTER-LEVEL DIALOGUE CHANNEL”, 2004-11-29) reported that the ROK and the US have agreed to establish a high-level dialogue channel to discuss a possible expansion of the roles of American troops stationed here, an official said Friday. The agreement was reached during Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon’s meeting on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

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22. Jenkins Case

The Associated Press (“ARMY DESERTER RELEASED FROM JAIL”, 2004-11-29) reported that US Army deserter Charles Jenkins was released from military jail on Saturday after serving 25 days for abandoning his squadron in 1965 and defecting to the DPRK, where he lived for nearly four decades.

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23. Japan on Relations with the PRC, DPRK

Japan Times (“JAPAN PLANS TO CALL CHINA, NORTH KOREA KEY THREATS”, 2004-11-27) reported that Japan will name the DPRK and PRC as threats to its security in a new defense policy to be compiled next month, according to a draft the government presented Friday to the Liberal Democratic Party. “North Korea’s military moves are a grave destabilizing factor in the region,” states the draft, presented to a security panel of the LDP. “At the same time, Japan must pay close attention to China’s modernization of its military and the expansion of its activities in the sea.”

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24. ASEAN and the PRC, Japan, and ROK

Reuters (“SE ASIA FORGES CLOSER TIES WITH CHINA, JAPAN, S.KOREA”, 2004-11-29) reported that leaders of 13 Southeast and Northeast Asian states Monday underlined their determination to turn growing economic power into political influence by establishing a new summit-level grouping. The focus was on the new grouping of ASEAN’s 10 members together with the PRC, Japan and ROK that could see ASEAN being subsumed by the mightier northern economies.

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25. Japan – ROK Relations

Agence France-Presse (“JAPAN’S SUPREME COURT REFUSES COMPENSATION TO SOUTH KOREAN WAR SLAVES”, 2004-11-29) reported that Japan’s top court has a damages suit brought by ROK citizens forced to work as sex slaves or soldiers by the Japanese Imperial Army, saying their suffering in World War II cannot be compensated under the post-war constitution. The Supreme Court ruling infuriated some plaintiffs, who climbed over the barrier separating them from the judges and court secretaries and roared in anger, Japanese news reports said.

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26. Sino – Japanese Relations

Chosun Ilbo (“JAPAN’S LDP TELLS CHINA TO STAY OUT OF YASUKUNI SHRINE ISSUE”, 2004-11-29) reported that Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro said Monday that his four visits to the Yasukuni Shrine since taking office were “appropriate.” Ahead of this, Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secretary-general Tsutomu Takebe said at a lecture Sunday in response to a request from PRC President Hu Jintao to Prime Minister Koizumi that the visits to Yasukuni be cancelled, “To be frank, it is interference in our domestic affairs. What would happen if we didn’t visit the shrine because important Chinese figures said not to?”

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27. Japan on Iraq Dispatch

The Associated Press (“DEFENSE CHIEF INDICATES JAPANESE TROOPS”, 2004-11-27) reported that Japan’s defense chief said Sunday that Japanese troops should remain in Iraq until the country is properly rehabilitated, possibly until late 2005. About 500 Japanese troops are helping to rebuild infrastructure in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah, and their mandate is set to expire Dec. 14. The government was planning to assess the situation in Samawah before deciding on a possible extension.

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28. Sino – Mongolian Relations

The New York Times (“THE MONGOLIANS ARE COMING TO CHINA! WITH HEAVY METAL!”, 2004-11-29) reported that the in recent years, barriers have gone down between those two Mongolias as the PRC has become its northern neighbor’s largest trading partner and foreign investor. With Inner Mongolia’s economy growing by 22 percent during the first nine months of this year, officials in the two Mongolias agreed in October to open a free-trade zone where the Trans-Mongolian Railway crosses into the PRC.

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29. Sino – African Relations

Reuters (“RESOURCE HUNGRY CHINA MAKES BIG PUSH INTO AFRICA”, 2004-11-26) reported that the PRC is back in Africa, promoting business deals and strengthening diplomatic alliances in a strategic push that analysts say marks sharp new competition for the continent’s rich resources. From west African oil fields, where PRC companies rub shoulders with Western multinationals, to central African mines, Beijing’s Africa outreach is raising eyebrows in some Western capitals which sense a serious new player on the continent.

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30. PRC Labor Unrest

Washington Post (“IN CHINA, WORKERS TURN TOUGH”, 2004-11-27) reported that heralded by an unprecedented series of walkouts, the first stirrings of unrest have emerged among the millions of youthful migrant workers who supply seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor for the vast expanse of factories in the RPC’s booming Pearl River Delta.

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31. PRC Legal System

Los Angeles Times (“THE PEOPLE’S VERDICT: GOING TO COURT IN CHINA PAYS OFF”, 2004-11-29) reported that with a newfound sense of their rights and more lawyers to back them up, a growing number of PRC are taking their cases to court. Reports of all manner of cases appear in newspapers: A Guangzhou man sues a restaurant after three mice fall in his meal. Disgruntled movie fans in Hangzhou take a theater to court for a 10-minute delay. A Chongqing woman asks a judge to punish her neighbor for naming a dog after her and then scolding the pet in public.

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32. PRC Mine Blast

The New York Times (“166 STILL MISSING FROM CHINA MINE BLAST”, 2004-11-29) reported that a gas explosion blasted through a coal mine in central PRC on Sunday, leaving more than 160 miners missing in what may be one of the country’s worst coal mine accidents in recent years. The explosion occurred at 7 a.m. in the Chenjiashan Coal Mine, a state-owned mine in Shaanxi Province, said the official New China News Agency.

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II. CanKor

33. CanKor # 186

Canada-Korea Electronic Information Service (“CanKor # 186”, 2004-11-19) In an apparent about-face, the DPRK foreign ministry dismisses as “nonsensical stories” the post-US election conjecture that the six-party talks died because the DPRK insists on bilateral talks. The DPRK underlines its willingness to continue talks in any form as soon as the USA drops its regime change option. To put a stop to a media feeding frenzy regarding the reported removal of DPRK leader Kim Jong Il’s portrait from two rooms in the Grand People’s Cultural Palace, a DPRK spokesman calls it “groundless fabrication” to suggest that North Koreans would wish to be separated from the man who is adored as the sun in the sky. The UN Secretary General’s envoy to the DPRK, Canadian businessman Maurice Strong, says the most effective way to end the nuclear standoff would be for the international community to offer the DPRK a major economic package as part of a peace settlement and to coax the communist regime to open up to the world. Although the latest round of Japan-DPRK talks produces disappointing results from DPRK research into the alleged death of Japanese abductees, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says Japan will deliver food aid as already programmed. ROK President Roh Moo-hyun uses a stopover in Los Angeles on his way to Argentina as an opportunity to send a message to second-term US President George W. Bush ahead of their meeting at the APEC forum in Chile. He urges Washington to soften its stance on the nuclear issue, calling military action unacceptable and saying that there is some validity to the DPRK’s claims that its pursuit of nuclear arms is for deterrence. The speech sets off alarms in Washington, where White House officials say there are some “elements to discuss” with President Roh, betraying a subtle but significant discord between the allies on how to deal with the DPRK. How to deal with the DPRK is the subject of a study by the International Crisis Group (ICG), which says that it is time to change tack and put a comprehensive offer on the table that lays out exactly what benefits the DPRK can expect in exchange for giving up its nuclear programme and weapons. Only a serious offer from the United States, according to the ICG, will put the other parties in the six-party talks in a position to increase pressure on DPRK should a reasonable deal be rejected. In this week’s OPINION section, CanKor reproduces the ICG report’s Executive Summary and Recommendations. www.CanKor.ca

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