NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, July 18, 2007

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NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, July 18, 2007

NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I. NAPSNet

II. CanKor

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. NAPSNet

1. IAEA on DPRK Nuclear Shutdown

Bloomberg (“UN NUCLEAR AGENCY SAYS NORTH KOREA SHUT DOWN FIVE ATOMIC SITES”, 2007-07-18) reported that the United Nations nuclear agency said the DPRK shut down five nuclear sites. The sites include three nuclear power plants, a radiochemical laboratory and an atomic fuel factory, the Vienna- based International Atomic Energy Agency said today in an e- mailed statement. IAEA inspectors sealed the facilities to make sure the DPRK doesn’t restart its nuclear program. Inspectors will finish installing monitoring equipment at the sites in “the next few weeks,” the IAEA said.

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2. Inside DPRK

Radio Free Asia (“NORTH KOREA CRACKS DOWN ON ‘KOREAN WAVE’ OF ILLICIT TV”, 2007-07-17) reported that Authorities in the DPRK are intensifying a crackdown on imports of ROK popular culture, especially television dramas, but the “Korean Wave” may already have taken a strong hold. One of the smash-hit TV dramas to emerge from South Korea in recent years has been “Winter Sonata,” a delicate and emotional love story that has spawned its own fashions as people seek to imitate details from the story. There have been two or three reports of public executions of young people in major cities including Chungjin, as punishment for having illegally copied and distributed ROK visual material.

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3. EU-ROK Trade Relations

Yonhap News (“EU SHUNS INTER-KOREAN INDUSTRIAL ZONE IN FREE TRADE TALKS WITH S. KOREA”, 2007-07-18) reported that the European Union shunned the ROK’s request to include goods made in an inter-Korean industrial park in DPRK in a potential free trade agreement between the two sides, Seoul’s chief negotiator said. “The EU side told us that it’s difficult for trade negotiators to deal with the Kaesong issue because it’s complex legally and politically,” Deputy Trade Minister Kim Han-soo told reporters.

(return to top) Chosun Ilbo (“EU DEMANDS BETTER TRADE OFFER FROM KOREA”, 2007-07-18) reported that the EU has called on the ROK to improve its trade offers on major items like pork and cars in the second round of free trade talks underway in Brussels. The 25-nation bloc told the ROK it could withdraw its initial proposal promising to fully open all product markets within seven years after the trade deal goes into effect unless the ROK makes more drastic concessions on tariffs, according to chief ROK negotiator Kim Han-soo. (return to top)

4. ROK Defense Industry

Dong-a Ilbo (“KOREAN DEFENSE INDUSTRY BECOMES A GLOBAL POWERHOUSE”, 2007-07-18) reported that Defense News ranked Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) 79th and Rotem, a ROK defense company, 93rd in the world’s top 100 defense contractors on July 16. The US military magazine reported that the ROK is emerging as a global powerhouse in the defense industry. The magazine expects the size of ROK export in the defense industry to quadruple and reaching $1 billion within the next 3 or 4 years.

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5. Japan Earthquake

The Associated Press (“JAPAN RADIOACTIVE LEAK BIGGER”, 2007-07-18 ) reported that the operator of an earthquake-ravaged nuclear plant said a radioactive leak from the plant was 50 percent bigger than first reported two days ago. The mayor ordered the facility closed until its safety could be confirmed. Tokyo Electric Power Co. also said about 400 barrels containing low-level radioactive waste at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant were knocked over, and the lids had come off 40 of them, as a result of Monday’s deadly 6.8-magnitude quake.

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6. PRC on Shanghai Cooperation Organization Drill

Xinhua (“CHINA SAYS JOINT ANTI-TERROR DRILL TO IMPROVE SCO SECURITY COOPERATION”, 2007-07-18) reported that a senior PRC military official said that the upcoming joint military drill on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism will improve the security cooperation between members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). “It is a clear manifestation of high-level mutual trust and understanding among SCO members and showcases a new level of cooperation among the member countries in defense and security,” he said.

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7. Cross Strait Relations

The Associated Press (“TAIWAN-CHINA TOURISM TALKS STALLED, RAISING DOUBTS ABOUT PARALLEL ECONOMIC PROGRESS”, 2007-07-18) reported that negotiations to bring more of the PRC’s tourists to Taiwan are not making progress, a senior Taiwanese official said, raising doubts for a broad-ranging accord on closer economic ties between the two rivals. The tourism talks have been under way for several years, and are viewed as part of a package that includes parallel discussions on direct charter and cargo flights between Taiwan and the mainland.

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8. PRC Government Criticism

The Los Angeles Times (“LETTER ACCUSES CHINA’S PARTY OF DRIFT”, 2007-07-18) reported that a rare open letter signed by 17 former top officials and conservative Marxist scholars ahead of a key party meeting accuses the PRC’s top leaders of steering the country in the wrong direction, pandering to foreigners, betraying the workers’ revolution and jeopardizing social stability. The challenge is unusual because of the importance of its signatories and its timing before this fall’s party congress, an event held every five years and a key date on the political calendar.

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9. PRC Media Control

The Associated Press (“CHINA WARNS AGAINST ILLEGAL SURVEYS BY FOREIGNERS”, 2007-07-18) reported that the PRC’s state-controlled media have warned citizens to raise their awareness and prevent leakage of state secrets, charging that illegal surveys by foreigners in the country were on the rise and threatening national security. “Many Chinese mistakenly believe that geographic information is not secret because satellites are commonly used to gather such information,” the English-language China Daily said. “But coordinates, topography and geologic information of key areas and core facilities are still top secret. Once acquired by other countries, the information could be used to attack wartime targets,” the China Daily said, citing experts.

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10. PRC AIDS Issue

The Associated Press (“UN: CHINA MAKING PROGRESS AGAINST AIDS”, 2007-07-18) reported that the PRC has taken significant steps to fight HIV and AIDS, but still must reach out to more patients in the vast country and overcome a lack of cooperation from some government officials, a U.N. AIDS official said. He said successes in the PRC include top-level government commitment and transparency, as well as proper funding, availability of antiretroviral drugs and outreach programs.

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II. CanKor

11. Report # 288

CanKor (“Current Events”, 2007-07-17) Almost five years after International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors were expelled from the DPRK, they are back, confirming the shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor, the first step in scaling back Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Kim Myong Gil, minister at the DPRK mission to the UN, confirms that the reactor was shut down on Saturday after receiving an initial 6,200 tons of oil (out of a total 50,000) from the Republic of Korea. Washington is expected to take “parallel” actions, including lifting wider economic sanctions and removing the DPRK from its list of “states sponsoring terrorism”. On the eve of the reactor’s shutdown, the chief of the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People’s Army issues a lengthy statement reaffirming that the DPRK nuclear weapons programme has a purely deterrent function, in light of threats from “the anti-DPRK fanatics of the USA.” Almost all of the statement rehearses the DPRK military’s perspective on history since the signing of the Armistice Agreement 54 years ago, apportioning a share of the blame to the complicity of the UN Security Council. The concluding paragraph, however, proposes direct DPRK-USA military talks — in the presence of a UN observer — on a new peacekeeping mechanism for the Korean Peninsula. To make sure that readers do not miss this underlying purpose or stop reading before the conclusion of an otherwise stock statement, the Korean Central News Agency gives it the title “KPA Proposes Talks Between DPRK and US Militaries.”

(return to top) CanKor (“OPINION”, 2007-07-17) Two OPINION pieces conclude this issue of the CanKor Report: Canadian political commentator Gwynne Dyer holds John Bolton responsible for “five lost years” in serious nuclear negotiations. The Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Kirkpatrick expresses dissatisfaction with how the UN dealt with the UNDP independent audit, especially the firing of “whistleblower” Artjon Shkurtaj, a veteran UNDP staffer who was chief of operations for the UN in Pyongyang. (return to top) CanKor (“WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT THE CANKOR REPORT”, 2007-07-17) “I find CanKor to be an indispensable source for keeping up with North Korea and relations between the two Koreas.” Bruce Cumings, professor of history at University of Chicago, author of Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History, Norton, 1997, and North Korea: Another Country, New Press, 2004. (return to top)