In his blog, North Korea Tech, Martyn Williams recently reported some interesting news on Koryolink, the joint venture between the Egyptian telecommunications chaebol Orascom (75%) and the government (25%) and North Korea’s only commercial 3G cell phone network. The company has recently signed up its 1 millionth subscriber. Yonhap also provided some interesting news related [...]

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In the last post, we looked at the early history of the LWR saga through the dissolution of KEDO.  The fact that KEDO had wound down did not preclude North Korean efforts to revive the project, however. To the contrary, the Agreed Framework provided the precedent to raise it again and the issue resurfaced in [...]

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As we have indicated in a series of posts, signs point to a deteriorating food situation in North Korea. Now, a consortium of US NGOs who were involved in the last major relief effort in 2008 has completed an assessment which is sobering to say the least.  They document a downward revision in expected spring [...]

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North Korea’s problems with electrical power generation and distribution are well-known. The situation tends to worsen in the winter when some communities, which have detached from the unreliable national grid by relying on local mini-dams to generate hydropower, re-attach themselves to the grid as local rivers and streams freeze rendering the dams unusable.  Over the [...]

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The Kim Chaek steel complex has cropped up in the news several times in recent months, but not in the way heroic way it was again invoked in the joint New Year’s editorial. Stresses at such highly-visible facilities—Kim Jong Il visited the plant in December–should be taken as particularly worrisome signs of wider developments. The [...]

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