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Thanks to Adam Cathcart, we were alerted to a story in Rodong Shinmun about new posters being unveiled in North Korea. The posters encourage the army and people to implement the historic tasks set forth in Marshal Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Speech. As we predicted, the satellite launch is being used as the overarching [...]
One last post on Bill and Eric’s Excellent Misadventure in Pyongyang and then we’ll quit. We promise. First, we stipulate that it is possible that highly constructive things have gone on behind the scenes and the public battering that Governor Richardson and Google’s Eric Schmidt are getting in this country is undeserved and in retrospect will [...]
Linked here is my interview from earlier today on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, an interview show on WAMU, the local NPR affiliate.
After much speculation following an AP story, the office of former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson finally confirmed that he is indeed headed to North Korea again; late-breaking coverage suggests they are headed out today. Richardson will head a delegation that includes Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Dr. KA (Tony) Namkung—who has long maintained back-channel [...]
Teach a man to fish: Joongang Ilbo is reporting that “North Korea used construction equipment and materials from South Korea to aid with the latest launch of the ballistic rocket Unha-3.” The unnamed South Korean government source went on to claim that “The U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities spotted the North using cranes, forklifts [...]
We have been struck by a handful of recent stories that suggest the regime’s trepidation about the country’s growing porousness to outside information. Earlier in the month, Kim Jong Un visited the Ministry of State Security. According to the KCNA, he “underscored the need to intensify the struggle to decisively foil the ideological and cultural [...]
Yesterday Intermedia released “A Quiet Opening” a study of North Korea’s changing media environment by Nat Kretchum and Jane Kim. I had the good fortune to be one of the discussants at the report’s release event, along with Martyn Williams of the NK Tech blog whose work we have often cited. It is an excellent [...]
Radio Free Asia’s Korean service is 15 years old this year, and in celebration the network has set up an interesting web page celebrating the anniversary. The service broadcasts five hours of programming a day, seven days a week and can be heard on nine medium and shortwave frequencies to maximize the chances it will [...]
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 [...]
My colleague Marc Noland is Mr. Digital North Korea, having written on the background on the Orascom deal. But he is traveling and there are some updates that are too interesting to pass up. Alexandre Mansourov has written a report for Nautilus with the breathy title “North Korea on the Cusp of Digital Transformation.” But [...]
