North Korea-weekly review-3

NORTH KOREA NEWSLETTER NO. 38 (January 22, 2009)

*** NEWS IN BRIEF (Part 1)

N. Korean Leader Visits Pyongyang Silk, Gum factories

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has visited a silk yarn and gum
factory in Pyongyang to urge workers to enhance production and quality, the
North's state-run media reported on Jan. 15.
The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) monitored in Seoul said Kim visited
the silk yarn factory and after praising workers called for redoubled effort to
raise production to world-class levels. He also said more should be done to
modernize production facilities and research on silkworms to increase output.
The report added that the reclusive leader visited a gum factory in the capital
city and talked to workers there along with high ranking officials from the
Workers' Party of (North) Korea.
Two days later, the KCNA said the North Korean leader inspected a sub-unit under
(North) Korean People's Army (KPA) Unit 2752 honored with the title of O
Jung-hup-led Seventh Regiment and offered field guidance to workers at the Mt.
Ryongak Recreation Ground in Pyongyang.
The KCNA did not disclose the date of Kim's visits. He was accompanied by two
full generals -- Ri Myong-su and Hyon Chol-hae -- along with other officials, the
KCNA said.

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N. Korea, China Exchange New Year Embassy Receptions

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea has held a New Year reception for Chinese diplomats
in Pyongyang, the North's official news agency said, amid a flurry of diplomatic
exchanges between the allies marking the 60th anniversary of relations.
The international affairs department of the central committee of the North's
Workers' Party said it "arranged a reception in honor of the staff members of the
Chinese embassy in Pyongyang at Koryo Hotel on the occasion of the New Year," the
(North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Jan. 15.
Chinese ambassador to Pyongyang Liu Xiaoming attended the event, while North
Korea's Pak Kyong-son and Kim Thae-jong, vice department directors of the
Workers' Party Central Committee, hosted the reception, it said.
In separate reports, the KCNA said China's Foreign Ministry invited North Korean
diplomats in China to a friendly gathering on Jan. 14, following a Jan. 13
banquet hosted by the North Korean embassy in Beijing.
"In the meaningful year of 2009, which marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic
relations between the two countries, exchanges and cooperation in each sector
will be deepened and elevated to a greater level in accordance with the will of
the two countries' great leaders to open a new chapter in the history of
friendship between Korea and China," North Korean ambassador to Beijing Choe
Jin-su was quoted by KCNA as saying at the Jan. 13 event.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Chinese President Hu Jintao
pledged closer ties between Pyongyang and Beijing in New Year's messages
exchanged on Jan. 1.
China's Foreign Ministry sent a delegation to Pyongyang for a four-day visit that
ended on Jan. 12.

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N. Korea Considers Food Most Pressing Problem

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea reiterated on Jan. 15 that resolving the nation's
chronic food shortage is the most pressing task in rebuilding its moribund
economy.
The North recently revived a postwar industrial campaign to mobilize its citizens
known as the Chollima Movement. Named after a mythical winged horse, the campaign
was first launched in 1956 following then leader Kim Il-sung's visit to a steel
complex in the western port city of Nampho. Its chief aim was to rebuild the
country from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Current leader Kim Jong-il, son of the late Kim Il-sung, visited the same
facility on Dec. 24 last year and urged workers to step-up efforts towards
constructing a thriving nation by 2012. The year will mark the centennial of the
birth of the senior Kim, who died in 1994.
"There is no more pressing or important task than resolving the people's food
problem at this stage," the North's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station
said.
The radio broadcast called for citizens to help the nation strengthen its
"self-reliance" and alleviate the food shortage by increasing crop production
this year. It also said the food crisis was a global issues and was not only
affecting North Korea.
"Today, there is no country willing to provide food and nowhere to get food
because of the worldwide food crisis," it said. "We must focus all our energy on
attaining this year's goal of crop production with an extraordinary resolution to
settle the food problem by ourselves at any cost."
North Korea has heavily depended on foreign handouts to help feed its 23 million
population since famine killed around 2 million in the 1990s.
The U.N. World Food Program estimated last December that North Korea urgently
requires US$346 million worth of food to help some 5.6 million North Koreans --
nearly a quarter of the country's population -- get through the New Year, despite
a relatively good crop last year.

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N. Korea Mobilizes University Students for Economic Reconstruction

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- University students are vigorously helping out at farms and
factories to increase production, Pyongyang's media said on Jan. 16, as a global
economic downturn casts a shadow on the North's goal of self-sustainability.
"Students of the DPRK (North Korea) are doing their bit in seething realities
during the vacation in response to the call of the joint New Year editorial," the
North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The report said students from 10 universities in Pyongyang, including the
nation's top Kimilsung University and the Kimchaek University of Technology,
helped workers at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex, the nation's first thermal
energy plant.
Some of the students worked at farm cooperatives, the report said.
"They carried a vast amount of manure to fields together with peasants," it said,
pointing out that the joint editorial calls for meeting this year's grain
production target "with the extraordinary determination to solve the food problem
by the (North) Korean people's efforts in any circumstances to cope with the
world-wide food crisis."
North Korea vowed to "solve food problems by our own efforts" and rebuild the
nation's decrepit industry infrastructure in its New Year joint editorial.
Weighed down by the tanking global economy, however, the North's economy appears
headed for minus growth this year, analysts say.
(END)