Visitors may now keep their cell phones when visiting N.K. Fasinating!
Is North Korea Changing ?
by fulltimestudent 44 Replies latest social current
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fulltimestudent
Yes, Shamus - my thoughts.
A real but minor change is that 'foreigners' are now allowed to keep their mobile phones (wonder if that would extend to a 7" tablet?) in NK. Previously, you had to leave it at the customs barrier.
I wondered why the change, then I thought of the increasing numbers of PRC tourists that are visiting NK. There are some reports that Chinese tourists can be very demanding (i.e. think of the near riots in China, when planes do not take off on time) and that they are also a bit irreverent. Perhaps, they are complaining about leaving their phones at customs, so perhaps the NK administration bowed to the inevitable.
Also, there are reports that increasing numbers of 'unapproved' phones are being smuggled into NK across the border with China.
In any case, NK phones (sim cards) cannot contact 'foreign' phones, so there does not seem much problem for the govt. Nonetheless, every small change is welcome.
Here's a report from Radio Australia (owned by the Australian Government):
(Quote)
North Korea allows foreigners to take mobile phones in
Posted Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:37pm AEDT
PHOTO: Chinese state media says foreigners visiting North Korea are now allowed to take their own mobile phones into the country. (ABC News) MAP: Korea, Democratic People S Republic Of Foreigners visiting North Korea can now take their own mobile phones into the country, China's Xinhua news agency reports.
It says a technician with Koryolink, the North Korean-Egyptian joint venture that operates North Korea's 3G phone network, saying the move took effect on the 7th of January.
Previously, foreigners were required to leave their phones with customs and pick them up when leaving the country, the report said.
"We have tried hard to negotiate with the Korean security side, and got the approval recently," the technician, identified as an Egyptian, said.
He added "It has nothing to do with the Google trip", referring to a visit earlier this month by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who said (after the trip) he told officials in the North that the country would not develop unless it embraced Internet freedom.
"Once the Internet starts, citizens in a country can certainly build on top of it," Mr Schmidt said.
"The government has to do something. It has to make it possible for people to use the Internet, which the government in North Korea has not yet done."
Limited access
Highly secretive North Korea has a domestic Intranet service with a limited number of users.Analysts say access to the Internet is for the country's super-elite only, meaning a few hundred people or maybe 1,000 at most.
The Koryolink technician said foreigners need to fill out a form to provide their phone's International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number with North Korea's customs agency to bring in their personal device.
He also told Xinhua that foreigners using a phone based on the WCDMA 3G mobile standard can buy a SIM card in North Korea from Koryolink for around USD $67 and make international calls.
Mobile Internet service will also be available soon for foreigners in North Korea, Xinhua said.
"It is not a technical problem, we just wait for" North Korean approval, the Koryolink employee said.
North Korea's 3G mobile network has 1.8 million users, Xinhua said, though beyond voice calls their options are limited to text messages and video calls.
Their phones can't make international calls or connect to the Internet, while North Koreans and foreigners cannot call each other because of different settings on their SIM cards, Xinhua said.
AFP
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fulltimestudent
In a previous post I demonstrated how easy it is, to 'look' at NK via googlemap. Yesterday, Leonid Petrov posted a link to this Huffington Post report:
The report has piks, of what is claimed to be some of the prison camps in NK. It mentions the figure of 250,000 prisoners who are supposed to be in the camps, prisoners who, " suffer through starvation and intense manual labor in these camps. " The saddest aspect may be that there are rumoured to be 2nd/3rd generation prisoners being held in detention. For example, a rich landowner and his family in NK in the 1950s, may have been arrested as a politically unreliable person and sentenced to imprisonment. Any children born in the camps, are then it is claimed, automatically held in detention also. If your family is unreliable politically, it is then assumed that you are also a risk. On the other hand, if your parents are judged as politically reliable - it is assumed that you are also. Only politically reliable people get the better sorts of work. We can assume that all the 'nice' people we see in Pyongyang streets in tourist's videos, come from families that are 'politically reliable.'
You can see the HP's piks at:
No figures (that I know of) on their prison populations are released by the NK administration. It is claimed by some that the figure of 250,000 comprises political prisoners only. You can work out the percentage against the total NK population of 24,589,000. North Koreans are apparently reproducing at a negative rate. South Korea, on the other hand, now has a population of 50 million.
As I noted, some try to separate political prisoners from ordinary criminals. I'm not sure about this. How do we count this man - Oscar Lopez Rivera, who has been in prison in the USA for 30 years as he serves a 70 year sentence in the early 1980s following a conviction (along with a number of colleagues) for conspiring to "overthrow" the governments of the USA and Puerto Rico. They perceived of themselves as freedom fighters, desiring independence for Puerto Rico. Yes, Clinton offered to release him, but Rivera would only accept freedom if all his fellow prisoners were released.
It is also noteworthy that it is now difficult to know if there are 'political' prisoners in western nations. Australia, for example, has laws forbidding discussion of any person arrested for suspected 'terrorist' activity.
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fulltimestudent
Around 10,000 cadres (secretaries of local party branches) of the Korean Workers Party (the ruling party) were invited to a meeting in Pyongyang that has been described as 'epochal.'
The piks were issued by the official NK news agency.
What it means is not yet clear. It could have to do with official party policy to make NK properous, or it could be to do with nuclear testing.
Source: Global Times - http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/758868.shtml
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fulltimestudent
BBC News reports that Google has started adding detail to maps of NK, and that the first of these are appearing on the web.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21226623
According to the BBC:
quote:
In the capital, Pyongyang, schools, theatres, government buildings and underground stops are now marked in Google Maps, as are statues, some embassies, an ice rink and the infamous 105-storey Ryugyong hotel, which has been under construction for more than 25 years.
The Yongbyong nuclear site is labelled, to the north, and a road called Nuclear Test Road, leading to a site north of Punggye-ri which is believed to be where Pyongyang is preparing to test a nuclear device.
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A brief video accompanies the BBC report.
