North Korea Newsletter 354 (March 19, 2015)
2015/03/19 10:04
INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS
S. Korea to help develop fish farms in N. Korea
SEJONG (Yonhap) -- South Korea, together with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), plans to help develop fish farms in North Korea as an aid to the impoverished state, the government said on March 17.
According to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, the Korea Maritime Institute will soon sign an agreement with the FAO to launch a joint study on the fish-raising industry in the North.
The two parties will study climate conditions in North Korea and find the best species for farming, and based on the outcome of the study, South Korea and the FAO will raise a 30 billion won (US$26.5 million) fund to help build new fish farms in the North, the ministry said.
The aid, however, will likely be delivered by the FAO as Pyongyang continues to be at odds with Seoul over its nuclear program.
Inter-Korean dialogue has nearly come to a halt after the North's third nuclear test in early 2013. The communist state continues to blast daily threats and slander against the South's Park Geun-hye government.
South Korea's National Red Cross had offered to send 25 tons of powdered milk for the malnourished children of North Korea last month, but Pyongyang quickly rejected the offer.
North Korea is believed to have suffered a chronic shortage of food since the late 1990s. The country continues to depend heavily on international handouts to feed a large portion of its population of 24 million, accepting nearly $20 million worth of international aid in the first half of 2014 alone.
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Activist vows to send leaflets despite N.K. threat
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- A leading South Korean activist on North Korean affairs vowed on March 16 to go ahead with a plan to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the inter-Korean border the following week, despite the North's warning of tough retaliation.
In early March, Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said the group of North Korean defectors would scatter leaflets critical of the communist regime around March 26, the 5th anniversary of the North's torpedoing of the South Korean corvette Cheonan.
"We will spread anti-North Korea leaflets as planned around March 26," Park told Yonhap News Agency by phone. "The Seoul government has not sent a formal request to halt the launch."
"Even if the government makes the request, the group will press ahead with it," he stressed.
About 500,000 leaflets, as well as DVDs of the movie "The Interview," which depicts a plot to assassinate Noorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un, will be sent to the North, he noted.
Park's group regularly launches big balloons carrying such anti-Pyongyang leaflets in a campaign to spread dissenting messages in the reclusive country.
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