*** FOREIGN TIPS

Rice Prices in Pyongyang Jump More Than 50 Percent in 2 Months

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Rice prices have more than doubled in Pyongyang in just two months, a South Korean private relief group said on Nov. 10, the latest sign of food shortages in North Korea.

   A kilogram of rice cost about 2,500 won in Pyongyang in September, but its price rose to about 3,800 won in November, Good Friends said in its regular news letter posted on its Web site.

   The North Korean won is being traded at around 3,000 won to one U.S. dollar in North Korean markets, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. But the relief group said one dollar is traded at 4,000 won in the North Korean capital in November, up from 2,870 won in September.

   The group also said there was a pessimistic view that the rice price could top 5,000 in Pyongyang next month, adding that the price has exceeded 3,000 won per kilogram of rice across the country.

   It did not give details on how it obtained the information from one of the world's most isolated countries. Its previous reports on North Korea have later been verified.

   In September, the aid group said that the rice prices started to soar in Pyongyang on rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il failed to secure much aid during his trip to Russia in August.

   Rice is a key staple food for both South and North Koreans.

   The U.N. World Food Program has said a third of North Korean children under the age of five are chronically malnourished.

   Still, Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said last month that the North's food situation does not seem to be serious.

   South Korea halted unconditional aid to North Korea in 2008 and slapped sanctions on the North last year in retaliation for the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North.

  
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Food Crisis Drives More N. Koreans to Drugs, Suicide, Defection

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea's botched currency reform has aggravated its chronic food shortages, leading people there to use drugs and turn to suicide, civic groups in Seoul said on Nov. 14, unveiling a rare interview with more than a dozen North Koreans.

   The civic groups conducted face-to-face interviews with 14 North Koreans living in Pyongyang, Sinuiju and Hamgyong Province. Those interviewed came from different age groups and occupations, with one being a soldier, though their identities were withheld for security reasons.

   The interviews were conducted jointly by Greater Korea United and the Committee for the Democratization of North Korea in a Chinese city bordering the North last August. The details were released Monday along with some video clips.

   Eleven out of the 14 respondents said North Korean society is "very unstable," and 12 people said the country's economic situation and their own lives grew "much worse," the survey showed.

   Eleven of the 14 also said they want to flee the country due mainly to severe food shortages.

   "The regime's food rationing system is not properly working. I've heard that Kim Kyong-hui has diverted the aid from South Korea including rice and other daily necessities," one of the respondents said. Kim Kyong-hui is North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's sister, who currently heads the Workers' Party's light industry department.

   "As life is getting tougher, more and more people are turning to suicide," she said, adding "the botched currency reform in 2009 made things worse than the 'arduous march' of the late 1990s," during which around 3 million North Koreans died from hunger.

   Pyongyang carried out a massive currency reform in November 2009, the first currency redenomination since 1959, to rein in galloping inflation, squash free market activities and tighten state control over the economy. But the measures instead caused massive inflation and worsened food shortages.

   "Narcotics are available at markets under the name of 'a happy drug.' We call it 'ice,' which is known to many as a cure-all," another North Korean man said in the interview.

   Experts have said the North's food crisis has worsened, as Seoul halted unconditional aid to Pyongyang in 2008 and slapped sanctions on the communist country last year in retaliation for the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North. Devastating floods, which washed away tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in the North earlier this year, also aggravated the situation, they added.

   In the latest sign, rice prices have more than doubled in Pyongyang in just two months, with a kilogram of rice rising to 3,800 won this month from 2,500 won in September, the South Korean private relief group Good Friends said last week.

   The interview also indicated that North Koreans are disgruntled over their leader Kim Jong-il's plan to hand over power to his youngest son, Jong-un.

   Meanwhile, a separate survey of 524 North Korean defectors in South Korea found that 72.1 percent said they fled due to their homeland's dire economic situations, followed by those seeking a better life at 50.8 percent and those yearning to join South Korean society at 21.8 percent.

   Nearly 22,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the 1950-53 Korean War to avoid poverty and political oppression in their home country, data from the Unification Ministry showed.

   When asked about unification, 56.7 percent said the main hurdle is China's opposition, while 38.7 percent cited North Korea's ongoing hereditary power transfer as a stumbling block, according to the survey.

  
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South Korea Halts Sending Propaganda Leaflets to North Korea

SEOUL (Yonhap) --South Korea has temporarily stopped flying propaganda leaflets into North Korea about a year after it resumed the activity as part of reprisals for the communist regime's provocations, a military source said on Nov. 15.

   "The military hasn't sent those leaflets for a few months now," the source said. "I understand the decision was made after taking into account political situations, including the government's efforts to improve inter-Korean ties."

   After an 11-year moratorium, the South's military resumed sending anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets across the border last November, in response to the North's shelling of the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea.

   North Korean defectors and other South Korean activists also joined the fray, condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and extolling the virtues of democracy in the South in messages contained in balloons.

   North Korea has frequently bristled at any outside criticism of Kim and has made a series of verbal threats against the South. The North has denounced the leaflet practice as "an undisguised war action" and threatened to launch "direct fire," though it has yet to take any action in response.

   The source said the South is continuing to broadcast anti-Pyongyang messages through loudspeakers set up along the tense border. Such broadcasts resumed after a six-year suspension in May last year, after the South-led multinational investigation concluded that North Korea had torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, killing 46 sailors aboard.

  
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Official of The Elders Says He Has No Plans to Visit N. Korea

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- An official of an independent group of retired global leaders said on Nov. 15 he has no plans to visit North Korea after meeting with South Korean officials.

   The meeting came after North Korea has reportedly suggested to The Elders that it is willing to hold a high-level meeting with Seoul in January to discuss a possible inter-Korean summit.

   Andrew Whitley, policy and advocacy director for The Elders, told reporters that he came to Seoul to learn about South Korean officials' views on inter-Korean affairs.

   Tensions still linger on the Korean Peninsula following the North's two deadly attacks against the South last year that killed a total of 50 South Koreans, mostly soldiers.

   Still, South Korea has recently called for flexibility in dealing with North Korea in an apparent effort to improve the soured ties.

   "We will go back to London" for discussions with the Elders, Whitley told reporters after meeting with South Korean officials.

   Still, South Korean officials said Niklas Swanstrom, director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy, who came with the Elders, plans to visit North Korea for consultations on his Stockholm-based independent institute. No details were given.

   The Elders officials said that they wanted to contribute to the restoration of inter-Korean confidence in any matter, according to an official of the Unification Ministry.

   In April, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il expressed his intent to hold talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

   Kim's written message for the summit was read to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter by a North Korean official just before Carter and his Elders officials left the country. Carter did not meet the North Korean leader.

   Kim held summit talks with Lee's two liberal predecessors in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, respectively.

  
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U.S. Worried about North Korea's Reactor Construction

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States government formally expressed concerns on Nov. 15 over North Korea's reported progress in the construction of a new nuclear reactor suspected to be intended for its highly enrichment uranium program.

   "Well, certainly we have concerns," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing in response to a news report that the reclusive communist nation has made rapid progress on the construction of a light-water reactor at its main nuclear site, Yongbyon.

   The Washington Post reported, based on an analysis of recent satellite images, that work on the outside walls of the reactor is nearly complete.

   "They appear to be in violation of -- any construction of a light- water reactor would violate existing U.N. Security Council resolutions," Toner said. "So, you know, certainly we're concerned about the matter and call on them to live up to their commitments in the 2005 joint communique."

   He was referring to a six-party deal under which Pyongyang agreed to abandon all of its nuclear programs in return for political and economic rewards.

   Meanwhile, an international consortium once tasked with building two power-generating nuclear reactors in North Korea will soon demand that the socialist country provide US$1.89 billion in compensation for the project's failure, a Seoul official said on Nov. 14.

   The demand comes after North Korea filed its own compensation claim worth some $5.8 billion in September, saying it suffered heavy financial losses and other troubles from the failed project.

   In a 1994 deal linked to North Korea's promise to denuclearize, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which includes South Korea, Japan and the United States, agreed to build two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors in the communist country within several years.

  
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Iran Denies Nuclear Cooperation with North Korea

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- The Iranian Embassy in Seoul claimed Tehran has indigenous technology for a peaceful nuclear program, saying it is opposed to the development of nuclear weapons.

   "Iran's nuclear technology is completely domestically made, thus no foreign experts are needed," the embassy on Nov. 15 said in an e-mail statement to Yonhap News Agency.

   The statement came one day after Yonhap reported that hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts have been collaborating with Iranian counterparts in more than 10 locations across the Islamic state.

   Yonhap quoted a diplomatic source with access to intelligence on the years-long weapons collaboration between Pyongyang and Tehran. The source has a track record of accurate information.

   Still, the embassy said it "categorically rejects such allegations," calling the report a "sheer lie and blatant accusation" against Iran.

   The U.N. nuclear watchdog has recently expressed "serious concerns" of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program.

   The IAEA said in its report last week that it believes Iran "has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device" under a "structured program" until 2003, and "some activities may still be ongoing."

  
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N. Korea's Flag Carrier Cancels Its Air Route with Kuwait

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea's flag carrier has canceled an air route to Kuwait, Airline Route blog says, in what could be Pyongyang's latest attempt to prevent the news of popular uprisings in the Arab world from reaching the isolated country.

   The move came less than six months after Air Koryo started a weekly direct flight service between Pyongyang and Kuwait City, Airline Route said on Nov. 14 on its Web site, citing the carrier's planned winter operation.

   In late May, Air Koryo announced the service on its Facebook page, adding that a large number of North Koreans work in the Middle East.

   The North's airline has not yet commented on the reported cancellation of the service on its Facebook page, which was last updated late in October.

   The reported cancellation came after North Korea banned about 200 of its citizens in Libya from returning home in an apparent move to keep news of the Arab Spring revolutions from seeping into the North.

   The popular uprisings in the Arab world toppled longtime autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and resulted in the killing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

   North Korea, which maintained close ties with Gadhafi's regime, has so far remained silent on Gadhafi's death.

   The cancellation "appears to be aimed at blocking the trend of the Jasmine Revolution from being spread in North Korea," said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, referring to the popular uprisings.

  
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North Korea Tests Anti-ship Missiles in Yellow Sea: Source

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea has recently tested anti-vessel missiles in the Yellow Sea, a government source said on Nov. 16.

   "In October and earlier this month, North Korea flew its IL-28 bomber to test anti-ship missiles in the Yellow Sea waters," the source said, adding that the missiles are reportedly the modified versions of the North's Styx ground-to-ship missiles.

   The source added South Korea is also preparing countermeasures against potential North Korean provocations against the South's vessels.

   "Should the North send IL-28s above the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and fire anti-ship missiles, they will present major threats to our patrol ships and destroyers operating south of the line," the source said. The NLL serves as a de facto maritime border between the Koreas. "The South Korean military is bolstering its air defense from the ground and from vessels."

   South Korea's indigenous Chunma missile, a guided ground-to-air missile, may respond to IL-28 bombers, experts say. Chunma can detect and pursue fighter jets up to 20 kilometers away, and they can intercept airplanes flying 5 kilometers above ground within 10 seconds, according to experts.

   Sources say the South added Chunma missiles to the border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong last year, after the North bombed Yeonpyeong in November 2010, killing two Marines and two civilians.

  
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U.N. Committee Raises 'Very Serious Concern' over Prison Camps in N.K.

  
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- A key committee of the United Nations is set to approve this week a draft resolution expressing "very serious concern" over widespread and grave violations of human rights at prison camps in North Korea, a Seoul official said on Nov. 16.

   The U.N. General Assembly's Third Committee, which handles humanitarian issues, will vote on the statement at its 66th session on Nov. 17-18 in New York, the official at South Korea's foreign ministry said on the condition of anonymity.

   The draft statement, obtained by Yonhap News Agency, said that the General Assembly "expresses its very serious concern at the imposition of death penalty for political and religious reasons; collective punishments; and the existence of a large number of prison camps."

   "It is the first time that a U.N. resolution on human rights in North Korea has raised the issue of political concentration camps in the North," the official said. The U.N. committee has annually adopted a resolution on abuses of human rights in North Korea since 2005, but has never mentioned the issue of political prisoners in a resolution.

   The resolution was jointly submitted by 49 nations, including South Korea and the United States.

   North Korea has long been accused of human rights abuses, ranging from holding hundreds of thousands of political prisoners to torture and public executions.

   In May this year, Amnesty International, a London-based rights group, said North Korea was holding thousands of political prisoners in at least six facilities where they face extrajudicial executions, torture and forced labor.

   North Korea has denied the accusations of rights abuses, calling them a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.

   The six-page draft statement also raised concerns over "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including inhuman conditions of detention, public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention" in North Korea.

   It also expressed regret that a U.N. rights envoy has not been allowed to visit North Korea and received no cooperation from Pyongyang on the human rights situation.

  (END)