Obama extends sanctions on N Korea (AFP)
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama on Wednesday extended a set of economic sanctions on North Korea for another year as tension soars with the communist state over its nuclear and missile programs.
Obama, using emergency powers, prolonged by one year restrictions on property dealings with North Korea that had been due to expire on Friday.
In a statement, Obama said he acted "because the existence and risk of the proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean peninsula continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
Former president George W. Bush a year ago rescinded the Trading with the Enemy Act for North Korea, which had banned all commerce with Pyongyang on the grounds it was a hostile state. Only Cuba remains on the list.
But Bush, using the same emergency powers as Obama, had at the same time slapped restrictions for one year on property dealings with North Korea, which would have otherwise been lifted.
Bush at the time was racing to clinch a denuclearization deal with North Korea late in his term. He also took Pyongyang off a list of state sponsors of terrorism, to the dismay of Japan and some US conservatives.
Diplomacy with North Korea has since quickly deteriorated, with the hardline state in recent months testing a nuclear bomb, firing missiles and bolting from a six-nation agreement that set a framework for denuclearization.
The Obama administration has said it would welcome new talks with North Korea but also has negotiated at the United Nations to tighten international sanctions on the impoverished state.
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N. Korea vows 'do-or-die' labor campaign to revive economy (Yonhap)
SEOUL – North Korea on Thursday vowed a do-or-die labor campaign to build a strong, prosperous nation by 2012 under the baton of leader Kim Jong-il, amid growing outside skepticism about the North's economic plans.
North Korea has been dependent on international food aid, mainly from South Korea and China, to feed its 24 million people. But the conservative Seoul government cut off its decade-long rice and fertilizer aid to the North last year, which also faces new U.N. sanctions over its recent nuclear test.
State media said Kim has visited about 100 places over the past six months since Dec. 24, when he revived an aged labor movement with a trip to a steel factory. The so-called Chollima movement was launched in 1958 by his father and North Korean founder Kim Il-sung to rebuild the country out of the rubble of the Korean War and continued through the early 1970s.
"The forced march of Great Comrade Kim Jong-il ... is a great journey (showing) his endless devotion to the nation, the revolution and the people," the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, a state-run radio, said, calling the labor campaign an "all-out do-or-die battle of the entire people."
North Korea seeks to build a "strong, prosperous and powerful nation" by 2012, the centenary of Kim Il-sung's birth and when Kim Jong-il turns 70. Some analysts in Seoul speculate the North Korean leader may plan to officially declare his successor in that target year, amid reports that his third and youngest son, Jong-un, is being groomed.
Adding to the labor campaign, North Korea has set a span of 150 days -- from late April to September -- to further labor productivity. State media regularly report how workers in machinery factories, coal mines and farms are outpacing their production plan under the so-called "150-day battle."
"In the flames of the all-out battle, the movement of socialist competition is gearing up with vigor and energy to achieve the production goals commissioned to each unit by all means," Radio Pyongyang said.
According to the Unification Ministry, Kim has made 77 public outings so far this year, compared to 50 during the same period of last year. The increase was notable in economic and art-related areas, it said.
Analysts see few good signs for the North's economy, with the fall in outside aid and new U.N. sanctions, which entirely banned North Korea from weapons exports as well as related financial transanctions. Some say the financial pressure made North Korea think again over an industrial complex jointly run with South Korea, which it might have considered shutting down as a means of retaliation for Seoul's conservative policy. South Korean firms operating at the park paid more than US$26 million in wages last year to the North Korean government.
North Korea's gross national income in 2007, the latest data available from South Korea's central bank, was $26.7 billion, a mere 2.5 percent of South Korea's $1.5 trillion.
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N. Korea steps up anti-U.S. propaganda on war anniversary (Yonhap)
SEOUL – North Korea ratcheted up its anti-U.S. propaganda Thursday to coincide with the 59th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, escalating already high tensions with Washington after Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and military provocations.
A lecture hall in the North's border town of Kaesong, the site of a troubled inter-Korean industrial complex, held a war memorial exhibition displaying "hundreds of historical and cultural artifacts" destroyed by the Americans during the Korean War, Radio Pyongyang reported.
"Attendants hardened their will for revenge after seeing such evidence," it said.
The U.S. has 28,500 troops stationed in the South as a deterrent against North Korea. It fought on the South Korean side under the U.N. command in the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The North's belligerent rhetoric towards the U.S. escalated recently after the U.N. Security Council passed a new resolution condemning Pyongyang's second nuclear test on May 25. The resolution imposes an overall arms embargo and tougher financial sanctions than those under previous resolutions in 2006 when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test.
"The U.S., the warmonger that provoked the Korean War, is using our successful second nuclear test to drag the U.N. into its useless attempt to oppressively stifle us," Radio Pyongyang said.
The North's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported that similar halls in other regions of the country were "actively holding lectures on atrocities by the United States" for people working in nearby factories and farms.
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Burma Bans North Korea Ship News (The Irrawaddy)
Burma's military-controlled censorship board has banned all journals and magazines from publishing news about a North Korean ship which will soon dock near Rangoon and is believed to be carrying arms for Burma.
Weekly newspapers such as Weekly Eleven, 7 days, Yangon Times and The Voice have tried to translate and publish articles based on foreign media sources about the voyage of the cargo ship, which is being tracked by a United States destroyer.
A Rangoon editor told The Irrawaddy, "Most journals tried to print something about the voyage of the North Korea ship, but the Burmese Censorship Board rejected all the stories."
In Burma, all news outlets inside the country fall under the strict surveillance of the state censorship board under the Ministry of Information--officially known as the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division--and are also held in check by various publication laws.
Prior censorship is imposed on all local media and is strictly applied against any news that might cast the government in a bad light.
The North Korean ship, Kang Nam 1, is believed to be carrying arms for the military government. It departed from the North Korean port of Nampo one week ago, and the USS John S. McCain destroyer has tracked it as it passed along the Chinese coast.
Burmese citizens are relying on foreign-based radio stations for news of the cargo ship, sources said.
A 40-year-old Rangoon resident said, "The BBC, VOA and other international broadcasting agencies air news about the ship. Most Burmese people are very interested in it because a US military vessel is involved."
According to a port official in Rangoon, the North Korean ship will dock at Thilawa port, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Rangoon, in the next few days.
The Kang Nam 1 docked at the port in 2004, at that time raising suspicions about the nature of its cargo. Speculation centered on convention arms, missiles or some type of nuclear weaponry.
In 2007, two Burmese journalists working for the Japanese television news agency Nippon News Network (NNN) were arrested and detained for two nights and three days for covering the arrival of the Kang Nam 1, which docked secretly at the Thilawa port, saying it was seeking refuge from a storm and in need of supplies.
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Some S. Korean firms in Kaesong near bankruptcy in July (Yonhap)
SEOUL – South Korean firms operating at a Seoul-funded industrial park in North Korea warned Thursday they were quickly running out of cash and some of them may file for bankruptcy next month, hit by deteriorating inter-Korean relations.
The Kaesong Industrial Complex has become victim to cross-border tensions, which have been escalating for more than a year and dealt a severe blow to the roughly 100 small-sized South Korean garment makers and other factories at the park.
Last week, South and North Korea failed to resolve a dispute over the North's demands for higher wages and rent at the industrial zone in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, about a two-hour drive from Seoul. Both sides plan to resume talks on July 2.
"Currently, a number of plants in Kaesong are bearing the brunt of falling orders and an insufficient number of North Korean workers," said Kim Hak-kwon, chairman of the Corporate Association of Kaesong Industrial Complex, which represents the South Korean firms there.
Kim said North Korean authorities in charge of the Kaesong complex have not supplied enough workers. Some 40,000 North Koreans are employed at the park, according to the South Korean government.
"Unless South and North Korea agree to normalize operations at Kaesong in the July 2 talks, some of us will have no choice but to file for bankruptcy," Kim said.
So far, 89 firms at Kaesong have incurred combined cumulative losses of 39.7 billion won (US$30.9 million), Kim said, calling for the South Korean government to provide financial assistance.
In April, North Korea unilaterally declared that all South Korean firms at the park must accept new terms for wages and land fees, and told those who would not accept them to leave.
The North then demanded a four-fold monthly pay increase for its workers to US$300. It also ordered Hyundai Asan and the Korea Land Corp. of South Korea, which jointly operate the Kaesong enclave with North Korean authorities, to pay $500 million for renting the site over the next 50 years, a 3,000-percent increase from the original contract.
The reasoning behind North Korea's demands, and their timing, remains unclear, but a number of executives at South Korean firms in Kaesong said they are looking to leave.
"I believe there is no hope," said Yoon Byeong-jik, chief executive of Beomyang Glove, a South Korean glove maker operating in Kaesong.
Yoon said he has grown frustrated as foreign buyers cancel orders because of security concerns.
"If I'm able to repay my debts owed for investment in Kaesong, I will immediately transfer the plant to Vietnam or Indonesia," Yoon said.
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