More pictures from North Korea

From a courageous reporter for The Sun, who goes into some detail about the treatment he received after being caught taking the pictures.

SKorea to back UN resolution on NKorea

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer

South Korea will vote in favor of a U.N. resolution on alleged human rights violations in North Korea, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

The resolution is expected to raise concerns about the rights situation in North Korea — which international advocacy groups say is among the world's worst abusers. Voting for it would make good on the new Seoul government's promise not to refrain from criticizing Pyongyang.

The official spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he did not want to comment publicly before the vote, scheduled later this week at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The new government of conservative President Lee Myung-bak has promised a change from the reluctance of previous South Korean liberal governments to publicly criticize the North.

Since 2003, South Korea has only once voted for a U.N. resolution on human rights in its communist, impoverished and isolated neighbor — after the North's nuclear test in October 2006.

In other votes, the South either abstained or stayed away out of concerns that its criticism might hurt ties and efforts to resolve the international nuclear standoff with North Korea.

From: Yahoo!

Major food shortage in NK this year

From Yahoo!:

A dire food shortage across North Korea has become so acute it has started to affect the country's elite in the capital, Pyongyang, reports say.
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Aid agency Good Friends says food rations for some parts of the city have been cut by up to 60%, while others have seen their supplies cut off completely.

Only citizens who show absolute loyalty to leader Kim Jong Il and his regime are allowed to live in Pyongyang and are considered better off than their fellow countrymen.

But the food situation, which has mostly been felt in rural areas where rations have been suspended since November, has now spread to the city, according to the South Korean aid agency.

"Even ranking officials have run out of their (rationed) food supply, while a ban on (private) trade is strictly maintained," said an unidentified city official quoted by Good Friends.

"It is nothing but a death sentence."

The agency also said farm labourers were staying away from work because they were not getting any food. This was said to be affecting the planting of new crops.

The fact that this is affecting the elite in Pyongyang is unprecedented, and leads to a possible silver lining to this very dark cloud. From One Free Korea:

The regime has contained and survived mass-casualty famine and dissent in the countryside before. A severe downturn in Pyongyang, however, is a game-changer. If the regime can’t even feed its elite, it’s going to have to take some chairs away from the banquet table. That means commissars and apparatchiks will shiv each other for the remaining chairs as though their lives depend on it. A rumored phase-out of the “military first” policy introduces a whole new pool of potential coup plotters. This could be the beginning of the end. If the report is true – and if China doesn’t execute an Olympic-sized airlift to reverse those conditions fast – there’s a 70% chance of regime collapse within the next year.

Disarmament Talks, Cont.

Recently elected South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has taken a firm position towards North Korea. According to Reuters:

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday urged North Korea to start standing on its own feet, stop relying on handouts and get ready for unification. [...] The conservative leader has promised to help lift North Korea out of abject poverty on condition the reclusive communist neighbor abandons nuclear weapons and opens up its economy.

Thankfully, an international disarmament accord was signed in 2007. However, there is dispute over whether North Korea completely and accurately followed through with it. According to Associated Press:

The accord, signed among the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, is at a stalemate due to a dispute over whether the North fully accounted for its nuclear programs by a Dec. 31, 2007 deadline. The North says it already provided the list in November, while the U.S. says it is still waiting for a complete, detailed declaration.

On the other hand, North Korea is asking the other members of the international accord to fulfill their agreements: to provide 1 million metric tons of fuel oil and normalized diplomatic ties (remove North Korea from the state sponsor of terrorism list) with the U.S. and Japan (Bloomberg).

That's why, at the suggestion of North Korea, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan met in Geneva on March 14 to discuss these discrepancies (Chosun Ilbo). However, no progress was made.