Is North Korea really a backward country ?

solarz said:

It depends on what you mean by "healthy, happy and modern". They're probably not as loaded with the latest gadgets as their neighbors do, but pic you attached indicates to me a land unsullied by industry. I would guesstimate that they're about 20 years behind China, which isn't really that bad, as many parts of China is more than 20 years behind cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Of course, all this is pure speculation. If one hasn't lived in NK, then one is only parroting what the media is telling us.

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Franklin said:

Here's a video of a North Korean military exercise that took place on 14 march 2012.

[video=youtube;8rZhxefhDBs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rZhxefhDBs[/video]

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The 105-storey hotel which dominates the skyline of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, may open next year, 26 years after construction began.

The pyramid-shaped building has become known as the "Hotel of Doom".

The chief executive of the Kempinski group, which will manage the Ryugyong hotel, said only 150 rooms on the top floors would be used as a hotel.

Reto Wittwer said shops, restaurants and offices would eventually open on the lower levels.

Construction on the building began in 1987.

It is the 47th tallest building in the world, at 330m (1,100ft), and has the fifth greatest number of floors, 105.

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Hideously ugly, even by communist standards”

Esquire Magazine
Abandoned
It was scheduled to be completed in 1989 in time for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students.

But construction was abandoned in 1992 when North Korea suffered an economic crisis.

Its hulking, unfinished presence has long been an embarrassment for the North Korean leadership, analysts say.

It was voted "Worst Building in the History of Mankind" by Esquire magazine in 2008.

The American publication called it "hideously ugly, even by communist standards."

There are reports of poor construction and the use of inferior materials.


Work on the hotel was abandoned for 16 years
A delegation from the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea, which inspected the building almost 15 years ago, concluded it was beyond repair and its lift shafts crooked.

But in 2008 an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom, which operates a mobile phone network in North Korea, began equipping the building.

'Multi-storey carpark'
It is reported to have spent $180m (£112m) on finishing the hotel's facade.

Mr Wittwer said the hotel will "partially, probably" open for business next year.

But original plans for 3,000 hotel rooms and three revolving restaurants have been greatly scaled back.

Earlier this year, the Beijing-based company, Koryo Tours, which organises trips to North Korea, was granted a rare glimpse inside the hotel.

Photos taken by the company showed a vast glass-covered lobby and atrium with tiers of bare concrete at its base, resembling a multi-storey car park.

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Maggern said:

I get so tired of everyone making fun of that hotel. "Oh it took the north koreans decades to finish it" etc. It all comes down to one thing: The collapse of the communist world. NK relied on a lot of imported materials to build the skyscraper, but when the Comintern market fell apart, suddenly NK had nowhere to get them from. The communist market was not based around hard cash, and when facing the ROTW NK har nothing to pay with. Thus the whole thing went on hold, and remained so up until very recently. I guess they're starting to build up enough trade to get more materials in these days.

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jackliu said:

Also have to do a lot with the fact that they had a famine that killed 10% of their population right around the time the construction stopped. Kinda hard to build stuff when your people can't eat... well that didn't stop their military anyways.

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North Korea's economic dreams are, well ... dreams

By Ju-min Park
DANDONG, China | Mon Nov 5, 2012 5:14am EST
(Reuters) - A lonely farmer and his ox-cart are the only sign of activity on a dusty island meant to be an industrial hub that will raise North Korea's wrecked economy.

Despite talk of reform by the secretive state after the third generation of the Kim family dynasty took over nearly a year ago, about all that seems to be growing is the gap between the tiny population of rich and the already malnourished poor.

And while the government is hoping to lure in foreign investment, more often the money, and tens of thousands of workers, are heading out of the impoverished North.

The 14 square km (5.4 square mile) Hwanggumphyong island is one of four economic zones that were designed to be a magnet for Chinese capital and manufacturing.

It lies on the Yalu river, across from the bustling Chinese border city of Dandong and one of the few areas where North Korea allows its citizens contact with the outside world.

Chinese investors are showing little appetite for North Korea, whose economy is worse off than it was 20 years ago from a combination of sanctions over its nuclear weapons ambitions, famine and mismanagement.

"We Chinese would like to go to North Korea to invest because they have space for business. But policies are not stable, so we dare not invest there," said trader Zheng Qiwei from the Chinese coastal province of Zhejiang, far from North Korea.

Zheng said an acquaintance of his, a businessman from China's Liaoning province that borders the North, had invested 240 million yuan to sell machinery, but was "driven out", an experience that is becoming common.

This year, a multi-million dollar deal to refine North Korean iron ore by China's Xiyang Group soured as officials shook down the Chinese investor. Xiyang went public with its complaints, triggering a furious response from the North.

Hwanggumphyong was launched with great fanfare by Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of North Korea's 20-something year old ruler, in 2011 with a pledge of tax breaks and repatriation of dividends, hoping to emulate a formula that has worked for economic zones the world over.

But for the moment, it remains little more than a small, boggy island.

Many analysts say the North Korean leadership is terrified that reforms could weaken its iron grip on the state and it has repeatedly baulked at any sweeping changes, ignoring pressure from China, its only real ally, to emerge from a self-imposed cocoon.

China's leverage is limited and its fear that North Korea could collapse appears to make it willing, albeit begrudgingly, to support the government of leader Kim Jong-un.

Any improvement in living standards in one of the world's poorest countries - U.N. data shows a third of children are malnourished - looks to be almost entirely focused on the capital, Pyongyang, home to the elite which keeps the Kim family in power.

"Pyongyang is a different planet," said a 35 year-old Chinese trader who had lived in a small town in North Korea for more than 25 years and regularly visits there, most recently several months ago.

North Korea restricts travel within the country and he said the authorities make it extremely difficult for any but the chosen to live in the capital.

The rise in the standard of living in Pyongyang may also have something to do with the more open style of the young leader Kim, a far cry from the dour image his father cultivated.

"Ladies from Pyongyang now dress differently, there are no more plain clothes and they are more animated," said an ethnic Korean Chinese whose family runs a Korean restaurant in Dandong.

Some who cross the border have even given up wearing the mandatory lapel badge picturing Kim Il-sung, North Korea's founder and grandfather of the current ruler, a break with style that could land them in a labour camp in their homeland.

PYONGYANG REPUBLIC

The young Kim, who took power in North Korea following the death of his father last December, appears to have reinforced policies to bolster the fortunes of the capital, which is home to more than 3 million people, or about 12 percent of the population.

It has been dubbed the "Republic of Pyongyang" by outsiders thanks to the lavish perks given to its residents in the form of theme parks, new apartments and renovations, in stark contrast to the rest of the country.

A magazine on display in a North Korean restaurant in Shenyang in China showed the third Kim to rule the North touring a new theme park and luxury 40-storey apartments in Pyongyang.

The plump Kim has been shown on North Korean media riding a roller-coaster and eating popcorn at a high-end restaurant in Pyongyang.

His wife, Ri Sol-ju, has a penchant for Dior designer bags, a sign that conspicuous consumption among the elite is growing, said people who have had contact with the North.

"In the past, people couldn't feel the gap between the rich and the poor because of state control. But since that control is loosening up, the gap between those who have and don't have is widening," said the Chinese trader who sometimes sells clothes to North Koreans.

For those left out, options appear to be narrowing.

An estimated 60,000-70,000 North Koreans sell their labour outside the country, according to Seoul-based advocacy groups, working in factories in China, logging camps in Siberia and construction sites in the Middle East.

Some choose a more direct route to escape the North's poverty where annual gross domestic product per capita is estimated to be just $1,800 on a purchasing power parity basis, based on an independent analysis.

A middleman in Shenyang who says that he helps North Korean refugees to escape to prosperous South Korea has seen women choosing to be sold into marriage in China, or to work in brothels.

"They want to flee home but there's no other way than to be sold in a form of marriage," said the Korean-speaking man who requested anonymity because of his safety.

"One person is worth 10,000 yuan-12,000 yuan (," he said.

One young North Korean woman, who has worked as a hostess in a Chinese bar for nearly 10 years, says she can never go home to North Korea and, given the lack of economic options in her home country, wouldn't want to.

"I like being here. I think I'll never leave," the woman surnamed Choi said as she tinkered with her South Korean-made Samsung Galaxy smartphone. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by Jimmy Guan; Editing by David Chance and Jonathan Thatcher)

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By Ju-min Park
DANDONG, China | Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:13pm EDT
(Reuters) - Top soccer-boot maker Adidas probably shouldn't be worrying just yet but a rare venture that marries South Korean money with North Korean labour in the Chinese city of Dandong aims to make its mark on the world soccer scene.

At a temporary factory in a village on the edge of a bustling city that serves as a bridge between China and impoverished, isolated North Korea, 20 North Koreans hand sew soccer boots and dream of taking on the world.

The factory, overseen by managers sporting badges showing North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung, have sold almost 10,000 pairs of boots at $100 a piece since it started full-scale operations in July, half of them to South Korea.

North Korea itself gets 100 pairs of boots a month from the factory as its share of payment, rather than being paid in cash.

"Boots can be made by machines but hand-sewn ones can be made to match individual preferences and they're more comfortable," said Chung Nam-chul, a veteran shoemaker.

"We play soccer in our boots to test them and pick good ones," added Chung as he nailed down soles on a pair he was working on.

The visit by a Reuters news team was supervised by North Korean managers attached to the factory where workers sew under the slogan "Our Technology. Best Quality Soccer Boots".

Chung and his fellow workers from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, are members of the April 25 Sports Club, one of the most successful North Korean soccer league teams, which is run by the Korean People's Army, the North's armed forces.

As in the old days in communist eastern Europe, soccer teams in North Korea tend to be part of the state apparatus with businesses attached to them.

The workers at the Dandong factory are the tip of an iceberg of an estimated 60,000-70,000 North Koreans working overseas in a bid to earn much needed hard currency for the state, which has been heavily sanctioned for its nuclear programme.

A South Korean official at the factory told Reuters that workers got to keep all of the $200 a month they were paid.

Many of the North Korean workers in Russia, China and the Middle East are paid in vouchers rather than cash that go straight into the coffers of the North Korean state, according to refugee groups in South Korea.

The North and South remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice. Apart from an economic zone on the border between the two countries, cooperation between the rich South and the poor North is rare.

In comparison with the grinding poverty of most people in North Korea - where the United Nations says a third of children are malnourished - the workers in Dandong appear well off.

PORK, SONGS, GIFTS

The two-storey green-coloured factory has dorms, a cafeteria, and a recreation room. Workers have their own chef who sometimes makes grilled pork belly for after-work parties where they sing songs about the reunification of the two Koreas.

Those in Dandong are also close to home, unlike their compatriots labouring in lumber camps in Siberia or construction sites in the Middle East.

"We can see our television channels. And we also sing our songs about our Marshal, our Marshal Kim Jong-un," said seamstress Kwon Ok-kyung, referring to the North Korean leader who took power in 2011 after the death of his father.

Kwon works eight hours a day, five days a week at her sewing machine. Workers are allowed to meet their families in a North Korea city across a border river once a month and take bags of gifts home.

"In the beginning, when I didn't know anything about sewing, it was hard but now it isn't hard anymore ... There's no problem now," she said.

One of the supervisors of the visit stopped Kwon talking when she was asked how it felt to be sent abroad to work.

Because of the risk of defections, North Korean workers sent abroad are generally loyal to the regime and its ruling Kim family. Their families back home act as guarantees that they will come back, according to defectors in the South.

Far from being slave labourers, many of the tens of thousands of North Koreans working abroad seek those jobs as a way of earning hard currency, defectors say.

The boot factory was originally built in Pyongyang on land provided by the North Korean government. But most economic ties were cut after the South accused the North of sinking one of its naval vessels in 2010.

The factory moved to Dandong with a $415,000 cash injection from the South Korean city of Incheon, whose soccer team wears its boots.

With the North's economy in tatters and imports outstripping exports by $3.3 billion, according to 2010 data from the International Monetary Fund, North Korea has been forced into China's arms, exporting much of its mineral wealth to its big, now-prosperous neighbour.

North Korea's official ideology is based on economic self-reliance, but in reality it has been unable to feed its people for decades and its plants and equipment lie idle because of a lack of electricity.

The small boot factory will not make much of a difference to the North Korean economy, but that doesn't stop its workers from dreaming big.

"It would be really good if Messi came here and wore our shoes," said Oh Sung-dong, one of the North Korean managers.

Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi plays for Barcelona and is sponsored by German giant Adidas whose boots he wears.

"When thousands of workers produce our soccer boots in Pyongyang, they can dominate the world," said Joo Chul-soo, an official from North Korea's National Economic Cooperation Federation.

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By Jack Kim and David Chance
SEOUL | Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:36am EDT
(Reuters) - Impoverished North Korea threatened on Friday to open fire on South Korea if it allows activists to go ahead with plans to drop anti-North leaflets on its territory, its most strident warning against its long-time foe in months.

North Korea, which is still technically at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in merely a truce, often uses shrill rhetoric denouncing its rich, capitalist neighbor and threatening all-out war.

A looming presidential election in the South and plans to deploy longer-range missiles by the government in Seoul have angered the North and prompted an escalation of belligerent commentaries from Pyongyang.

"We had similar threats last year and they did not stop us before and this is not going to stop us this time," said Pak Sang-hak, a North Korean exile who defected to the South 12 years ago.

He is the leader of a coalition of groups of North Korean exiles and human rights activists who plan to launch giant balloons containing 200,000 leaflets criticizing North Korea's government for the second year running.

Some of the leaflets, printed on plastic bags, will contain $1 bills. As well as the dollars, the bags themselves are said to be prized by North Koreans, many of whom often lack daily necessities.

South Korea's defense minister told parliament that its military would retaliate in the event of any attack.

South Korea's military has come under pressure after it failed to detect a North Korean soldier walking across the world's most heavily armed border until he knocked on the doors of soldiers' barracks.

"If (a North Korean strike) were to happen, there would be a perfect response against the source of the attack," Kim Kwan-jin told a parliamentary committee.

North Korea shelled a South Korean island almost two years ago, causing civilian deaths. It was also widely blamed for sinking a South Korean navy ship, although it denied responsibility.

North Korea said that if the leaflets were dropped on Monday, a "merciless military strike by the Western Front will be put into practice without warning", according to state news agency KCNA.

It said it would target a tourist area at the border city of Paju a few miles from the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries, the most specific threat in months.

"The KPA (Korean People's Army) never makes any empty talk," KCNA quoted military commanders as saying.

(Reporting by David Chance and Jack Kim; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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