What's happend in North Korea's DMZ village now

[bluesky79]

Lately, it's proved that Korean wave spread over North Korea's DMZ village. Most of Korean dramas and movies and K-POP etc usually flowed into North Korea from the Chinese border.

But in these days, North Korean people who live in DMZ village or its nearby can directly watch Korea's a variety of TV programs and they can record them as a CD or DVD.

Lots of people sell them to earn some money but they can be caught by the government and strictly penalized.

I heard that Korean Wave's proliferation in North Korea is supported by North Korea's soldiers and military officers who allow people to distribute the items of Korean contents and get some money from them in return for overlooking.

Considering that Korean Wave has a quite big ripple effect, it will be getting more difficult for North Korean government to keep their country perfectly isolated than before.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Maybe the Norks are getting that stuff from the Joint Manufacturing Facility?
CRS — Imports from North Korea: Existing Rules, Implications of the KORUS FTA, and the Kaesong Industrial Complex « Full Text Reports…

Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), a seven-year-old industrial park located in North Korea, where more than 100 South Korean manufacturers employ over 45,000 North Korean workers

 

[waltky]

Lil' Kim used joint factory profits to fund nuclear program...

Seoul: Kaesong factory revenue went toward North Korea nukes
Feb. 12, 2016 - South Korea said there is documented proof of a link between Kaesong and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

South Korea said Friday it has evidence that funds from a jointly operated factory in North Korea were used to fund Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, as South Korean businessmen continue to denounce their government for suspending operations at Kaesong. Seoul's Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo said the government has classified documents showing factory revenue was being allocated in North Korea to financing its universally condemned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, South Korean television network JTBC reported. Opposition party lawmaker Lee Jong-geol criticized the move, saying the administration has shown no evidence for its claims. "No proof has been submitted that a project earning more than $80 million in profits has been used exclusively for nuclear and missile development in North Korea," Lee said.

A North Korean guard tower, next to dilapidated houses, guards the border near the North Korean city Sinuiju, across the Yalu River from Dandong, China's largest border city with North Korea. South Korean workers expelled from Kaesong said the fate of North Korean factory workers is unclear. Many of them depended on the factory for basic needs, including running water.​

The South Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex Business Association held an emergency meeting Friday and said the government had made an unfair decision when it shut down operations, local news network YTN reported. The association urged the government to compensate businesses for their losses after North Korea decided to freeze all assets at the factories. The frozen assets include $852 million of South Korean investments into factories and facilities such as roads. Kaesong was a government-initiated project that began in 2004 under then-President Roh Moo-hyun, and until last week was the manufacturing center for more than 120 businesses specializing in machineries, electronics and apparel. Private business investments constituted more than half of total investment.

Some South Korean workers who spoke to local paper Donga Ilbo said they worried about the North Koreans who worked in the factories and the residents of Kaesong, the adjacent North Korean city. One South Korean woman, Kim Su-hui, who worked as a nurse in a factory clinic, said she often saw North Korean workers bringing their laundry to the premises because of the availability of running water on site. She said that was how she knew tap water was being partly supplied to local residents from the Kaesong Industrial Complex. South Korea cut off electricity and water after the abrupt departure of its citizens.

Seoul: Kaesong factory revenue went toward North Korea nukes

See also:

South Korea cuts power to Kaesong
Sat, Feb 13, 2016 - TIT-FOR-TAT: North Korea confiscated all the finished products at the industrial complex, closed an inter-Korean highway and shut down cross-border hotlines

South Korea has cut off power and water supplies to a factory park in North Korea, officials said yesterday, a day after the North deported all South Korean workers there and ordered a military takeover of the complex that had been the last major symbol of cooperation between the rivals. It is the latest in an escalating standoff over North Korea’s recent rocket launch that Seoul, Washington and their allies view as a banned test of missile technology. The North says its actions on the Kaesong complex were a response to Seoul’s earlier decision to suspend operations as punishment for the launch. On Thursday night, the 280 South Korean workers who had been at the park crossed the border into South Korea, several hours after a deadline set by the North passed. Their departure quashed concerns that some might be held hostage and lowered the chances that the standoff might lead to violence or miscalculations.

However, they were not allowed to bring back any finished products and equipment at their factories because the North announced it is to freeze all South Korean assets there. The North also said it was closing an inter-Korean highway linking to Kaesong and shutting down two cross-border communication hotlines. “I was told not to bring anything but personal goods, so I’ve got nothing but my clothes to take back,” a manager at a South Korean apparel company at the complex, who declined to give his name, told the Associated Press by telephone before he crossed to the South. The South Korean Unification Ministry yesterday said in a statement that it had stopped power transmissions to the factory park. Ministry officials said the suspension subsequently led to a halt of water supplies to Kaesong.

South Korean businessmen return from North Korea’s joint Kaesong Industrial Complex at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea​

Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo said the North Korean action was “very regrettable” and warned the North not to damage South Korean assets in Kaesong. The South Korean government said it would extend loans, provide low-interest loans, and defer taxes and utility bills for the companies forced out of Kaesong. Many of the companies now have to find new jobs for their employees who normally work in Kaesong and build new production lines so they can keep supplying their buyers. North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement later on Thursday that the South’s shutdown of Kaesong was a “dangerous declaration of war” and a “declaration of an end to the last lifeline of North-South relations.” Such over-the-top rhetoric is typical of the North’s propaganda, but the country appeared to be backing up its language with its strong response.

The statement included crude insults against South Korean President Park Geun-hye, saying she masterminded the shutdown and calling her a “confrontational wicked woman” who lives upon “the groin of her American boss.” In other developments, Seoul said it is to begin talks with Washington as early as next week on deploying an advanced US missile defense system. The discussions would focus on placing one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit with the US military in South Korea, a South Korean defense official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. THAAD is designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles inside or just outside the atmosphere during their final phase of flight.

South Korea cuts power to Kaesong - Taipei Times

Related:

North Korea turning toward uranium enrichment, Tokyo says
Feb. 12, 2016 - If Pyongyang is indeed enriching uranium, North Korea is in violation of an agreement reached with the United States.

North Korea is likely to push ahead with the enrichment of uranium that could be used toward manufacturing nuclear weapons, according to Tokyo. The Japanese government said Friday Pyongyang could also be capable of miniaturizing nuclear warheads, the Nihon Keizai reported. The statement was supplied as a response to opposition party lawmaker Mitsunori Okamoto, who posed questions regarding the status of North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea is likely to push ahead with the enrichment of uranium, to be used toward manufacturing nuclear weapons, according to Tokyo.​

Tokyo said since the North's fourth nuclear test, conducted on Jan. 6, the possibility Pyongyang has "achieved nuclear warhead miniaturization" cannot be ruled out. If Pyongyang is indeed enriching uranium, then North Korea is in violation of an agreement reached in Beijing with the United States in 2012, when it agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and nuclear missile tests in exchange for U.S. food aid. The Japanese statement corresponds with an earlier U.S. statement from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who confirmed North Korea has in its possession 10-20 uranium or plutonium-based weapons of mass destruction, Kyodo News reported.

The intelligence reports come in the wake of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. In response to Pyongyang's most recent provocations that include the launch of a long-range rocket to send a satellite into space, the United States is to install an additional surface-to-air Patriot missile system, or PAC-3, U.S. Forces Korea stated Saturday, local time. The U.S. military's 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, located at Osan Air Base, already retains two Patriot missile systems, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported.

North Korea turning toward uranium enrichment, Tokyo says

 

[sharik]

it will be getting more difficult for North Korean government to keep their country perfectly isolated than before.

north korea is long since not isolated.

 

[Unkotare]

it will be getting more difficult for North Korean government to keep their country perfectly isolated than before.

north korea is long since not isolated.

Being isolated is a goal of the lunatic regime. Ever heard of juche?

 

[sharik]

Being isolated is a goal of the lunatic regime.

so the West's a 'lunatic regime' right?

 

[Unkotare]

Being isolated is a goal of the lunatic regime.

so the West's a 'lunatic regime' right?

You're a real dope, troll.

 

[sharik]

You're a real dope, troll.

don't judge others by your own standard's.