North Korea far poorer than reported: expert

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - Impoverished North Korea is far poorer than earlier estimates have shown with a per capita income that places it among the world's most destitute states, a former minister for managing relations with the North said on Friday.

The South's Bank of Korea said last August that the North's economy in 2006 stood at $22.8 billion but the survey from Lee Jong-seok said the figure was closer to $9 billion.

This means that the average North Korean makes the equivalent of about a dollar a day, which puts the North among the world's 25 poorest countries in terms of per capita income.

But the Bank of Korea's estimate put annual per capita income at closer to $1,100, about the same as Nepal.

"If you had the slightest bit of interest or knowledge about the North, you would have asked the question: 'In that case, why is the majority of North Koreans starving?'" Lee, who was Minister of Unification in 2006, said in a report published on Friday.

Lee said the Bank of Korea's estimates were fundamentally flawed because they used a cost base applicable for the richer South and not the destitute North.

Last year's figures by the central bank put the size of the North Korea's economy between the war-torn countries of Sri Lanka and Lebanon according to World Bank tables. It was also less than 3 percent of the South Korean economy.

Lee said he commissioned a study as minister that concluded the North's per capita income was probably about $400 and its gross national income $8.9 billion, which makes the North's economy about one-one hundredth of the South's.

He said better estimates were needed in order to better tailor aid policy and understand how much of the North's scarce resources were going to its powerful military.

While the North's economy surpassed the South's in the early years after the 1950-53 Korean War, it has since sharply slipped in wealth, largely because of years of misguided central control that focused heavily on military spending.

In the late 1990s, an estimated 10 percent of the North's 23 million people died during due to famine.

The North has for years relied on international aid to make up for a large and persistent food shortage.

(Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Bill Tarrant)

North Korea far poorer than reported: expert
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「平壌公演の計画ない」＝クラプトン氏側

　【ソウル７日時事】韓国のＭＢＣテレビが７日までに伝えたところによると、英国の著名ロックギタリスト、エリック・クラプトン氏の広報担当者はこのほど、北朝鮮・平壌での「公演計画はない」と述べ、クラプトン氏が来年、平壌で公演を行うとの一部報道を否定した。

時事ドットコム：「平壌公演の計画ない」＝クラプトン氏側

'Regime' Changed

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, March 5, 2008; Page A19
The annual State Department human rights reports on conditions in various countries often spark internal tussling over tone and nuance.

The battles generally pit folks in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), who tend to be hard-line human rights advocates, against the regional bureau diplomats, who tend to be more, well, diplomatic.

This is especially true when it comes to places such as nuclear North Korea, run by the somewhat offbeat Kim Jong Il, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is hoping endless six-way negotiations will get the North Koreans to stop their nuclear program.

So on Friday, Glyn Davies, the principal deputy assistant secretary in the East Asia bureau, sent an e-mail to Erica Barks-Ruggles, a deputy assistant secretary in the DRL bureau, regarding some changes in the introductory language of a report on North Korea.

"Erica," he wrote, "I know you are under the NSC [National Security Council] gun," apparently to get the report done so the NSC can review it, "but hope given the Secretary's priority on the Six-Party Talks, we can sacrifice a few adjectives for the cause.

"Many thanks. Glyn."

And the changes? Eliminated words are in brackets, and additions are in italics:

"The [repressive] North Korean government[regime] continued to control almost all aspects of citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricting freedom of movement and workers' rights. Reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and arbitrary detention, including of political prisoners, continue to emerge [from the isolated country]. Some forcibly repatriated refugees were said to have undergone severe punishment and possibly torture. Reports of public executions continued to surface[were on the rise]."

As Hemingway might have written: For Whom the Kowtows?

Al Kamen - 'Regime' Changed - washingtonpost.com