Word: markets
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...right time. "Eleven years ago, just because someone else made this film didn't mean that we had to come back and make our version right away," he says. "It was better to wait for things to cool down before we made our own Mulan. Back then, the Chinese market wasn't mature yet, but now it's ready...
...will continue to persist, say analysts and North Korean defectors in Seoul. The largest and wealthiest of North Korea's traders, including government-owned companies, have long since swapped out of North Korean won and instead hold Chinese renminbi, yen or dollars as a store of value. The black-market value of the won has been decreasing for years, and North Korean inflation has been accelerating. The former head of a large North Korean trading firm who recently defected to Seoul told TIME, "Some kind of move like this was expected for a long time." And, he says...
...anything approaching a serious condition. But his long stay at the hospital and continued absence from public view has fueled unease, speculation and rumors. Recently, the government arrested four people for allegedly spreading rumors about the king's health on the internet, which, it claims, caused a stock market sell-off in October. Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog group, has said those arrested are scapegoats and the charges are baseless...
...Institute of International Economics. However, this being North Korea, one of the most repressive and impoverished nations in the world, that's not the case. The government announced that it would limit the amount an individual can exchange to just 100,000 won - or less than $40 at black-market exchange rates - and any amount above that threshold would be, in effect, worthless. NGOs in Seoul reported that in response to citizens' immediate and widespread anger, those limits were raised to 150,000 won in cash and 500,000 won in bank notes. (See pictures of the rise...
...second reason for the crackdown - as ever with Pyongyang - is control. The government allowed black markets to proliferate this decade out of desperation, but they had grown to the point where the leadership may have begun to feel threatened. Small traders and black markets existed outside of government control, and by definition at some point the regime was not going to tolerate that, analysts say. "The breakaway, snowballing market is a threat to the regime," says Lim Kang-taeg, senior research fellow at the Korean Institute for National Unification, a government-sponsored think tank in Seoul. "This is a significant...