Word: pyongyang
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...identity!" some 13,000 student protesters massed at Yonsei University in downtown Seoul last week. Their goal: to accompany an unofficial 13-member delegation to the "truce village" of Panmunjom, 30 miles away, in the Demilitarized Zone. There a matching delegation of 13 from Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, the Communist North Korean capital, waited to hold "reunification talks...
...kept it for a while, long enough to forge a copy. While police linked the friend to North Korean sympathizers living in Japan, his fingerprints do not match those of the fake Shinichi. As the mystery deepens, Seoul is already threatening to withdraw an offer to allow Pyongyang to stage some Olympic events...
These debilities are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Much of North Korea's economic backwardness stems from the country's imposing military buildup aimed at the prosperous South. Pyongyang is estimated to spend about 25% of its GNP annually on arms -- one of the highest proportions in the world. One result: North Korea is so broke that even China and the Soviet Union, Kim's two strongest military allies, have delayed oil shipments to the country because Pyongyang has been slow to pay its bills. Western observers also feel that North Korea's plight will never improve so long...
...debt debacle could hardly come at a worse time for Pyongyang. Reports filtering back from visiting academics and investment experts depict a country mired in an economic morass. Although precise numbers are hard to obtain, the per capita gross national product for the nation's 20 million people is believed to be $900, far less than South Korea's $2,274. The North's GNP rose last year by 1% to 4%, to about $20 billion, compared with a 12.5% increase, to about $95 billion, in the South. While South Korea pumps out Hyundai * automobiles and Daewoo computer equipment, some...
...creditor banks are already scouting for North Korean assets to seize, including reserves believed to be stashed in bank accounts in Switzerland, Austria, West Germany and elsewhere. There is speculation too that the creditors could try to intercept the shipments of gold, worth about $27 million each, that Pyongyang sells each month through the London bullion market. Juche, in other words, could encompass even harder times ahead...