Word: seoul
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Still, some scholars contend the regime practices a kind of pragmatic tolerance of Christianity, suggesting North Korea's intelligence agency chooses to ignore underground churches because of their political usefulness. "How can they not know the whereabouts of 100,000 Christians?" says Philo Kim, a professor of sociology at Seoul National University in South Korea, who has visited North Korea several times to study Christianity there. "The government takes advantage of them by dispatching spies into the churches. They can gather information about the churches in China and how they help defectors escape...
...Even getting the North back to the bargaining table may prove difficult. Pyongyang wants to be recognized by the world as a nuclear power, and probably has other reasons to talk to Washington. Experts in Seoul say the North has sent signals recently that it is interested in negotiating a peace treaty with South Korea. That would be politically enticing to a segment of the South Korean population, but the Obama Administration now views it as a distraction. "The main agenda is the nuclear program, and Bosworth has made it clear he's not going to allow the North...
...imbalances 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...
...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 blow leveled at the market, and will help the government tighten up control...
...With reporting by Stephen Kim / Seoul...