NK REPORT

Only at MHI-NK News: Pyongyang will use Olympics to “weaken” ROK-U.S. alliance: South Korean MND, By Dagyum Ji  Defense ministry says DPRK may demand end to joint drills in exchange for PyeongChang participation The South Korean military on Friday said it believes North Korea will attempt to drive a wedge between the allies and ask Seoul to put a stop to U.S.-ROK joint military drills in exchange for its participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics. The Ministry of National Defense (MND) shared the assessment of this year’s security Inter-Korean progress: what’s motivating Pyongyang? By Fyodor Tertitskiy The DPRK has made important gains, but when PyeongChang is over little will have changed Recent developments surrounding inter-Korean relations, including the agreement to allow athletes from the DPRK to participate in the Winter Olympics, have led to optimism in some quarters that the rapprochement might lead to a mid-to-long-term de-escalation of the situation on the peninsula. Beginning with Kim Jong Un’s suggestion to hold talks in his New Year speech to People of nort korean. ——————————————————— Seoul to “regularize” high-level inter-Korean talks, boost civilian exchanges,  By Dagyum Ji Unification ministry says plans have been “kicked into high gear” by PyeongChang Olympics The South Korean Ministry of Unification (MOU) on Friday unveiled plans to “regularize” high-level talks between the two Koreas and promote civilian inter-Korean exchanges, in a briefing with Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon. At a 2018 policy briefing by five government ministries, the MOU said it planned to “regularize and systemize South-North talks” to restore inter-Korean. N. Korean delegation to visit South for art troupe performance talks on Saturday, By Dagyum Ji Hyon Song Wol, head of the Samjiyon Orchestra, to lead DPRK’s preliminary inspection team Pyongyang will dispatch a delegation to South Korea on Saturday to discuss practical issues related to a performance next month by a DPRK art troupe, Seoul’s unification ministry announced on Friday. North Korea on Friday proposed sending a preliminary inspection team to examine facilities for the performance, due to take place in the South during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.North Korea’s best-known female pop star, Hyon Song Wol, was part of the reclusive state’s delegation to rare talks with the South on Monday. Who is this woman and why was she there? —————————————————————– On the hunt for North Korea’s last Siberian tigers, By Greg Noone​ The researchers – both international and Korean – behind the search for the elusive big cat The Siberian, or Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is celebrated as a national animal of Korea. It is also widely considered to be extinct on the peninsula. Where at the beginning of the twentieth century the animal’s range encompassed the endless forests of what is now the Russian Far East, Manchuria, and Korea, now it is largely confined to a handful of reserves dotted throughout Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, and northern China.Only around five hundred Siberian tigers remain in the wild, stalking wild boar or roe deer through the woods, or else stalked themselves by avid wildlife documentarians eager to capture the elusive cat on film. NARROW ACCESS It was to find a way to prove this that, in 1997, brought Anatolii Kachur to Pyongyang. As deputy director at the Pacific Geographical Institute in Vladivostok, Kachur had been involved in conservation projects in the region for almost two decades.The organization had been exchanging data on Siberian tigers with scientists from the DPRK for a number of years, yet without sources of funding, no joint field survey had been attempted. A pitch to UNESCO broke this impasse. “When the funding was approved, we immediately contacted the Korean side and arranged a meeting,” Kachur says. The talks in Pyongyang proved difficult; access to the desired survey sites by foreign conservation workers was not a realistic possibility. On the last day of negotiations, however, the mood abruptly changed.“According to our Korean colleagues, the final decision was made by Kim Jong Il, who personally considered the goals of this project and approved its implementation.”

Top MHI-NK Stories from around the web: 50% of South Korea against unification flag at Olympics (Korea Times) According to a poll by RealMeter, 49.4 percent of 500 people aged over 19 voted against athletes from the two Koreas marching under the flag symbolizing a unified Korea for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics set to begin next month… Foreign ministry to focus diplomatic efforts on inducing N.K., U.S. into ‘dialogue process’ (Yonhap News) South Korea will work hard to induce North Korea and the United States into a “dialogue process” based on the peaceful momentum created by the resumption of inter-Korean talks on Pyongyang’s participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics,the foreign ministry said Friday. “We decided to make a contribution to the successful hosting of the PyeongChang Olympics by opening or supporting high-level diplomatic events, while intensifying efforts to secure global understanding and support to have the recent momentum for talks turn into a peaceful resolution of the North’s nuclear problem,” the ministry said.”In particular, we emphasized that we will focus our diplomatic capacity on inducing North Korea and the U.S. into a dialogue process so that it could create a virtuous cycle of inter-Korean talks resulting in North Korea-U.S. talks,” it added. Lawmakers call for military-to-military communications with North Korea (The Hill) More than 30 lawmakers are calling on President Trump to reestablish military-to-military communications with North Korea. “The U.S. should do all in its power to avoid misunderstandings that could escalate to a greater conflict… ​Abductee families to urge Kim Jong Un be prosecuted at Hague court (Asahi Shimbun) The families of Japanese abducted by North Korea, and those believed to have been taken, will urge the International Criminal Court to prosecute the North’s leader, saying the lack of information about their loved ones is a human rights abuse. North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies, and five of them returned to Japan. Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken.Eight people, including Teruaki Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko is said by North Korea to have died, will travel to The Hague to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses because of his refusal to provide information about their family members. The group will present a petition requesting investigation into the disappearances as a case of crimes against humanity to raise international attention about the issue, said Kazuhiro Araki, who heads a support group for families of the missing.   Launch of the “Korea Computer Center”: An E-library of North Korean Software (38 North) What does this open library of DPRK software reveal about the country’s domestic IT landscape. “The way that devices have been programmed to access the national intranet can tell us something about its structure and the security settings will provide detail on how much network-level surveillance takes place. For organizations interested in infiltrating North Korea with information, such data can be very valuable.