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WP: Tight Lid on Information Loosening in N. Korea

Written: 2004-12-14 10:32:15Updated: 0000-00-00 00:00:00

The Washington Post says North Korea's growing trade and communication with the outside world are spurring more and more of its citizens to leave the impoverished state.

The paper on Monday ran the story of a North Korean businessman who defected to South Korea 11 months after realizing that he was living in a "poor country" when he started a private business selling antiques to Chinese and South Korean buyers.

The daily said the businessman's defection illustrates what many analysts are calling one of the biggest challenges facing North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il since he inherited power from his father, Kim Il-sung, a decade ago.

The paper said that as the North enters the 30th month of its experiment with free-market reforms, analysts, intelligence sources and recent defectors say that the once airtight lid on information is gradually loosening in the Stalinist state.

According to the reports, Asian intelligence sources estimate that as many as 20,000 North Koreans particularly those trading in the newly thriving border area with China now have access to Chinese cellular phones, on which they can make undetected international calls from large areas of northern North Korea.

However, according to U.S. and Asian intelligence sources, increased communication has not led to any major weakening of Kim Jong-il's grip on power.

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