Chris Gelken Reporter's Notebook

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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

KORUS FTA at the Hyatt in Seoul
2007-03-31 16:24:00
The KORUS FTA talks went down to the wire on Saturday morning, skipped over it, and negotiators set another deadline that will expire in the early hours of Monday local time. One unfortunate consequence for guests of the Hyatt Hotel in Namsan is that their temporary home away from home would resemble an armed camp for another couple of days. In reality though, apart from the inconvenience of passing through metal detectors when entering the hotel, and a lobby full of bored journalists, it probably isn't so much a hardship as an adventure. The authorities were taking no chances that negotiators, or paying guests for that matter, would be disturbed by anti-FTA protesters. Small groups of police were stationed on access roads up to more than a kilometer from the hotel. But if all you were looking for was a quiet weekend, or an international ATM as one unfortunate member of the USFK and his family discovered, the Hyatt probably wasn't the place to head for. These emergency flares were...
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Drug company urges aid donors to "buy local"
2007-03-29 17:08:00
(From The Korea Herald, Friday, March 30) "Its not just about making money, at least not from our perspective as a producer," declared Felix Abt, president of the Pyongyang-based pharmaceutical company PyongSu Pharma. "The profit margins are very small. It is more about supplying a necessary and quality product at a price people can afford."Abt was in Seoul earlier this week meeting with South Korean pharmaceutical companies and aid organizations. On the table was a unique opportunity that would allow them to expand their existing humanitarian work, while at the same time helping to lay a solid foundation for the future of the pharmaceutical sector in North Korea."One of the main purposes of my visit here is to meet with the people who donate drugs and medicines to North Korea, or their agents who are based here," Abt told The Korea Herald. The "frontier-businessman" believes substantial savings could be realized if the donor had the drugs produced locally, in North Korea, rather th...
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Anti-FTA Protest Seoul, Sunday 25th March
2007-03-25 17:12:00
As trade negotiators prepared for their last round, eleventh hour, make or break talks to reach an agreement on a raft of issues from rice to auto imports, thousands of anti-FTA protesters gathered in downtown Seoul to register their opposition to the deal.The protest was noisy but largely peaceful. For more pictures click on "Anti -FTA Protest Seoul" in the photo section.
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Is Washington messing with Pyongyang's head?
2007-03-24 09:18:00
"It was quite a rude awakening to hear on the news that my money was going to be used for charity," the holder of an account with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia told me on the condition that I didn't reveal his identity.He was referring to the announcement last weekend that a deal had been struck to release some $25 million dollars in North Korea related accounts held at the small family-run lender. The cash had been frozen by the Macau Monetary Authority after the U.S. Treasury Department accused the bank of being a money laundering concern back in September, 2005.Under the deal, the money would be transferred to an account with the Bank of China in Beijing, and then disbursed for humanitarian and educational programs to help the people of North Korea."What needs to be understood," he said, "is that not all the funds belong to the North Korean government, but that a substantial amount belongs to private customers."Colin McAskill, chairman of the London-based fund Koryo Asia Ltd ...
More About: Washington , With , Messi , Yang , Pyongyang

Art from the Daechu-ri Autonomous Village
2007-03-20 16:40:00
DAECHURI, Gyeonggi Province - It is like entering a quarantine zone. Riot police, long coils of barbed wire stretching off into the distance, and checkpoints. Lots of checkpoints. There is no disease in the small village of Daechuri, near Pyeongtaek, but the hamlet is dying. Its final death certificate is likely to be issued at the end of this month when wrecking crews move in to demolish what is left of this formerly tight-knit farming community some 75 kilometers south of Seoul. In December 2005 the government's Land Expropriation Committee approved the imminent seizure of Daechuri and the surrounding farmland to make way for the expansion of a nearby U.S. military base. The approval came with the ominous warning; forced evictions would take place if the residents did not move out peacefully.Daechuri farmers and residents responded by marching to the Pyeongtaek City Hall where they burned their Korean residence cards, revoked their citizenship and declared the establishment of th...
More About: Auto , Village , The D , Villa

Transcript from Arirang Radio "Riding Home" March 16th
2007-03-16 10:37:00
Monday to Friday I get to contribute a report on one of the day's top stories to the Arirang Radio program, Riding Home . This week my focus has been on developments regarding the U.S. Treasury's final report on the Banco Delta Asia, the Macau-based lender accused of laundering money for North Korea. As we head into the weekend, this "resolved but unresolved" issue casts a lengthening shadow over the six-party talks that are scheduled to convene in Beijing on Monday."Riding Home with Chris Gelken"DJ: North Korea can now move ahead with the implementation of its initial steps to denuclearize, now that Washington has resolved its financial disputes with Pyongyang. That's according to Washington's top nuclear negotiator, Chris Hill speaking in Beijing today. Well, joining us to discuss the prospects for that is Chris Gelken, Senior Associate Editor from the Korea Herald.Chris, with the next round of the six party talks set to convene on Monday, it seems Washington is rather on the d...
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The elusive truth
2007-03-13 05:09:00
The key reason why North Korea walked out on the September 2005 agreement reached at the six-party talks in Beijing was the economic fallout from accusations that a Macau-based bank was helping to launder and provide a safe haven for the ill-gotten gains of the Pyongyang regime. Legitimate businesses in the North Korean capital, many of them owned and operated by Europeans, vigorously protested the freezing of their accounts after the U.S. Treasury blacklisted the bank.As part of the latest Beijing Agreement reached on Feb. 13, the U.S. Treasury promised to resolve the Banco Delta Asia issue once and for all. There has been widespread speculation that an official announcement will be made this week ahead of the next round of six-party talks in Beijing on Monday, 19th March. But while the North may get its money back, they may remain completely isolated economically."The U.S. Treasury Department will apparently cut the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia off from the U.S. financial system o...
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Is there a Kurdish policy?
2007-03-12 02:08:00
Korea is expected to bring home its troops from Iraq by the end of this year. They have "mission accomplished" in their area of responsibility, and the general consensus is that the locals will long cherish the contribution Korea has made to the region.Well, that is until they see their villages being pounded by Korean made artillery and tanks. This is not such a far fetched idea as the following article published in The Korea Herald shows: "Meanwhile, Lee Jun-kyu, policy director of the activist group, Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea, said the government's arms exports to Ankara show Korean policymakers' lack of strategic planning in their pursuit of the national interest. The peace activist notes that Turkey has a record of oppressing Kurds within its territory.'It is nonsense that our country stations troops in the Kurdish region under the guise of a peace and reconstruction force while selling weapons to Turkey, which has a poor record in its treatment of Kurds. The govern...
More About: Policy , Here , There , Dish , Poli

What are these fools doing?
2007-03-06 15:16:00
This is insane.For the past month or more the United States has been winding back its claims that North Korea absolutely and definitely had a highly enriched uranium program designed for the production of nuclear weapons. Washington was beginning to acknowledge the findings of independent inspectors and other experts that perhaps U.S. intelligence had "overstated" its claims that North Korea had an ongoing and determined uranium bomb program.Yes, I am being generous. There are those who believe the United States deliberately overstated the HEU issue. The accusations put the final nail in the coffin of the 1994 Agreed Framework, and justified North Korea's place in George Bush's "axis of evil." Remember, this happened back in the days when some people still believed Saddam Hussein posed a "clear and present danger" with his weapons of mass destruction. And those warnings came from the same "intelligence" source.Then, in the past month, there was Washington's admission that perhaps...
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Tongue tied with the 'axis of evil'
2007-03-05 16:53:00
It is just a thought, and as such, not to be taken too seriously. Maybe.An internet search on the world's most difficult languages to learn will throw up some obscure or little known dialects, such as Basque for example. Or Hungarian, or Finnish. Chinese is a major contender, but it is fast becoming one of the most popular languages to learn.But among the languages spoken by significant numbers of people, from countries that have an equally significant influence on the global stage, and languages that a certain "intelligence" agency has admitted it has very few people who can speak it fluently, there are three that keep cropping up.Arabic. Farsi. Korean.Coincidence? I think not.
More About: With , Evil , Axis , Tongue , Tong

It's the intelligence, stupid!
2007-03-02 12:06:00
Economic sanctions or trade embargoes against a country for the alleged misdeeds of its government, rarely -- if ever -- have the desired impact.A European businessman based in Pyongyang recently told me the U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea were having an immediate and seriously negative effect on the people who were the least able to do anything about why the sanctions were imposed in the first place."In the case of PyongSu Pharmaceutical, there are now difficulties in transferring money to foreign suppliers which is causing substantial delays in the launch of new and effective medicines that are so badly needed," he told The Korea Herald. And in a statement reminiscent of the situation in Iraq in the 1990's, Abt said, "Thus it is the ordinary and the needy North Korean patients that have to suffer from the consequences of these U.S. sanctions." (From The Korea Herald, September 18th 2006 -- Businessmen accuse U.S. of indiscriminate sanctions)In several interviews I con...
More About: Intelligence , Intel , Stupid

Blog
2007-03-01 13:01:00
Anti-FTA Protest SeoulIs Washington messing with Pyongyang's head? Art from the Daechu-ri Autonomous Village Transcript from Arirang Radio "Riding Home" March 16th The elusive truth Is there a Kurdish policy? What are these fools doing?Tongue tied with the 'axis of evil' It's the intelligence, stupid! Forget hi-tech Another cartoon controversy? HEU - Highly enriched uncertainty The next Twin Towers - the next headline Do they or don't they have a HEU program? Butt-police bust smokers Time to enter the blogosphere
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Forget hi-tech
2007-02-27 12:16:00
When I first saw this report a few minutes ago my first thought was: "And the winner of the dumbest idea of the year is..." I had this vision of colored balloons floating across the demilitarized zone into North Korea, and then being shattered by a barrage of gunfire. What a photo opportunity. What an opportunity for a massive misunderstanding and an "incident." And of course now that they know they are coming, where they are heading, and what they contain -- it makes things so much easier for them to be shot down before they reach their intended target. But apparently this method has been used before, there were no reported major incidents that I could find on a quick search "korea balloons" -- but at the same time, obviously there is no way of knowing how much impact the previous efforts had. About all I can say is, good luck!" TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese advocacy group said Tuesday it will use balloons to scatter flyers over North Korea, offering residents a US$10,000 cash reward fo...
More About: Tech , Hi Tech , Forge

Another cartoon controversy?
2007-02-25 11:48:00
After the tragic death of nine migrant workers in a fire at an immigration detention center a few weeks ago, and the government's recently launched campaign to make foreigner's feel more welcome, Korea really needed the following. Not."LOS ANGELES (AP) - Korean-American community leaders said they plan to launch a protest against the publisher of a popular South Korean comic book that contains anti-Semitic images. One comic strip in the book shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall with a Star of David and ``STOP'' sign in front. ``The final obstacle to success is always a fortress called Jews,'' a translation says. Another strip shows a newspaper, magazine, TV and radio with the description: ``In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it's no exaggeration to say that U.S. media are the voice of the Jews.'' Yohngsohk Choe, co-chairman of the Korean American Patriotic Action Movement in the USA, said, ``I don't have words to describe the out...
More About: Cartoon , Other , Controversy , Over

HEU - Highly enriched uncertainty
2007-02-24 05:47:00
The debate over whether or not North Korea has a credible High ly Enriched Uranium program continues to rage. There is little doubt that HEU has been on Pyongyang's agenda, but just like New Year resolutions and that book all journalists "threaten" to write, how far along the road to producing a bomb are they?"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should reexamine a questionable charge that North Korea has a covert uranium enrichment program, a key American complaint against Pyongyang that could complicate the new nuclear weapons deal, experts said on Wednesday."(Full report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/cont ent/article/2007/02/21/AR2007022101600.ht ml) One of the experts being cited in the report is David Albright. He has been getting a lot of ink recently. It was Albright that the world's media were quoting as a reliable source regarding North Korea's softening attidude just before the lastest round of six-party talks.But now Albright's qualifications, and consequentl...
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The next Twin Towers - the next headline
2007-02-23 13:22:00
Every couple of days over the past few weeks I have experienced what I can only describe as a “weird” feeling while watching television. It is a creepy, hair stand up on the back of your neck sort of weird.Let me explain. My wife and I are slowly working our way through the entire 10 seasons of the hugely successful sit-com “Friends.”If we are not attending some function or working on other projects, the evening will eventually see us head to the sofa with some after dinner munchies, beer, and the remote control.It has only been about 12 years since “Friends” first aired on NBC, but my oh my, how the world has changed. The scriptwriters obviously didn’t intend it, but watching Chandler boast about the power of his laptop and an internet connection speed of 28k, triggered a “get out of here” guffaw and the sort of nostalgia that a retiree has for their days in university. I am not sure, but I don’t think mobile phones made their appearance until the end of the sec...
More About: The N , Next , Head , Tower , Line

Do they or don't they have a HEU program?
2007-02-20 15:11:00
“SEOUL, Feb 20, 2007 (AFP) - South Korea's intelligence chief was quoted as saying Tuesday that he believes North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment program, in addition to its plutonium-based nuclear weapons project. "We believe (the program) exists," Kim Man-Bok, the head of the National Intelligence Service, told a closed-door parliamentary committee, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting. Kim was answering a question on whether the North is operating a highly-enriched uranium (HEU) program, the lawmakers told Yonhap news agency on condition of anonymity.”In 2002 the United States made the shocking announcement that North Korea was operating a clandestine highly-enriched uranium program with the obvious purpose of producing nuclear weapons. This was the final deal breaker for the 1994 Agreed Framework to dismantle Pyongyang's existing nuclear facilities.The accuracy of that assessment has been called into question on several occasions. Last week as the parties ...
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Butt-police bust smokers
2007-02-19 17:06:00
An article found its way to my desktop this morning that made me a little angry. Just a little. Amused and angry, or bemused and angry. I am sure you know the feeling. It concerned the initiative of a district of Seoul to get tough on litterbugs. If you have ever lived in Seoul you will know the scale of the problem. If you have never lived in Seoul, then just let me say that the term litter “bug” is totally inadequate. Try littermonsters.The district of Gangnam, a swanky area south of the Han River, recently made a huge amount of money doling out instant fines to one particular genre of litterbug – the cigarette smoker. Toss a butt in the street and you were slapped with a 50,000 won ($45) fine. Toss a bag of garbage and the inspectors would probably search it for butts, anxious to bust another butt bandit. After sorting through three day old vegetable matter and other household crud, I can just imagine their disappointment at not finding any incriminating cigarette ends.The ...
More About: Police , Smoke , Bust , Smoker , Butt

Time to enter the blogosphere
2007-02-16 14:53:00
Many years ago I used to write a daily column. Six days a week I would find myself sitting. staring at a computer screen, fingers poised over the keyboard.Expectant.Some days it was easy. Columnists can usually rely on politicians or celebrities to do something outrageous or stupid. Or both. But even they take a day off sometimes. I still had to come up with my 700 words, no matter what.It took rigid discipline. It required dedication. Alcohol, inflexible deadlines and panic played their significant roles too. More than once, as I remember, I wrote about how impossible it is to produce 700 words when absolutely NOTHING of note has happened. Well, nothing that you would care to share with the general public anyway.My column was mine. I could write about anything. And I did. It was about the most refreshing expression of editorial freedom a journalist can experience – and still get paid. It was heaven.But then my flirtation with broadcast television became a full fledged love affair...
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