New Mexico Ex-Gov. Richardson Pressing North Korean Test Ban
AP via TIME

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday that his delegation is pressing North Korea to put a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests and to allow more cell phones and an open Internet for its citizens.

Richardson told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang that the group is also asking for fair and humane treatment for an American citizen detained in North Korea.

North Korea Ryugyong ‘Hotel of Doom’ may open next year
BBC

The 105-storey hotel which dominates the skyline of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, may open next year, 26 years after construction began.

The pyramid-shaped building has become known as the “Hotel of Doom”.

The chief executive of the Kempinski group, which will manage the Ryugyong hotel, said only 150 rooms on the top floors would be used as a hotel.

North Korea’s progress seems to be more style than substance
Los Angeles Times

Every time Kim Kyung Ok takes the bus into North Korea’s downtown Pyongyang, she’s startled by changes that look positively futuristic in a country that had been stuck in a 1960s time warp.

North Koreans See Few Gains Below Top Tier
New York Times

On her weekly shopping trips to downtown Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, a 52-year-old pig farmer who gave her name as Mrs. Kim tries to ignore the dusting of prosperity that has begun to transform the city in recent years: the newly built apartment blocks, the increasing number of Mercedes-Benzes that zip along once-empty boulevards, the smartly dressed young women who conspicuously gab on their newly acquired cellphones. She has never been to the Rungna People’s Pleasure Ground, a new amusement park where children of the elite howled with delight this summer as they shot down a waterslide.

North Korea Turns Defensive Over Criticism Of Its Economy
Wall Street Journal

North Korea’s just-for-show parliament may have not addressed the economic reforms that outsiders were expecting when it met last week, but a couple of statements from its state media over the last few days suggest that the regime in Pyongyang is sensitive to criticism that it is not focused on the economy.

And some recent reports by North Korea watchers suggest a reason why the regime is touchy on the subject: inflation may again be destabilizing the economy.

North Korea farmers to test regime appetite for reform
Los Angeles Times

North Korea’s communist leadership is now reported by recent visitors to be experimenting with smaller-sized farming cooperatives and incentives for expanding food production by letting farmers keep and sell more of what they grow.

The dilemma faced by the Pyongyang regime, say academics who scrutinize the hermetic state, is whether opening the agricultural sector will rescue the economy, as it did in China, or whet North Koreans’ appetite for more opportunity and political choice, thereby bringing down one-party rule, as it did in the Soviet Union.

Signs Emerge Of Economic Change In North Korea
NPR

An unusual parliamentary meeting is due to open Tuesday in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, amid speculation of sweeping changes ahead. In the first such confirmation from within the country, farmers told The Associated Press they would be given more control over their crops under new agricultural rules. Long seen as an economic basket case, North Korea now could be on the cusp of economic change.

Romantic comedy gets twist with NKorean acrobats
AP via Boston Globe

It’s a classic tale of a small-town girl who follows her dreams to the big city. But in this case, the girl is a North Korean coal miner, the big city is Pyongyang and her dream is to become a high-flying trapeze artist.

“Comrade Kim Goes Flying,” a collaboration between a North Korean director and two European filmmakers, premieres Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival before it heads to Pyongyang later this month for its North Korean debut.

South Korea, Obscured by a Northern Shadow
AFP

A chill wind swept Pyongyang’s Kim Il-Sung Square but the thousands of dancers were undeterred as they twirled to lively music from loudspeakers. So what were the songs about? Love? Marriage? Heartbreak? “This one is about Vinalon,” my official minder told me.

N.Korea’s Kim threatens war over S.Korea-US drill
AFP via Google News

North Korea’s leader has warned of an “all-out” war against the South while denouncing its ongoing joint military drill with the United States, state media said Sunday.

The US and South Korean militaries on Monday began a two-week exercise aimed at testing defences against the communist North, insisting it was defensive in nature but Pyongyang called it a drill for a preemptive nuclear attack.