North Korea still needs our prayers
Every January First, the leader of North Korea gives a New Year's speech that sets the tone for the year. Everyone is expected to memorize the speech and discuss it at special meetings.
There is a lot of anticipation as to what Kim Jong Un will have to say on Tuesday. Following a very eventful year which he rounded out with a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Kim is expected to lay out his own plan for diplomacy on the Korean peninsula for 2019.
The world awaits. North Korea is also using the year-end to vaunt its nuclear program with a celebration of the first anniversary of developing nuclear weapons.
In the meantime, people still try to leave the North but it is increasingly difficult. New video cameras have been installed along the border in full view to discourage defectors. Ministry of State Security (MSS) agents have also been luring people to defect in order arrest them and increase their own "scores." MSS Bureau 12, tasked with monitoring cell phone use has been re-named to Bureau 15 and has broader powers. The bureau functions as the mobile-
phone anti-espionage bureau tasked with preventing communications into and out of the country as well as a front line to prevent defections. There have been a number of defectors who have returned to North Korea--some voluntarily, some under duress. They are being exploited to discourage others from defecting.
Kim Jong Un's zeal for new construction continues with mass mobilization for the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone project even as other needed renovation projects languish for lack of man-power and materials. Along with construction projects, the leadership extolled farm workers with a special rally in December even as the farmers themselves are anxious about being able to make it through the winter. Sanctions continue to have an impact as shown by these photos from the Rason Economic Zone but the "Singapore" shops in Pyongyang continue with business as usual.
Meanwhile both North and South Korea are moving forward on the inter-Korea railway project celebrated in a special ceremony on December 26th with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the northern side of the border following assurance from the UN Security Council that the sanctions would not be applied to the project.
We all know that the authorities are working to stamp out the viewing of South Korean media in the North but it seems that they are also heavily involved in spreading it around. A couple final notes: New Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il high prestige badges are being distributed. Here is a new searchable detailed digital atlas of North Korea. Take a look around...
Remembering Our Brothers in Prison We continue to pray for six South Koreans held in the North as well as Daily NK journalist, Choi Song Min (alias). Here's information on the pastors and others who have been detained and released. Please remember them in your prayers.
Ben Torrey - Director
The Fourth River Project, Inc.
Pray for the upcoming second Trump-Kim summit planned for the end of next month.
Pray for the denuclarization of the Korean peninsula.
Pray for the closing down of the prison camps and freedom for North Korea as a result.
