NKorean leader's grandson joins Bosnia school

Kim Han Sol

A spokeswoman for an international school in Bosnia says a grandson of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has joined its ranks.

Meri Musa says the 16-year-old Kim Han Sol will be the first student from North Korea to attend a United World College.

The Bosnian school in the town of Mostar says it is part of a network established by a British foundation in 1962 with the aim of brining together young people "whose experience was of the political conflict of the Cold War era."

The Bosnian school has 124 students from 34 countries, including from Iraq, Israel and Palestinian territories.

Musa said Kim Han Sol will be treated like all other students and will be living in the dormitories provided.

SFgate

China, Russia Investing In North Korea's Port City, Rason.

In the northeastern tip of North Korea, Chinese and Russian construction crews are racing to build transportation lines to a long-neglected port city that might now become an oasis for foreign investment.

Anti-missile defense talks between Russia and USA: possible consequences

Russia and the US are getting ready to have another round of anti-missile defense talks. It happens so that the topic became the major one in the Russia-US bilateral relations. Moscow is really concerned about the USA’s anti-missile defense in Europe.

The disputes are obviously dragged out. There are two parties participating in the disputes – Russia and the USA. However, there are some other parties concerned. Sometimes it seems that the 2 parties just talk about different notions and do not want to understand each other.

USA’s stance:

According to Evgeny Olkhovsky, the leading expert of Masterforex-V Academy, the US authorities, who started the confrontation, are constantly speaking about their desire to deploy some anti-missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.

According to the US, the new anti-missile defense program should will a reliable shield protecting Europe and America from possible nuclear attacks that can be initiated by North Korea and Iran. There is some logic in the statement because the new idea appeared after Teheran started its own nuclear program while Pyongyang started nuclear weapons testing.

Russia’s reaction was negative. The Russian authorities thought that the new anti-missile defense system is designed to defend Europe and America first of all against Russia. The first round of talks damaged the US-Russian bilateral relationship.

Russia, Two Koreas Renew Talks on Shared Gas Pipeline

Talk of building a pipeline that would deliver Russian natural gas to South Korea by way of North Korea has been going on for decades.

But the project recently gained new momentum when North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il paid Russian President Dmitry Medvedev a visit in Siberia.

Footage aired on Russian television shows the two leaders shaking hands ahead of their summit last month. Reports say both men agreed that construction of a gas pipeline should finally be realized.

Following that meeting, officials in South Korea’s energy sector made it clear that they too want to see the pipeline finally built.

North Korea Food Crisis

North Korea appears to once again be on the brink of starvation, with flooding and outbreaks of disease in livestock worsening the already acute food shortage.


Here is a factfile on the food crisis:


3.5 million people categorised as most at risk of malnutrition and starvation in North Korea, which has a total population of 24 million.


$18 million per month required by the United Nations World Food Programme to feed the most vulnerable.


305,000 tons of grain required as immediate humanitarian food assistance 10,000 head of cattle, pig and oxen infected with foot-and-mouth disease earlier this year.


1,400 is the amount of calories per day set by the government per person until early 2011.


700 is the official amount allocated per person today. The average intake per person in Europe is between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day.


2,250 North Korean Won (£0.55) for 1 kg (2.2lbs) of domestic rice in Hyesan City in June.


1,750 North Korean Won (£0.43) for 1 kg (2.2lbs) of old Chinese rice.


3.5 million, the highest estimate of the number who died in the famine in the mid-1990s in North Korea.



Telegraph