Pyongyang buying snow

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Pyongyang buying snow

Privacy is forbidden. They cannot leave their compounds without permission. They must take the few steps to the factories in pairs or groups, with North Korean minders ensuring no one strays. They have no access to telephones or email. This means Americans buying salmon for dinner at Walmart or ALDI may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean government as it builds its nuclear weapons program, an AP investigation has found. While the presence of North Korean workers overseas has been documented, the AP investigation reveals for the first time that some products they make go to the United States, which is now a federal crime. Besides seafood, AP found North Korean laborers making wood flooring and sewing garments in factories in Hunchun. Those industries also export to the U. American companies are not allowed to import products made by North Korean workers anywhere in the world, under a law signed by President Donald Trump in early August. Importers or company officials could face criminal charges for using North Korean workers or materially benefiting from their work, according to the law. Many said they were going to investigate, and some said they had already cut off ties with suppliers. John Connelly, president of the National Fisheries Institute, the largest seafood trade association in the U. In response to the investigation, Senate leaders said Wednesday that the U. North Koreans overseas work in construction in the Gulf states, shipbuilding in Poland, logging in Russia. Roughly 3, North Koreans are believed to work in Hunchun, a far northeast Chinese industrial hub just a few miles from the borders of both North Korea and Russia. Signs in this mercantile city are in Chinese, Korean and Russian. Korean restaurants advertise cold noodles, a Northern favorite, and Russian truckers stop into nightclubs with black bread on the menu. In an effort to boost the local economy, China and North Korea agreed several years ago to allow factories to contract for groups of North Korean workers, establishing an industrial zone with bargain-priced labor. Since then dozens of fish processing companies have opened in Hunchun, along with other manufacturers. Using North Korean workers is legal in China, and not considered forced labor. The workers are not allowed to speak to reporters. The AP also reviewed North Korean laborer documents, including copies of a North Korean passport, a Chinese work permit and a contract with a Hunchun company. When a reporter approached a group of North Koreans — women in tight, bright polyester clothes preparing their food at a Hunchun garment factory — one confirmed that she and some others were from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Their contracts are typically for two or three years, and they are not allowed to go home early. The restrictions they work under make them very valuable employees. Chinese workers have job protections that give them the right to take time off, while North Korean workers complete their contracts with few complaints, rare sick days and almost no turnover. S and Canada in July and August. They are also often considered cheaper. Either way, the North Korean government of Kim Jong Un keeps anywhere from half to 70 percent of their pay, according to scholars who have surveyed former laborers. The work can be exhausting, with shifts lasting up to 12 hours and most workers getting just one day off each week. At some factories, laborers work hunched over tables as North Korean political slogans are blasted from waist-high loudspeakers. Through dozens of interviews, observation, trade records and other public and confidential documents, AP identified three seafood processors that employ North Koreans and export to the U. Shipping records seen by the AP show more than cargo containers of seafood, more than 2, tons, were sent to the U. Owners of both companies said they were very concerned about the North Korean laborers, and planned to investigate. Often the seafood arrives in generic packaging, but some was already branded in China with familiar names like Walmart or Sea Queen, a seafood brand sold exclusively at ALDI supermarkets, which has 1, stores across 35 states. Some U. Trade records show shipments came from a sister company of the Hunchun factory in another part of China, where Thai Union spokeswoman Whitney Small says labor standards are being met and the employees are all Chinese. Small said the sister companies should not be penalized. Shipments also went to two Canadian importers, Morgan Foods and Alliance Seafood, which did not respond to requests for comment. All the companies that responded said their suppliers were forbidden to use forced labor. North Korean workers in China are under much more intense surveillance than those in Russia and the Middle East, experts say. The vast majority of the workers in Hunchun are women in their 20s. Most are thought to be hired back home by labor brokers, who often demand bribes for overseas jobs. The laborers arrive in China already divided into work teams, each led by a North Korean overseer, and remain isolated even from their own employers. He spoke on condition he not be identified, fearing repercussions on his business. They live crowded into rooms often above or next door to the factories, in a world awash in North Korean rituals. Laundry is often hanging up to dry and potted plants — mostly what appear to be herbs, though one room at Hunchun Pagoda has bright yellow carnations — sit on many windowsills. The factory buildings and dormitories at Hunchun Pagoda are grey slabs of unpainted concrete. The yard where the women play volleyball in their free time is concrete. The street outside the front gate is concrete. At most factories the women prepare their own food and make tubs of their own kimchi, the spicy cabbage dish beloved in both Koreas. Their televisions cannot tune in Chinese programming, and they organize their own sports and singing contests on their days off. There are a half dozen rows of corn at Hunchun Pagoda, and kidney beans and melons at Yantai. A booming Chinese economy means money has come even to cities like Hunchun, where six-lane roads and factories bump up against cornfields that, a year later, often make way for yet another factory. Mercedes are now regular sights on the road and foot billboards at malls show bone-thin models in fur coats. Chinese merchants say most North Koreans are very careful about their finances. For instance, while they splurge on expensive spices imported from South Korea, they also buy Chinese noodles that cost less than half of the South Korean brands. On a recent morning, a group of about 70 North Korean women walked to a Hunchun street market from the nearby Hong Chao Zhi Yi garment factory. They asked about prices for watermelons and plums, browsed through cheap pantyhose and bought steamed corn-on-the-cob for 1 Chinese yuan about 16 cents apiece. A train horn blew. The women shouted to one another while they played. That has made the workers a significant and reliable source of revenue for the North Korean regime as it struggles beneath the weight of increasing UN sanctions, which the U. Despite the pay and restrictions, these are highly sought-after jobs in North Korea, a chance to move up a rickety economic ladder and see a bit of the world beyond the closed-in nation. And there are plenty of benefits to working overseas. The laborers can use their earnings to start businesses in these markets, and can buy the status symbols of the slowly-growing middle class — foreign-made rice cookers, watches, TVs, tableware — selling them back home or using them as bribes. Simply going abroad is so rare that returning workers can find themselves highly sought-after when it comes time to marry. Lim Il, a North Korean refugee, bribed a series of officials — with 20 bottles of liquor, 30 packs of cigarettes and restaurant gift cards — to get a job as a construction worker in Kuwait City in the late s, when North Korea was still suffering through a horrific famine. The new law in the U. While U. China, Russia and other countries hosting North Korean labor are all members of the United Nations International Labor Organization, which requires workers to receive their full salaries. Luis CdeBaca, former U. North Korean workers process salmon, snow crab shipped to U. Associated Press. Facebook Twitter Email.

N. Korea using foreign equipment at newly opened ski resort

Pyongyang buying snow

On December 25th, much snow fell in Pyongyang. As snowploughs are unheard-of in North Korea, the snow just remains in the streets until it melts some day. Moravius By: Moravius. Uploaded on December 26, Taken on December 25, All rights reserved.

Pyongyang buying snow