Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war

[Tuesday Afternoon]

By Shaun Walker in Moscow
Saturday, 27 November 2010

A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. "Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left," the agency reported.

more at link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/expats-recalled-as-north-korea-prepares-for-war-2145018.html

[hedgehog]

1. North Korea has expats? The last thing I would do is call them home.

Wait until they start telling their buddies what the world is like outside the Worker's Paradise!

[TheWraith]

4. They're being used as indentured servants in eastern Russia.

Not sure how well that's going to compare to anything.

Besides, chances are only the most loyal get selected for it.

[Posteritatis]

5. As the article says, they aren't permitted to see much of that. (nt)

[47of74]

17. I was about to mention that too

Dear Leader has them on a pretty short leash;

Russia's migration service said that there were over 20,000 North Koreans in Russia at the beginning of 2010, of which the vast majority worked in construction. The workers are usually chaperoned by agents from Kim Jong-il's security services and have little contact with the world around them. Defectors have suggested that the labourers work 13-hour days and that most of their pay is sent back to the government in Pyongyang. Hundreds of workers have fled the harsh conditions and live in hiding in Russia, constantly in fear of being deported back to North Korea.

"North Korea's government sends thousands of its citizens to Russia to earn money, most of which is funnelled through government accounts," says Simon Ostrovsky, a journalist who discovered secret North Korean logging camps in the northern Siberian taiga. "Workers are often sent to remote locations for years at a time to work long hours and get as little as three days off per year." Now it appears that some kind of centralised order has been given for the workers to return home.

And isn't what North Korea's doing called money laundering?

[Puregonzo1188]

2. This is not good. I'm really rather worried about the growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

[Danger Mouse]

3. Scary.

[Rex]

6. What the fuck is NK doing?

Kim needs to go out with a bang?

[Posteritatis]

7. Or Junior wants to sign in with one. (nt)

[Rex]

9. I was stationed there and learned that the Korean people just want

to get their lives back and stop this insanity of war. The North Koreans are just slaves and live in a ugly dictatorship we should have hammered out with China decades ago.

[roamer65]

8. Preparing to restart the Korean War.

Beijing and Pyongyang are up to something.

[realisticphish]

11. I suspect that Beijing doesn't want squat

it's hardly in their interest to move agains SK

[HEyHEY]

14. They would lose too much business

And then internal uprisings begin.

[realisticphish]

22. right

China is what it is because of trade with the West. Smashing that now because of their psychotic neighbors probably isn't in their plans

[HEyHEY]

13. Beijing

Wants nothing to do with this.

[Strelnikov_]

19. Beijing wants shed of their leftover from before their 'we're all capitalists now' days

And what better if all that competing productive capacity in the South gets destroyed in the looming murder-suicide.

Nope, China will be staying just the proper distance away on this one.

[TheMightyFavog]

20. Not to mention a humanitarian crisis...

I wonder how many NK refugees would be pouring across the northern border if shit went down?

[glinda]

10. Watch them flatten themselves and China move in an swallow them up.

[Strelnikov_]

21. . . . Chicago School style

As Sun-Tso (University of Chicago, 1975) said "He who provides reconstruction funds for a thing, controls a thing".

[HEyHEY]

12. If I were a North Korea expat I'd send a communique reading "FUUUUCKKK that!"

[Swede]

15. It would be a good day to call in sick.

I really can't make it in today,sore throat,nasty cough.

[JVS]

16. That's not the kind of attitude that gets you an exit visa.

Also, when Russia deports you, you'll have to answer for that.

[HEyHEY]

18. ha ha, it'll be interesting to see how many of the jump the fence

There's a North Korean restaurant here in Beijing, I think I may go see if they're open.