ROK Gives DPRK “40 bundles of one hundred, $100-dollar bills”
by Richardson ~ April 7th, 2007. Filed under: Asides.From the Joongang Ilbo: “South Korea hand-delivered $400,000 in cash to North Korea yesterday for Pyongyang’s purchase of video communication equipment. The North will spend the money to buy computers and display screens to reunite families separated for more than a half century . . . They carried a suitcase containing 40 bundles of one hundred, $100-dollar bills. . . ‘We told the North Koreans to inform us of the specific spending of the money.’ “
April 7th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
It will be B/W TV sets with VHS recordings, and tin cans connected by string.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I don’t understand why cash was given when all they were gunna do was buy video equipment. Most likely that equipment will be purchased from the South anyways, so just give them the equipment and cut out the possibility of the cash being used in any other way.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Like Mark, I have to wonder what they’re going to buy. Perhaps a cheap PC using MS NetMeeting?
It would have been much more logical for the ROKG to have purchased the equipment in country and shipped it to North Korea. But that would not allow for a good bit of the cash to be siphoned off and spread around the elite.
April 8th, 2007 at 2:14 am
If the South can’t “provide equipment directly to the North because of U.S. regulations banning the export of dual-use goods to the North.”
How do they think the NK are going to get hold such equipment?
Who is going to export it them? The chinese?
April 8th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I found the second sentence Jon Allen didn’t quote even more baffling - which was that any goods with 10% US-made componenet or technology couldn’t be shipped to the North.
Does that mean at least 10% of material in all Korean-brand electronics you see in Technomart that could be used to set up video conferencing is American-made or American technology?
So, I’m supposed to believe simple computers and/or television stuff you could use to set up these video conferences are listed as dual-use militar civilian items specifically prohibited? and/or that Korea’s electronics makers depend on US technology or hardware….sure….
April 9th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
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April 24th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
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August 8th, 2007 at 4:50 am
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