Martyn Williams
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
Homepage: http://www.northkoreatech.org
Posts by Martyn Williams
KCNA to launch Chinese news service
Nov 30th
North Korea’s official news agency and chief propaganda outlet, Korea Central News Agency, will start a Chinese news service this week.
The launch of the service on December 1 comes less than a year after KCNA began distributing news in Japanese and makes 2011 a year of major expansion for KCNA.
KCNA’s output of flattering articles on North Korea’s leadership, political system and progress had been available for years in an, English and Spanish via a website in Tokyo. The Japanese site was run by a group affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chosen Soren).
Things started to change in late 2010 More >
Koryolink sponsors Taekwondo championship
Nov 19th
This week’s earnings report for Koryolink, North Korea’s only widely available cell phone service, highlighted something I missed back in September: the company was a major sponsor of the 17th Taekwondo World Championships. The event took place in Pyongyang from September 6th to 12th.
Koryolink banners were strung around the Taekwando Hall where the international contest was taking place, as can be seen in video from KCNA. The company even had one on the front of the judges desk.
In its earnings report Orascom Telecom, the Egypt-based telecommunications company that holds a majority stake in Koryolink, said the deal was unique in North More >
Koryolink surpasses 800,000 3G subscriptions
Nov 18th
North Korea’s nationwide 3G cellular network could miss an end-of-year target to have a million subscribers despite two successive quarters of record subscriber growth.
Koryolink added 142,000 subscriptions in the third quarter, beating the 131,000 subscriptions added in the previous three months, to end September with 809,000 users. That leaves it 191,000 subscribers short of hitting a million users — a 2011 target that had been talked about at the beginning of the year. Based on current subscriber growth it appears that Koryolink will come close to the million mark but — barring a surge of new sign-ups in the current quarter — More >
Nautilus on DPRK’s digital revolution
Nov 4th
The Nautilus Institute contends in a new report that North Korea is on the cusp of digital transformation thanks to the increasing importance of cell phones and computers in the country.
The report, which is available online (PDF), is a comprehensive and well-researched history and study of the emerging digital communications business in North Korea and was written by Alexandre Y. Mansourov, a senior associate at the organization. Mansourov specializes in Korean peninsula issues and once lived in Pyongyang studying for an Advanced Diploma in Korean studies at Kim Il Sung University.
It’s recommended reading for anyone interested in North Korean IT issues.
In the report Mansourov More >
Voice of Korea B11 schedule
Oct 29th
North Korea’s international shortwave broadcaster, the Voice of Korea, will use the following schedule for English language broadcasts from October 31, 2011, until late March 2012.
The programs appear to be refreshed during the local Korean day with each programming cycle beginning with the 1000 GMT broadcast.
The news output, which has not been observed to change more than once a day, follows closely the English-language stories from KCNA with minor editing. It’s generally a day behind the news being put out on the domestic service in Korean.
Each program is about 55 minutes long.
National Program Contest underway in Pyongyang
Oct 29th
The annual National Program Contest began on Thursday in Pyongyang, according to North Korean media reports.
The event, which typically takes place in late October each year, opened at the city’s Three Revolution Exhibition Hall with speeches led by Ro Tu Chol, vice-premier of the DPRK Cabinet.
The contest brings together scientists, programmers and students with more than 1,500 computer software programs, reported KCNA. The software is divided into sixteen categories including operating system and security, artificial intelligence and image processing.
North Korean has been pushing software development for the last decade and the event is one of the biggest exhibitions of developed programs.
A series More >
B11 schedule for Japan’s broadcasts to North Korea
Oct 25th
The two Japanese broadcasts that target North Korea, Shiokaze and Furusato no kaze, are updating their broadcast schedules to the winter (B11) period that runs from October 30, 2011 to March 25, 2012.
Shortwave radio remains a vitally important way to reach into North Korea because of the total lack of international communications offered to its citizens.
Shiokaze (しおかぜ) is run by a private organization, the “Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese probably related to North Korea” (COMJAN), and it broadcasts from
Around 40 questioned over “pro-NK” Internet postings
Oct 20th
Authorities in South Korea are questioning around 40 people over Internet postings said to be in support of North Korea, according to several local news reports.
(Update: The Dong-a-Ilbo reports around 70 are under criminal probe on suspicion of circulating materials praising North Korea online in violation of the National Security Law.)
The material was posted on personal websites and the now defunct “Cyber Command for National Defense” website, according to Yonhap. The site, which was shutdown late last year, had about 6,500 members of whom about 600 were judged to be at its core, according to previous estimates.
Last week police confiscated the server on More >
Orascom planning 3G Internet service
Oct 17th
Orascom Telecom is planning to add Internet service to its 3G cellular offering in North Korea, according to the Choson Exchange blog.
Writing in a post on Sunday, Geoffrey K. See, the organization’s executive director and founder, says the service is currently being tested but should be available in the near future. The information on the service came from a meeting with Orascom employees in Pyongyang.
At first it will be available to resident foreigners living in Pyongyang. So far there is no approval for a wider service, even in censored form, for the North Korean subscribers. Orascom didn’t provide any details on More >
Seoul eyes harsher crackdown on “pro-NK” websites
Oct 14th
South Korean prosecutors are launching a crackdown on websites and users judged to be posting “pro-North Korean” material, according to several local press reports.
The action comes as regulators judge the amount of such material available to South Korean citizens has “mushroomed to a risky level,” according to prosecutors quoted by Yonhap News said.
North Korea’s state-run media outlets have spent the last year launching several propaganda-filled sites that report on aspects of life in the country and extol the benefits of the country’s political system and its leaders. The outlets have also expanded onto social media with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels.
The ease with More >
