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North Korea: Chinese cellphones spawn an information boom
An interesting article by Rebecca MacKinnon for the International Herald Tribune via Smart Mobs on how North Koreans are receiving information about the outside world, are conducting business with Chinese traders and maintain contact with Defectors now living in the South - all thanks to cell phones. "In 2003, Chinese cellphone companies began building relay stations along the North Korean border, and Chinese cellphones - and the prepaid phone cards needed to use them - are now said to be a hot black market item in North Korea. As many as 20,000 North Koreans are believed to have access to cellphones, which they use to conduct business with Chinese traders. The government's control over information has never looked so tenuous, and ironically, greedy elites - whose support Kim Jong Il requires to stay in power - play a key role in subverting the cellphone ban..The next step could be the spread of text messaging - a communication method that helped bring down a government in the Philippines, elect a president in South Korea, and spread information about SARS in China long before state-controlled media were allowed to cover the epidemic." Interesting and related articles: -- New agent of change in N. Korea: cellphones - In a country where nearly every facet of society is controlled, North Korean authorities are encountering a new foe: the cellphone. A fascinating article from the The Christian Science Monitor via Telecoms Korea. "Mobile phones, which are ubiquitous in China and South Korea, are now infiltrating North Korea and are allowing information into - and out of - the "hermit kingdom." Douglas Shin, a Korean-American minister who has been campaigning for human rights in North Korea, sees the emerging cellphone "revolution" as paralleling, if not abetting, budding dissent against the government. [...] Cellphone users must climb a hill or mountain to use them, but still he says it's possible to convey messages that previously would never have penetrated the barriers of a state that bars normal international mail and ordinary telephone calls for all but a privileged few. -- North Korean authorities and cellphones - There are indications that news is leaking out of North Korea by cellphone and that criticisms of the government are being posted in public places. (Nov 04) -- North Korea bans mobile phones - North Korea may have banned mobile phones only 18 months after allowing them to be introduced, and reports are coming in of the already isolated country building a barbed-wire fence along its border with China to prevent smuggling (June 04).
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