UBC’s Little Known Exchange with the DPRK
Two weeks ago, six professors packed up their dorm rooms at the quiet, Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia, boarded aircraft at the city’s international airport and began the Jacob’s ladder of flights that would eventually return them home to North Korea.
Just as quietly as it began, the second phase of the Knowledge Partnership Program (KPP), North Korea’s only academic exchange program with North America, had come to a close.
It is the product of a little-known relationship forged even before Canada had opened relations with the Stalinist country, and the University of British Columbia is the only academic institution in North America — and possibly the West — to host regular delegations of North Koreans. Little is known of the program and details are carefully guarded from public scrutiny, but just as a U.S. ping pong team helped open Maoist China to the West, proponents contend that one of UBC’s most obscure international programs may hold the key to opening the borders of one of the world’s most closed countries.
This program just started, so it’s good to keep it low-profile. “Particularly when we do not have active interactions between Canada and North Korea, I think academic exchange is really needed,” said Kyung-Ae Park, a UBC political scientist and founder of the KPP.
She called the KPP an early step toward “bilateral relations” with the nation known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
From June to December, professors from three North Korean institutions underwent a study program of English, international trade, finance and economics at UBC, enrolling in standard undergraduate and graduate-level courses.
The group was following in the lead of another sextet of professors who arrived in June 2011, and returned home just in time for the country-wide mourning kicked off by the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Both times, the professors lived in dorms, attended regular classes and were slotted into work groups with other members of the student body. “They’re just like any other students on campus … there’s no special treatment or special space for them,” said Ms. Park.
During downtimes, the group even headed out on field trips to Toronto and Vancouver to sit down with bank managers, corporate directors and the other actors of Canada’s free market economy. “We just asked them to explain how they do business in Canada,” said Ms. Park.
In short, the KPP students are given a surprising amount of flexibility. At both the Beijing and London Olympics, by contrast, members of the North Korean Olympic team were barred from socializing with other athletes or even leaving the Olympic Village to go sightseeing.
– National Post
Economist Chart: Canada 9th Best Country to be Born in; China 49th
If you believe in such rankings, what a difference 25 years make.
Back in 1988, of the 50 countries cited in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) then lighthearted “Where to Born In” chart, USA was on top of the world; in the latest (2013) chart, it’s tumbled to 16th. Canada was 5th; in Greater China, Hong Kong tied with the UK for 7th (Taiwan wasn’t not included); and China came in 32nd. The USSR placed 21st and India 27th.
25 years later, of 80 countries in the EIU’s more serious where-to-be-born index ranking, Canada is down a bit to 9th, followed by Hong Kong at 10th and Taiwan 14th while mainland China is much further down at 49th. Other BRICS states didn’t fair so well either: Brazil (37th), South Africa (53rd), India (66th) and Russia (72nd).
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A QUARTER of a century ago, The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born. Then, America came top (see chart on left). Now the Economist Intelligence Unit has more earnestly calculated where would be best to be born in 2013. Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts—things like crime and trust in public institutions matter too. In all, the index takes 11 indicators into account. Some are fixed, such as geography; others change only very slowly over time (demography, social and cultural characteristics).
Here are the top 10 countries, according to the survey:
- 1. Switzerland
- 2. Australia
- 3. Norway
- 4. Sweden
- 5. Denmark
- 6. Singapore
- 7. New Zealand
- 8. Netherlands
- 9. Canada
- 10. Hong Kong
Canpotex Lowers Potash Price for China
Is this the beginning of a trend, given China’s ever growing appetite for the resource?
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Canada’s potash cartel Canpotex Ltd. has struck a deal to sell one million tonnes of potash to China’s Sinofert Holdings Ltd., but at a much lower price than last March, the Globe and Mail reported over the New Year holiday break.
Canpotex, the offshore marketing company controlled by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (POT.TO), Agrium Inc. (AGU.TO), and Mosaic Co. ( MOS ), said on Monday that the new contract’s per-tonne price is US$70 less than its last Chinese deal, reached in March. One analyst believes this is a 15% drop.
– nasdaq.com
Google Chairman To Visit North Korea
Don’t know what he’s been smoking.
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Google’s executive chairman is preparing to travel to one of the last frontiers of cyberspace: North Korea.
Eric Schmidt will be traveling to North Korea on a private, humanitarian mission led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that could take place as early as this month, sources told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The sources, two people familiar with the group’s plans, asked not to be named because the visit had not been made public.
The trip would be the first by a top executive from U.S.-based Google, the world’s largest Internet search provider, to a country considered to have the most restrictive Internet policies on the planet.
North Korea is in the midst of what leader Kim Jong Un called a modern-day “industrial revolution” in a New Year’s Day speech to the nation Monday. He is pushing science and technology as a path to economic development for the impoverished country, aiming for computers in every school and digitized machinery in every factory.
However, giving citizens open access to the Internet has not been part of the North’s strategy. While some North Koreans can access a domestic Intranet service, very few have clearance to freely surf the World Wide Web.
It’s highly unlikely Google will push to launch a business venture in North Korea, according to Victor Cha, a former senior Asia specialist in the administration of President George W. Bush.
“Perhaps the most intriguing part of this trip is simply the idea of it,” said Cha, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. Kim Jong Un “clearly has a penchant for the modern accoutrements of life. If Google is the first small step in piercing the information bubble in Pyongyang, it could be a very interesting development.”
It was not immediately clear who Schmidt and Richardson expect to meet in North Korea, a country that does not have diplomatic relations with the United States. North Korea has almost no business with companies in the U.S., which has banned the import of North Korean-made goods.
– AP
China Set to Make More Cars Than Europe in 2013
China is forecasted to manufacture 19.6 million cars and other light vehicles in 2013 compared to 18.3 million in Europe.
The projections for Europe include countries such as Russia and Turkey apart from the European Union.
In 2012, Europe produced 18.9 million cars and related vehicles, while China made 17.8 million. Global car sales are valued at about $1.3tn a year. According to the projections, car manufacturing in China in 2013 is anticipated to be 10 times higher than in 2000.
Since the 2008-09 economic downturn, the European car companies saw decline in production as they found severe difficulties to produce, sell and market.
– The New Statesman