Mobile Phone Communication with North Korea: Current Status

An article in today's Korea Times provides some very interesting specifics about how North Korean refugees in South Korea communicate with people in North Korea by mobile phone.  Seo, Jae-pyong, the Secretary-General of a group called North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) said that NKIS has run a news outlet service based on mobile phone conversations with secret correspondents in North Korea since 2008.  The purpose of this effort is to provide more information about the reclusive nation.  The NKIS provided the stringers with cell phones that have an international roaming service. International phone rates between South Korea and China are applied when North Koreans call NKIS people.  Although he declined to give information about how much the stringers are paid, the NKIS representative said that their allowances are high enough to feed their families.  He also said that "When we have conversations with people, especially from the border area between North Korea and China, we hear them as clearly as our phone conversations with our colleagues in South Korea."  Mr. Seo, an engineer, escaped from North Korea in 2001.  Out of approximately 20,000 North Korean refugees that have settled in South Korea from the 1990s, about 600 are college graduates.  About 300 of these educated people have joined NKIS to let people outside North Korea know more about it.
Seo also said that North Koreans can access the latest South Korean television dramas at home without much difficulty, despite the government's strict ban on the circulation of South Korean cultural products.   Two or three weeks after airing in the South, these dramas are copied onto CDs in China, and then these CDs are sold to distributors who deal with the North Koreans.

96 Percent of South Koreans Think Internet Access is a Fundamental Right

According to an international survey conducted by Globescan for the BBC World Service, 79 percent of adults around the world think of internet access as their fundamental right.  The percentage here in Korea is a world-leading 96%, compared to 94% in Mexico, and 87% in China.  78 percent of respondents worldwide felt the internet had brought them greater freedom, 90% thought it was a good place to learn, and 51% said they now enjoyed spending their spare time on social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace.  Despite this enthusiasm, the poll also showed concern, with many users cautious about speaking their minds online.  72% of Germans, 70% of Koreans, 69% of French and 65% of Japanese did not feel they could safely express their opinions online.  More than half of internet users worldwide (53%) agreed that "the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere,"  including large majorities in Korea (83%), Nigeria (77%) and Mexico (72%).  The poll surveyed 27,973 adult citizens in 26 countries.