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Earlier this evening, we reported on some information that had surfaced regarding Bill Richardson and Eric Schmidt’s trip to North Korea, where it was rumored they would seek the release of imprisoned American tourist Kenneth Bae. Richardson held a conference at the Beijing airport upon their exit from the country, which has just taken place. In the conference, Richardson said they were not allowed to see Bae.

North Korea was unwilling to release Bae, who was arrested last year on unspecified charges. Likewise, the delegation was not allowed to see him, but was instead promised that he is healthy. Richardson had been quoted by Reuters as saying, “We are going to ask about the American who’s been detained. A humanitarian private visit.”

For his part, Google’s Eric Schmidt says that he encouraged North Korea to embrace the Internet or risk suffering in many ways. According to the Washington Post, Schmidt said during the press conference: “As the world is becoming increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth. It will make it hard for them to catch up economically. We made that alternative very, very clear.”

During the trip, the nine-person delegation was given a tour of various technology-related facilities, as well as with students and government officials. Most people in North Korea do not have access to the Internet. In the midst of all this has been criticism from the U.S. Department of State, which said the trip’s timing is less than ideal due to recent tension with the nation.

[via Reuters]

Richardson holds briefing on North Korea trip, didn’t meet imprisoned tourist is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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SOURCE SlashGear

Former governor Bill Richardson and Google chairman Eric Schmidt are due in North Korea on a visit described as unhelpful by the US government.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia

The office of Bill Richardson confirmed the former New Mexico governor’s planned trip to North Korea with Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt today via press release. The trip, planned for next week, is being billed as a humanitarian initiative. The duo’s team also includes Google employee Jared Cohen, the director of the software giant’s Google Ideas initiative, a think tank tasked with “tackling some of the toughest human challenges.” Ideas’ mission statement also highlights the program’s search for “challenges that affect multiple regions and demographics, so that the technological developments our insights fuel will scale to help as many people as possible.”

Continue reading Bill Richardson’s office confirms North Korea humanitarian trip with Google’s Eric Schmidt

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Via: Yahoo

SOURCE Engadget

The United States State Department is not amused by Google (GOOG) chairman Eric Schmidt’s plan to travel to North Korea. Even though Schmidt plans to go to North Korea with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson as a private citizen and not a representative of the U.S. government, a State Department spokesperson on Thursday said that the timing of the trip wasn’t “helpful,” according to Reuters. The State Department has made its views known to both Schmidt and Richardson, although apparently neither has decided that Foggy Bottom’s concerns warrant canceling their travel plans yet.

SOURCE Boy Genius Report

The sudden death of North Korea’s leader, the ascension of his little-known son and a rocket-launch failure marked a rocky year for the reclusive nation. In rare interviews, several North Koreans tell NPR that expectations of a better life have not been met. (This piece initially aired Dec. 10, 2012, on Morning Edition).

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SOURCE Asia

Lasrick writes “David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists analyzes the debris from North Korea’s December 11th Unha-3 launch. From the article: ‘According to press reports, traces on the inner walls of the tank show that the first-stage oxidizer is a form of nitric acid called “red-fuming nitric acid,” which is the standard oxidizer used in Scud-type missiles. There had been some speculation that this stage might instead use a more advanced fuel with nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as the oxidizer. Since the Nodong engines believed to power the first stage are scaled-up Scud engines, the use of RNFA is not a surprise. There have also been claims that the stage uses a more advanced fuel called UDMH, but it appears instead to be the kerosene-based fuel used in Scuds. In his recent RAND study, Markus Schiller noted that a test Iraq performed using UDMH in a Scud engine gave poor performance, and that burning UDMH gives a transparent flame. The North Korean video of the launch instead shows an orange flame characteristic of Scud fuels (Figure 3 is an image from 12:44 into the video). These findings confirm that the stage is still Scud-level technology.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SOURCE Slashdot

North Korea’s has the ability to fire a rocket more than 10,000km, theoretically putting the Western US in range, South Korean officials say.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia

North Korea says it arrested a US citizen in November after he entered the country as a tourist, without giving details of his alleged crimes.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia

North Korea appears to be struggling to regain control of a satellite it put into orbit with a rocket launch last week, say astronomers.

SOURCE BBC News – Asia

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SOURCE North Korea