[Article] North Korea bans mobile phones

ambasite

more bizarre paranoia from the leaders in Pyongyang:


North Korea bans mobile phones
03/06/2004 - 19:25:21

North Korea has banned mobile phones only 18 months after allowing them to be introduced there, and the already isolated country is building a barbed-wire fence along its border with China to prevent smuggling, news reports said.

An unnamed North Korean official attending an inter-Korean economic meeting in Pyongyang said that the mobile phone ban took effect on May 25, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

There were some 20,000 mobile phone subscribers in November 2003, a year after the service began, Yonhap said citing a report in a pro-Pyongyang newspaper from Japan, the Chosun Sinbo.

Separately, North Koreans living near the northeastern border with China have been mobilised to cut wood for a nine foot high fence topped with barbed wire to stop the smuggling of Chinese goods.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by ambasite
Separately, North Koreans living near the northeastern border with China have been mobilised to cut wood for a nine foot high fence topped with barbed wire to stop the smuggling of Chinese goods.

Such a barrier would also help prevent people attempting to escape to South Korea. Although China arrests North Koreans and ships them back China is, apparently, the main route of people escaping. I'm a little surprised that they are only building a fence now.

DEmeant0r

I'd hate to live in North Korea, they are technology-void, and very much a backwards country. I saw a satellite picture of the world at night, In the south of Korea, it was like a light bulb, but in the north, it was pitch black.

That's what the north gets for having China back them up.