Made in North Korea: As tougher sanctions loom, more local goods in stores

From carrot-flavored toothpaste and charcoal facemasks to motorcycles and solar panels, visitors to North Korea say they are seeing more and more locally made products in the isolated country’s shops and supermarkets, replacing mostly Chinese imports.
As the Trump administration considers tougher economic sanctions to push the isolated country toward dismantling its weapons programs, North Korea is pursuing a dual strategy of developing both its military and economy.
The majority of consumer products in North Korea still come from China. But under leader Kim Jong Un, there’s been an attempt to sell more domestically made goods, to avoid any outflow of currency and to reinforce the national ideology of juche, or self-reliance, visiting businessmen say.
There is no available data to show how much is being produced domestically. Export data from countries like China and Malaysia, which sell consumer goods to North Korea, may not be an accurate reflection.
China’s commerce ministry declined to comment when asked whether China’s exports to North Korea were decreasing due to an increase in locally-made products.
Visitors say that with the impetus from the top, large North Korean companies like military-controlled Air Koryo, the operator of the national airline, and the Naegohyang conglomerate have diversified into manufacturing consumer goods including cigarettes and sports clothing.
North Korea is one of the most insular countries in the world and visits by foreigners are highly regulated.
A Reuters team that was in the capital Pyongyang last month was allowed to go to a grocery store, accompanied by government minders, where shelves were filled with locally made drinks, biscuits and other basic food items. Other visitors have seen locally made canned goods, coffee, liquor, toothpaste, cosmetics, soap, bicycles and other goods on sale in the city.
“As new factories open, the branding, packaging and ingredients of our food products have improved,” said shop assistant Rhee Kyong-sook, 33.
Kim Chul-ung, a 39-year old physical education teacher visiting the store, said: “I can taste real fruit in the drinks that are made in North Korea, compared to drinks from other countries.”
Visitors say locally made consumer goods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and QR or matrix barcodes can been found on a wide range of products from make-up to soft drinks. Market vendors are also becoming more competitive, offering samples of their food to shoppers, something they didn’t do five years ago.
“Around 2013, Kim Jong Un started talking about the need for import substitution,” said Andray Abrahamian of Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based group that trains North Koreans in business skills.
“There was clearly recognition that too many products were being imported from China, not just high-end consumer goods but also lower-end ones like food.”
“MY HOMELAND”
Air Koryo’s range of products now includes cigarettes, fizzy drinks, taxis and petrol stations.
“Naegohyang”, or “My Homeland”, began as a Pyongyang-based tobacco factory, but has expanded in recent years to produce playing cards, electronic goods and sports clothing. The company even sponsors a women’s football team of the same name.
The North Korean companies were not available for comment and do not publish revenue or profit statements. It was not possible to identify any joint venture partners.
Traders and retail experts said the North Korean market was attractive, thanks to a growing class of “donju”, or “masters of money,” who generate wealth in a gray market economy that is being increasingly recognized and controlled by the state.
“The North Koreans increasingly don’t want Chinese products because they think they are poor quality,” said a trader from Southeast Asia who exports consumer goods to North Korea. The trader did not want to be identified.
China has been rocked by a number of food safety scandals in recent years, including contaminated rice and milk powder.
“Mothers in North Korea are no different to mothers in China or Canada, they want to feed their babies the best possible food,” said Michael Spavor of Paektu Exchange, which brings delegations of investors, tourists and academics into North Korea.
“I’ve seen people in a store in North Korea comparing a Chinese and a Korean product and picking the Korean one,” he said.
STILL RELIANT
Nevertheless, North Korea is still heavily reliant on trade with China and the vast majority of raw materials to make consumer products still come from or through China.
For example, while domestically-made instant coffee is becoming increasingly common, the sugar used in it would likely come from China or another country that produces sugar and pass into North Korea via China, says Abrahamian.
“We’re seeing a rise in domestically-made products, including motorcycles, solar panels and food, but the business relationships on which these products depend on are still Chinese.”
Because of the reliance on China, it is likely these “Made in North Korea” companies will suffer if stiffer economic sanctions are imposed on the country.
Diplomats said this week Washington was negotiating with China on a possible stronger U.N. Security Council response – such as new sanctions – to North Korea’s missile launches.
(Washington considering imposing new sanctions on North Korea, to read more, click http://reut.rs/2p9JyO5)
“If you have a coal mining town of 10,000 people who are all in some way connected to the coal industry, then when sanctions are imposed against North Korean coal, the whole town’s consumer market will suffer because people don’t have the buying power anymore,” said Abrahamian.

Macron wins French presidency, to European allies’ relief

Emmanuel Macron was elected French president on Sunday with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union.
The centrist’s emphatic victory, which also smashed the dominance of France’s mainstream parties, will bring huge relief to European allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain’s vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president.
The euro currency, hit a six-month high against the dollar while Asian shares gained and U.S. stocks briefly touched a record high.[FRX/]
With virtually all votes counted, Macron had topped 66 percent against just under 34 percent for Le Pen – a gap wider than the 20 or so percentage points that pre-election surveys had suggested.
Even so, it was a record performance for the National Front, a party whose anti-immigrant policies once made it a pariah, and underlined the scale of the divisions that Macron must now try to heal.
After winning the first round two weeks ago, Macron had been accused of behaving as if he was already president. On Sunday night, with victory finally sealed, he was much more solemn.
“I know the divisions in our nation, which have led some to vote for the extremes. I respect them,” Macron said in an address at his campaign headquarters, shown live on television.
“I know the anger, the anxiety, the doubts that very many of you have also expressed. It’s my responsibility to hear them,” he said. “I will work to recreate the link between Europe and its peoples, between Europe and citizens.”
Later he strode alone almost grimly through the courtyard of the Louvre Palace in central Paris to the strains of the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, not breaking into a smile until he mounted the stage of his victory rally to the cheers of his partying supporters.
His immediate challenge will be to secure a majority in next month’s parliamentary election for a political movement that is barely a year old, rebranded as La Republique En Marche (“Onward the Republic”), in order to implement his program.
EUROPE DEFENDED
Outgoing president Francois Hollande, who brought Macron into politics, said the result “confirms that a very large majority of our fellow citizens wanted to unite around the values of the Republic and show their attachment to the European Union”.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, told Macron: “I am delighted that the ideas you defended of a strong and progressive Europe, which protects all its citizens, will be those that you will carry into your presidency.”
Macron spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he hopes to revitalize the Franco-German axis at the heart of the EU, saying he planned to visit Berlin shortly.
Trump tweeted his congratulations on Macron’s “big win”, saying he looked forward to working with him. Chinese President Xi Jinping said China was willing to help push Sino-French ties to a higher level, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also congratulated Macron.
“Fading political risk in France adds to the chance that euro zone economic growth can surprise to the upside this year,” said Holger Schmieding, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.
Macron will become France’s youngest leader since Napoleon. A 39-year-old former investment banker, he served for two years as economy minister under Hollande but has never previously held elected office.
Le Pen, 48, said she had also offered her congratulations. But she defiantly claimed the mantle of France’s main opposition in calling on “all patriots to join us” in constituting a “new political force”.
Her tally was almost double the score that her father Jean-Marie, the last far-right candidate to make the presidential runoff, achieved in 2002, when he was trounced by the conservative Jacques Chirac.
Her high-spending, anti-globalisation “France-first” policies may have unnerved financial markets but they appealed to many poorer members of society against a background of high unemployment, social tensions and security concerns.
RESHAPING THE LANDSCAPE
Despite having served briefly in Hollande’s deeply unpopular Socialist government, Macron managed to portray himself as the man to revive France’s fortunes by recasting a political landscape moulded by the left-right divisions of the past century.
“I’ve liked his youth and his vision from the start,” said Katia Dieudonné, a 35-year-old immigrant from Haiti who brought her two children to Macron’s victory rally.
“He stands for the change I’ve wanted since I arrived in France in 1985 – openness, diversity, without stigmatizing anyone … I’ve voted for the left in the past and been disappointed.”
Macron was due to attend a ceremony marking the Western allies’ World War Two victory in Europe on Monday. The ceremony in Paris marks the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Macron’s team successfully skirted several attempts to derail his campaign – by hacking its communications and distributing purportedly leaked documents – that were reminiscent of the hacking of Democratic Party communications during Hillary Clinton’s U.S. election campaign.
Allegations by Macron’s camp that a massive computer hack had compromised emails added last-minute drama on Friday night, just as official campaigning was ending.
While Macron sees France’s way forward in boosting the competitiveness of an open economy, Le Pen wanted to shield French workers by closing borders, quitting the EU’s common currency, the euro, radically loosening the bloc and scrapping trade deals.
Macron will become the eighth – and youngest – president of France’s Fifth Republic when he moves into the Elysee Palace after his inauguration next weekend.
Opinion surveys taken before the second round suggested that his fledgling movement, despite being barely a year old, had a fighting chance of securing the majority he needed.
He plans to blend a big reduction in public spending and a relaxation of labor laws with greater investment in training and a gradual reform of the unwieldy pension system.
A European integrationist and pro-NATO, he is orthodox in foreign and defense policy and shows no sign of wishing to change France’s traditional alliances or reshape its military and peacekeeping roles in the Middle East and Africa.
NEW GENERATION
His election also represents a long-awaited generational change in French politics that have been dominated by the same faces for years.
He will be the youngest leader in the current Group of Seven (G7) major nations and has elicited comparisons with youthful leaders past and present, from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to British ex-premier Tony Blair and even the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
But any idea of a brave new political dawn will be tempered by an abstention rate on Sunday of around 25 percent, the highest this century, and by a record share of blank or spoiled ballots – submitted by more than 11 percent of those who did vote.
Many of those will have been supporters of the far-left maverick Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose high-spending, anti-EU, anti-globalisation platform had many similarities with Le Pen’s.
Melenchon took 19 percent in coming fourth in the first round of the election, and pointedly refused to endorse Macron for the runoff.
France’s biggest labor union, the CFDT, welcomed Macron’s victory but said the National Front’s score was still worryingly high.
“Now, all the anxieties expressed at the ballot by a part of the electorate must be heard,” it said in a statement. “The feeling of being disenfranchised, of injustice, and even abandonment is present among a large number of our citizens.”
The more radical leftist CGT union called for a demonstration on Monday against “liberal” economic policies.
Like Macron, Le Pen will now have to work to try to convert her presidential result into parliamentary seats, in a two-round system that has in the past encouraged voters to cast ballots tactically to keep her out.
She has worked for years to soften the xenophobic associations that clung to the National Front under her father, going so far as to expel him from the party he founded.
On Sunday night, her deputy Florian Philippot distanced the movement even further from him by saying the new, reconstituted party would not be called “National Front”.

LGBT Cry Baby Cartoons

Tennessee ‘natural meaning’ law raises fears in LGBT community

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam on Friday enacted a bill that critics say is an underhanded way of denying rights to same-sex couples by insisting on the “natural and ordinary meaning” of words in state statues.
The legislation, which was signed by the Republican governor despite pressure from civil liberty and gay-rights groups, requires words in Tennessee law be interpreted with their “natural and ordinary meaning, without forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language.” It did not explain, however, what that means.
Civil rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocates warned the law is meant to undermine the rights of same-sex couples in any statutes that include words like “husband,” “wife,” “mother” or “father.”
Neither of the two sponsoring lawmakers, Republican state Senator John Stevens and Republican state Representative Andrew Farmer, could be reached to comment.
However, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported Stevens said he proposed the measure partly to compel courts to side more closely with the dissenting opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage.
Haslam said on Friday he believes the law will not change how courts interpret legal precedent.
“While I understand the concerns raised about this bill, the Obergefell decision is the law of the land, and this legislation does not change a principle relied upon by the courts for more than a century, mitigating the substantive impact of this legislation,” he said in a statement.
The Tennessee measure is one of more than 100 bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures this year that to curtail LGBT rights, said Cathryn Oakley, senior legislative counsel for the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
While public opinion polls and court rulings have shifted in favor of same-sex rights in recent years, there is ongoing pushback from the 2015 ruling, Oakley said.
Last month, a Kentucky family court judge made headlines by issuing an order stating he would not hear adoption cases involving same-sex couples due to personal objections. That echoed Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis’ 2015 refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it violated her religious beliefs.
Gay-rights groups previously warned the law could create an economic backlash against Tennessee similar to that suffered by North Carolina, where a law requiring students use the restroom of the gender on their birth certificates led sports organizations and musicians to cancel events.

Iowa Supreme Court blocks portion of 20-week abortion ban

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday granted an emergency temporary injunction halting a portion of a 20-week abortion ban that was signed into law by Republican Governor Terry Branstad just hours earlier.
The law, passed by Iowa’s Republican-controlled House and Senate last month, bans abortions once a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks and stipulates a three-day waiting period before women can undergo any abortion.
The law does not make exceptions for instances of rape or incest but does allow for abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood, a group that provides family planning services, including abortions, challenged the waiting-period part of the legislation in court as well as the requirement for an additional clinical visit women must make before an abortion.
The state Supreme Court on Friday issued the injunction after it was denied Thursday by a district judge.
“We are pleased that the court granted the temporary injunction, ruling on the side of Iowa women who need access to, and have a constitutional right, to safe, legal abortion,” Suzanna de Baca, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said in a statement.
The state will have an opportunity to respond to the court’s decision on Monday.
“This is all part of the process and we’re confident that the stay will be lifted very shortly,” said Ben Hammes, a spokesman for the Republican governor.
Women in the United States have the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy, but abortion opponents have pushed for tougher regulations, particularly in conservative states.
There are 24 states that impose prohibitions on abortions after a certain number of weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive policy.
Seventeen of these states ban abortion at about 20 weeks and after.
Iowa’s law, Hammes said after the signing, marked a “return to a culture that once again respects human life.”
In Tennessee, a bill similar to the Iowa measure was sent to the desk of that state’s Republican governor on Wednesday to possibly be signed into law.

Pentagon to lease privately owned Trump Tower apartment for nuclear ‘football’: letter

The U.S. Defense Department is finalizing a lease on a privately owned apartment in New York’s Trump Tower for the White House Military Office to use for supporting President Donald Trump without providing any benefit to Trump or his organization, according to a Pentagon letter seen by Reuters.
The Military Office carries and safeguards the “football,” the device that contains the top secret launch codes the president needs to order a nuclear attack, as well as providing him secure communications wherever he is.
The White House, Secret Service, and Defense Department had no comment on whether similar arrangements have been made at other properties Trump frequents – Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump is spending this weekend.
In a letter to Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House Armed Services and intelligence committees, Defense Department official James MacStravic, said the apartment is “privately owned and … lease negotiations have been with the owner’s representatives only.”
MacStravic, who wrote that he was “temporarily performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics,” said any acquisition of leased space with “an annual rental in excess of $1 million must first be approved by my office.”
He “approved this action” after consulting with the White House Military Office and other officials, he said.
Officials declined to reveal the cost of the lease or identify the owners of the apartment.
MacStravic’s letter, dated March 3, added: “We are not aware of any means through which the President would personally benefit from a Government lease of this space.”
The letter explained that the White House Military Office, a Pentagon unit, “requested approval to lease space in the Trump Tower for personnel assigned to support the President when at his private residence.”
The letter said such arrangements are “typical of support provided” by the Military Office to previous U.S. presidents and vice presidents at their private residences. It is not clear, however, whether the office has ever paid to rent space to house the classified equipment presidents need when they are staying at homes they own outside Washington.
A White House spokeswoman said the White House had no information on the leasing issue. The Defense Department and U.S. Secret Service declined to comment.
The Trump Organization did not reply to an email requesting comment.
When the Pentagon in February first acknowledged that it was seeking to lease space in Trump Tower, some Democrats questioned whether such a move would produce a financial windfall for Trump.
“I am concerned by the appearance that the President of the United States will financially benefit from this deal at the expense of the Department of Defense – and ultimately, taxpayers,” Speier wrote to Defense Secretary James Mattis shortly after the Trump Tower issue became public in February.
By negotiating only with representatives of the owners of a private apartment, the Pentagon said it was seeking to avoid such concerns.

Iranian supreme leader critical of ‘Western-influenced’ Rouhani education plan

Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday criticized the government of President Hassan Rouhani for promoting a “Western-influenced” United Nations education plan which his hardline allies have said contradicts Islamic principles.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks came ahead of May 19 polls, in which the president is seeking re-election.
“In this country, the basis is Islam and the Koran. This is not a place where the faulty, corrupt and destructive Western lifestyle will be allowed to spread its influence,” Khamenei told a gathering of educators, according to his website.
“It makes no sense to accept such a document in the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei said, referring to the Education 2030 plan proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Khamenei did not give details of his opposition to the UNESCO plan, but hardline commentators in Iran have said its promotion of gender equality in education contravened Islam.
“How can a so-called international body which is under the influence of the great powers allow itself to assign duties for countries with different histories, cultures and civilizations?” said Khamenei, who often warns of a “soft war” mounted by the West to topple Iran’s Islamic government.
Khamenei has the final say over policy in Iran and has repeatedly distanced himself from Rouhani in recent weeks.
But he has stopped short of backing any of Rouhani’s hardline opponents, who include influential cleric Ebrahim Raisi and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
A U.N. human rights report issued in August 2015 said Iran had almost achieved universal enrolment and gender parity at all educational levels.
But the report said that gender-ratio policies adopted in 2012 had led to a fall in enrolment of female students in universities.

Macron favourite as France votes for new president, early turnout low

French voters choose on Sunday whether a pro-European Union centrist or a eurosceptic, anti-immigration far-rightist will lead them for the next five years, with early figures indicating turnout could be low, but above most recent forecasts.
Opinion polls predict that after 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old ex-economy minister who wants to bridge the left-right divide, will be named as president, seeing off the challenge from National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
A Macron victory would further stem the tide of nativist, anti-globalisation voting outcomes like those that will see Britain quit the EU and which made Donald Trump U.S. president.
Macron, who wants to deregulate the economy and deepen EU integration, is set to win the head-to-head with between 61.5 and 63 percent of the vote, according to the last opinion polls on Friday.
Should an upset occur and Le Pen win, the very future of the EU could be on the line given her desire to close borders, dump the euro currency, and tear up trade treaties.
Even in defeat, the 48 year-old’s vote is likely to be about twice what her party scored the last time it reached the presidential second round in 2002, demonstrating the scale of voter disaffection with mainstream politics in France.
By midday, both candidates had voted, he in Le Touquet on the north coast, and she in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont.
Midday turnout figures from the Interior Ministry said 28.23 percent of voters had turned out so far, the lowest at this stage of the day since the 2002 presidential poll, when it was 26.19 percent. Turnouts at midday in 2012 and 2007 were 30.66 percent and 34.11 percent respectively.
A poll on Friday had predicted a final turnout of 75 percent this time. The eventual turnouts in 2002, 2007 and 2012 were all above 80 percent.
Pollsters see likely abstentions as highest among left-wing voters who feel disenfranchised by Sunday’s choice after nine other candidates were eliminated in first round, but it is unclear what a high or low turnout could mean for the outcome.
Nevertheless, voter surveys forecasting the result itself proved accurate for the tight first round race last month.
Markets have risen in response to Macron’s widening lead over his rival after a bitter television debate on Wednesday.
“We increased our equity exposure and added some French stocks after the first round,” said Francois Savary, chief investment officer at Geneva-based fund management firm Prime Partners. “The major political risk of a Le Pen victory appears to be disappearing.”
After a campaign in which favourites dropped out of the race one after the other, Le Pen is nevertheless closer to elected power than the far right has been in France since World War Two.
If opinion polls prove accurate and the country elects its youngest-ever president rather than its first female leader, Macron himself has said himself he expects no honeymoon period.
Close to 60 percent of those who plan to vote for Macron say they will do so to stop Le Pen from being elected to lead the euro zone’s second-largest economy, rather than because they fully support the former banker turned politician.
“I don’t necessarily agree with either of the candidates,” psychotherapist Denise Dulliand, who was voting in Annecy in the mountainous southeast, told Reuters.
“But I wanted to express my voice, to be able to say that I came, even if I am really not satisfied with what is happening in our country, and that I would like to see less stupidity, less money and more fraternity.”
MORE ELECTIONS TO COME
The battle between mainstream and more radical policies in France will continue into parliamentary elections next month in which the new president will try to secure a majority in parliament. One poll this week suggested that was within reach for Macron.
Much will also depend on how the candidates score on Sunday. Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, on Thursday told L’Opinion daily that winning 40 percent of the vote would be “a huge victory” for the National Front.
Whoever wins will open a new chapter in French politics, after the major left- and right-wing parties — the Socialists and The Republicans — that have ruled France for decades both suffered humiliating defeats in the election’s first round.
The campaign was hit by yet another surprise on Friday night, just as the quiet period in which politicians are forbidden from commenting began. Macron’s team said a massive hack had dumped emails, documents and campaign-financing information online.
Exit polls will be published when voting ends at 8 pm (1800 GMT).
With security a prime concern More than 50,000 police officers were on duty on Sunday. A series of militant attacks in Paris, Nice and elsewhere in France have killed more than 230 people in recent years.