North Korea floats more rubbish-filled balloons to South Korea
North Korea floats more rubbish-filled balloons to South Korea
South Korea's military has warned people to avoid touching the balloons and report them to authorities.
North Korea is sending more balloons carrying rubbish across the heavily fortified southern border, South Korea's military has said.
It comes just days after North Korea appeared to send at least 200 balloons carrying rubbish over the border in retaliation for propaganda leaflets sent from the south.
South Korea's defence minister Shin Won-sik called it "unimaginably petty and low-grade behaviour" while the military added it is examining the contents of the bags floated over the border by the balloons.
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people in the South Korean capital to refrain from touching balloons
carrying toilet paper,
Yeah... I mean, probably a good idea in general, but particularly in North Korea's case.
I understand that North Korea can't afford chemical fertilizer, so they use human waste, which has resulted in problems with parasites that are transmitted through fecal matter making their way through the population.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42021373
A North Korean soldier who was shot while fleeing across the border has an extremely high level of parasites in his intestines, his doctors say.
The defector crossed the demilitarised zone on Monday, but was shot several times by North Korean border guards.
Doctors say the patient is stable - but "an enormous number" of worms in his body are contaminating his wounds and making his situation worse.
His condition is thought to give a rare insight into life in North Korea.
"I've never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a physician," South Korean doctor Lee Cook-jong told journalists, explaining that the longest worm removed from the patient's intestines was 27cm (11in) long.
"I don't know what is happening in North Korea, but I found many parasites when examining other defectors," Professor Seong Min of Dankook University Medical School was quoted by the Korea Biomedical Review as saying.
Parasites which enter the body via contaminated food are often worms.
The soldier's food may have been contaminated because the North still uses human faeces as fertiliser, known as "night soil".
Lee Min-bok, a North Korean agriculture expert, told Reuters: "Chemical fertiliser was supplied by the state until the 1970s. By the 1990s, the state could not supply it any more, so farmers started to use a lot of night soil instead."
If these faeces are untreated and fertilise vegetables that are later eaten uncooked, the parasites get into the mouth and the intestines of the person.
I'm not a farming or a defense expert but iirc North Korea has a lot of military equipment (north korea propaganda consists of them showing off all their toys, after all) which means they have a lot of guns which means they need ammunition and surely they manufacture their own ammunition or at least some of it. This involves nitrogen production plants. Can they not use some of that to make nitrate fertilizer?
It sounds like they do both import and manufacture some, but it sounds like they can't do sufficient of either to eliminate reliance on human waste from the system.
kagis
This was 2020:
During the past 10 years, North Korea has undertaken a number of modernization projects at the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex, one of the nation’s oldest and largest chemical complexes. While the majority of these have been large undertakings such as the First- and Second-phase Lignite Gasification Plants in the western section of the complex, a number of smaller projects have also been undertaken. Most recently has been the construction of a small “liquid nutrient fertilizer factory.”
Here's 2021:
May 1 marks the one-year anniversary of the opening of the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory.[1] The factory is an important piece in Kim Jong Un’s push to build up North Korea’s domestic chemical industry and fertilizer production, as part of larger efforts to increase agricultural production and save foreign currency. However, after 12 months, it remains unclear if the plant is fully operational. Commercial satellite imagery over the last year indicates a gradual increase of activity throughout the complex, but no major activity was observed, and no state industrial achievements for this site were reported. This suggests that production is likely still at an early stage.
2022:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/manure-02012022130916.html
Yearly ‘battle’ begins in North Korea over human waste for fertilizer
Citizens once again steal human feces from each other’s toilets to meet impossibly high quotas.
In impoverished North Korea, farmland is fertilized using human waste, and the government tasks every household with yearly collection quotas.
RFA reported in January 2019 that households were struggling to meet an impossible quota amounting to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) per able-bodied citizen per day.
“On the 25th, several residents from Marum village in Sunam district had a dispute with the people of nearby Sinhyang village as the Marumers were trying to collect human feces from a communal toilet located within Sinhyang,” the source said.
“After the authorities imposed their orders for every citizen to produce manure, conflicts are erupting… as the people venture into other districts,” he said.
The order to produce manure went out to every institution, company, school, and neighborhood watch unit according to the source.
The source said each resident must deliver the 300 kilograms of manure by early March at the latest to a cooperative farm to use as fertilizer.
https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korea-pushes-fertilizer-production-despite-lack-urea/
North Korean authorities are pushing fertilizer production, even though they are not supplying urea, a necessary raw material. This is leading to complaints on the ground, with workers saying that fertilizer without urea does nothing to boost agricultural production.
A source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Monday that a recent plenary meeting of the provincial party committee decided to send even more organic compound fertilizer to small family plots in the province “based on the experience and lessons of last year.” The meeting said fertilizer supply was a vital link to increasing grain production by more than a ton per jongbo (about 9,900 square meters), tasking farms with producing organic compound fertilizer.
North Korea has been conducting a sweeping campaign to boost food production this year with the goal of increasing grain production by more than a ton per jongbo. Basically, the authorities have tasked ordinary people with producing organic compound fertilizer as a key task to achieving party goals.
On the ground, however, people are complaining that the authorities are simply demanding production without providing the urea needed to produce organic compound fertilizer. That is to say, the authorities are making unreasonable demands even though fertilizer without urea cannot raise agricultural production.
The source said in most cities and counties in the province, people use commonly available peat moss or manure to produce organic compound fertilizer, but this needs a certain amount of urea to work.
He said the provincial party meeting made no mention of providing urea. He added that in this case, agriculture will not thrive just because you tasked people with producing organic compound fertilizer.
North Korea has been experiencing severe difficulties producing fertilizer due to urea supply shortages. The aftermath of China’s curbs on urea exports apparently continues.
Here's 2023:
https://www.nknews.org/pro/fertilizer-chemical-tops-north-koreas-imports-from-china-in-december/
Expert says DPRK has long lacked fertilizer for farming and likely purchased chemical with recent ‘additional revenues’
North Korea procured record quantities of a fertilizer chemical from China in December, knocking imports of human hair for wigs off the top spot.
North Korea and China trade spiked to a four-year high of nearly $260 million in the last month of 2023, and NK Pro analysis of line-item data from China’s General Administration of Customs shows that the DPRK imported record quantities of a chemical used in fertilizers in December.
Pyongyang procured almost 40,000 tons of diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate worth $25.3 million, representing a nearly 25-fold jump from November and its highest monthly value in 2023.
Here's 2024:
https://www.38north.org/articles/affiliates/north-korean-economy-watch/21856/
The Namhung Youth Chemical Complex, north of Pyongyang, produces fertilizer and coal gas using anthracite mined in the area. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the site in 2013.
High-pressure valves and jet sprays at the complex have become too worn for continued use, according to reports the Korea International Trade Association received from North Korea in January. Without replacement parts, it is unclear when the plant can resume work.
The suspension hinders North Korea’s push to lift its meager agricultural output. Kim last year ordered a boost in fertilizer production and attended a completion ceremony for a separate fertilizer plant. Coal gas also serves as a valuable industrial energy source for the country, which faces an oil embargo in response to its nuclear and missile testing.
Why does your comment say
kagis
?
I searched for the thing using Kagi, a search engine. Like "googling" to search with Google. I'm indicating that I didn't know the fact or specific quote in advance, was looking it up.