On October 9th, 2006, nothing happened

SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) — Trade between North and South Korea has already topped US$1 billion this year, surpassing the record amount set last year, an official at the Unification Ministry said Wednesday.

“The total amount of trade for this year came to US$1.08 billion as of the end of September,” Koh Hwa-seop, an official at the ministry’s inter-Korean economic cooperation bureau told Yonhap News Agency.

The total amount for the entire year of 2005 was US$1.05 billion, the largest amount since the end of 1950-53 Korean War.

The record-breaking amount comes despite Seoul’s continued suspension of its humanitarian aid for its communist neighbor, which traditionally accounted for a large portion of trade between the two Koreas.

Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok had earlier claimed the suspension of the humanitarian assistance led to an 80-percent reduction of his country’s economic exchanges with the communist nation. The suspension of the aid came as punishment following Pyongyang’s launch of seven ballistic missiles in early July. The North conducted a nuclear device on Oct. 9.

However, inter-Korean economic exchanges increased to a near record-breaking amount in September to over $312 million from $97 million for the same month last year, according to Koh.

The total amount of trade between the Koreas for the January-September period in 2005 was $788 million, Koh said.

There is a market there, so some trade is going to occur inevitably. But other than dirt-cheap labor costs, what economic argument can be made that investing or trading in North Korea is such an attractive option?

Let’s hope Kim Jong-Il has plenty of that

BEIJING China cut off oil exports to North Korea in September, amid heightened tensions over that country’s nuclear and missile programs, Chinese trade statistics show.

The unusual move - the figures show China sold no crude oil at all to its neighbor in September - reduced cumulative sales for the year by about 7 percent over the same period in 2005. China’s oil exports to Pyongyang had been averaging about 50,000 metric tons a month this year.

In September, China exported 125,185 tons of crude for a reported value of $62 million. All of that was exported to the United States, with North Korea receiving nothing.

North Korea depends on China for up to 90 percent of its oil, much of which is sold on credit or for bartered goods, according to Chinese energy experts. Any sustained reduction could cripple its isolated and struggling economy.

Unfortunately, since crude oil is a global commodity, there are plenty of suppliers that are willing to meet North Korea’s demand (Iran and Venezuala come into mind). In the long run, baring a naval blockade, there will be little effect on the regime.

Why that’s an excellent idea

WHILE the focus in recent weeks has been on North Korea’s nuclear test, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the government there is also responsible for one of the most egregious human-rights and humanitarian disasters in the world today.

For more than a decade, many in the international community have argued that to focus on the suffering of the North Korean people would risk driving the country away from discussions over its nuclear program.

But with his recent actions, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, has shown that this approach neither stopped the development of his nuclear program nor helped North Koreans. It is time, therefore, for a renewed international effort to ameliorate the crisis facing the country’s citizens.

And with the unanimous adoption by the United Nations Security Council of the doctrine that each state has a responsibility to protect its own citizens from the most egregious of human-rights abuses, a new instrument for diplomacy has emerged.

States will retain sovereignty over their own territory, but if they should fail to protect their own citizens from severe human-rights abuses, the international community now has an obligation to intervene through regional bodies and the United Nations, up to and including the Security Council.

I believe one of the biggest obstacle to North Korean Human Rights is the idea of a country’s sovereignty. In other word, the world should not mettle with the internal affairs of an independent nation.

That’s good until a regime violates an individual’s sovereignty. In the US, that is commonly known as “life, liberty, and the pursue of happiness”. I’m sure it is somewhere on the UN Charter.

So I believe the world has a right to intervene if a country violates its subject’s sovereignty and if the subject lack the means to change its situations (North Koreans can’t even leave their country freely). But the question is would the world intervene?