vocal proponent

Delegation to North Korea Urges More Access to Internet and Cellphones

Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor leading the delegation, said on Wednesday in an interview in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, that his nine-member group had also called on North Korea to put a moratorium on missile launchings and nuclear tests that have prompted United Nations sanctions. He said the group had also asked for “fair and humane treatment” for Kenneth Bae, a naturalized American citizen born in South Korea who was detained by the North in November and charged with unspecified “hostile acts.”

The delegation’s visit has been criticized for appearing to hijack United States diplomacy and bolster North Korea’s profile after its latest, widely condemned rocket launching less than a month ago. The State Department criticized the trip as unhelpful at a time when the United States is rallying support for action by the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Schmidt is the highest-profile American business executive to visit North Korea since Kim Jong-un took power a year ago. A vocal proponent of Internet freedom and openness, he has not said publicly what he hopes to get out of the visit. On Wednesday, he toured the frigid quarters of the brick building in central Pyongyang that is the heart of North Korea’s computer industry. He asked questions about North Korea’s new tablet computers as well as its Red Star operating system, and he briefly donned a pair of 3-D goggles during a tour of the Korea Computer Center.

Mr. Richardson, who has described the delegation as a private humanitarian mission, said that the members were bringing a message that more openness would benefit North Korea. Most in the country have never logged onto the Internet, and the authoritarian government strictly limits access to the Web.

North Korea has exercised strict control over its population of 24 million since it was founded by Kim Il-sung in 1948, including tight rules on the flow of information and close monitoring of the people’s interaction with the outside world.

But as the North’s tiny economy has languished in its isolation, the government has sought in recent years to turn its economy around by carefully and cautiously reaching out to foreign nations — primarily neighboring China and Southeast Asian allies — for help.

Mr. Kim, has made improving the economy a focal point of national policy for 2013, and has urged the people to expand their knowledge of science and technology to reach that goal.

Across the snowy capital, new propaganda signs and slogans reiterate those goals, exhorting the people to “break through the cutting edge” and “push back the frontiers” of science and technology in the spirit of the recent missile launching. On Dec. 12, the North shot a satellite into space on a long-range rocket, a move celebrated in Pyongyang but condemned by Washington and others as a banned test of missile technology.

In the North, the number of cellphone users has surpassed 1.5 million in a few years. The Egyptian telecommunications giant Orascom provides a 3G service.

But while global broadband Internet is available in North Korea, few have permission to access it. Those with computers and Internet access typically are restricted to a domestic intranet site that filters the information and publications available to North Koreans.

On Tuesday, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Richardson and other delegation members chatted with students who have permission to access the global Internet for research at the elite Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday, the group toured the main library in Pyongyang, the Grand People’s Study House, where locals still in their winter coats were crowded into drafty, unheated halls at computers with intranet access to the library’s archive of books, documents and newspapers.

Later, the delegation visited the multistory Korea Computer Center, the hub of North Korea’s software and computer product development, where a quote from the current leader’s father and predecessor as leader, Kim Jong-il, reads: “Now is the era for science and technology. It is the era of computers.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/world/asia/delegation-to-north-korea-urges-more-access-to-internet-and-cellphones.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Quake in Japan Is Causing a Costly Shift to Fossil Fuels

“They asked me how long it would take,” said Masatake Koseki, head of the Yokosuka plant, which is 40 miles south of Tokyo and run by Tokyo Electric. “The facilities are old, so I told them six months. But they said, ‘No, you must ready them by summer to prepare for an energy shortage.’ ”

Now, at summer’s peak, Yokosuka’s two fuel-oil and two gas turbines are cranking out a total of 900,000 kilowatts of electricity a day — and an abundance of fumes.

The generators are helping to replace the 400 million kilowatt-hours of daily electricity production lost this summer because of the shutdown of all but 15 of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Across the country, dozens of other fossil-fuel plants have been fired up, and Japan is importing billions of dollars worth of liquefied natural gas, coal and oil to keep them running.

Japan, the world’s third-largest user of electricity behind China and the United States, had counted on an expansion of nuclear power to contain energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, its nuclear program is in retreat, as the public and government officials urge a sharp reduction in the nation’s reliance on nuclear power and perhaps an end to it altogether.

As its nuclear program implodes, Japan is grappling with a jump in fuel costs, making an economic recovery from the March earthquake and tsunami all the more difficult. Annual fuel expenses could rise by more than 3 trillion yen, or about $39 billion, the government says.

The country, until recently a vocal proponent of measures to curb climate change, is also leaving a bigger carbon footprint. According to government calculations, Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions could rise by as much as 210 million metric tons, or 16 percent, by 2013 from 1990 levels if its nuclear reactors were shut permanently. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, Japan promised to reduce its emissions by 6 percent over that period.

“Can nuclear be eliminated?” asked Adam Schatzker, an energy analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “It’s possible, but very costly.”

If necessary, Japan could replace the energy capacity lost in the shutdown of its nuclear fleet by increasing the use of natural gas and coal, Mr. Schatzker said. “But even if fossil fuel facilities can make up for the loss of nuclear, it would likely take time, cost a great deal more money and pollute significantly,” he said.

For resource-poor Japan, it is an energy shift of an unprecedented scale and speed. A generation ago, the oil shock of 1973, which exposed the country’s overdependence on Middle Eastern oil, forced Japanese companies to focus on energy efficiency and prompted the government to invest heavily in nuclear power.

But as it doubled down on nuclear power plants, Japan was slow to develop alternative forms of energy, like solar or wind power, which account for just 1 percent of its electricity supply.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called for a gradual move away from nuclear energy, and proposed a goal of generating 20 percent of Japan’s electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric plants, by the early 2020s. The Parliament is debating legislation to spur that change.

A nuclear-free future could come much sooner, however. Nervous local governments have blocked the restart of reactors idled for routine inspections. If no reactors can restart, Japan’s entire nuclear fleet, which provided 30 percent of its electricity in 2009, could be closed by spring.

The shutdowns are already causing an energy squeeze. At least three utilities have come close to full capacity during peak demand hours this summer. The government has warned that eastern Japan, including Tokyo, could face an electricity shortage of about 10 percent next summer if no nuclear plants are running.

A 10 percent shortage may not be disastrous. This summer, for example, a major energy-saving drive by households and companies drove down peak electricity demand in July by about 20 percent, to 46.3 million kilowatts, averting blackouts despite the energy shortfall, according to Tokyo Electric, the operator of the stricken Fukushima plant.

Still, “we take this situation very seriously,” Toshio Nishizawa, chief executive of Tokyo Electric, said this month. Only three of the company’s 17 nuclear reactors are running.

A protracted increase in fossil fuel costs is possible to make up for the shortfall, traders say.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=13f58cb5cb5c8462bd8928de4ea5073c

Delegation to North Korea Urges More Access to Internet and Cellphones

Quake in Japan Is Causing a Costly Shift to Fossil Fuels

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