Libby Liu, the President of Radio Free Asia, writes:

[M]ounting evidence suggests that there are cracks, through which North Koreans are able to get a glimmer of the world outside their own.

Cell phone use has shot up, especially along the Chinese border where wireless signals are stronger. This also is just one of the means by which many relatives of the 20,000 North Korean defectors in the South keep in touch with their family members.

Restricted technology such as MP3 and MP4 players, DVDs of South Korean soap operas and films, and even USB memory sticks are increasingly making their way into the hands of many North Koreans who get these goods on the black market.

This is the second report I’ve seen of leafleting in North Korea in the last month or so, and it’s enough to make me wonder whether opposition to the regime has begun to organize and coalesce:

“Copies of a cartoon satirizing Kim Jong-il were spread out in front of a statue of Kim Il-sung in the city of Manpo in December 2009, immediately after the currency reform,” reported a correspondent in Yeonbyeon, China, on December 2nd.

The source said, “News of this first came out from a man who defected to China with his family and had seen the cartoons first hand. Struggling ordinary North Koreans were depicted wretchedly groaning under the boots of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-eun,” the source reported the defector as having said.

In the cartoon, Kim Jong-il was driving a carriage loaded with officials that was being pushed by the people. The cartoon was intended to show how the Kim Jong-il system benefits only the officials whose stomachs are filled by a populace living an exploited existence.

“The leaflets were discovered by some students who had gone to clean up near the statue,”said the source. “The students didn’t completely get what the cartoons were about but knew the carriage driver was Kim Jong-il. They thought it strange and gave all of the leaflets to the People’s Security Office.” [Open News]

I suppose it’s just a matter of time before some U.N. tool goes to Pyongyang to praise North Korea’s free universal education, and when that day comes, this report will be lying in wait in the OFK archives, for the polemics that must follow:

“Parents aren’t even registering their kids in school from first grade,” Lee added. Parents are supposed to enroll their children in school from the age of seven. It is not just that their circumstances don’t allow them to register them but that they are losing sight of the importance of education. “It’s called free education but there’s school uniform to buy and we have to fill the school bag with books. The government is not putting in a single textbook. We’ve got to use all our own money,” she added. [Open News]

As it turns out, the Great General didn’t realize that artillery can have a pretty fierce recoil:

North Korean merchants are exchanging their local currency en masse as war jitters in the wake of Pyongyang’s attack on Yeonpyeong Island have stoked fears that the won may lose its value in the case of war, a report said. According to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS), a Seoul-based NGO comprised of defectors with lines into the North, currency exchange rates have skyrocketed since the Nov. 23 incident. One hundred yuan, which before the shelling went for 2,000 won, is now worth 35,000 won, NKIS said in a report released Sunday.

“Merchants have heard rumors that if there is war, North Korean bills will become worthless scraps of paper,” NKIS quoted a source as saying, causing traders to exchange their won while they can. Price of daily goods have also skyrocketed, the report said, with rice jumping from 900 won per kilogram to 1,600 won. Corn climbed from 4,000 won per kilogram to 6,000 won, it said. [Korea Times]

Kang Chol Hwan calls for “Asymmetric Warfare:”

There should also be more leaflets and radio broadcasts to the North. Large quantities of food could also be attached to helium balloons and floated to the North. North Korean troops secretly eat instant noodles South Korean forces sent to the North by balloons prior to the Kim Dae-jung administration. What would happen if instant noodles are scattered throughout Hwanghae Province? Having lived in North Korea, I know that this would deal a severe blow to the regime. The South must awaken to the fact that its weapons are stronger than any arms Kim Jong-il has.

It’s times like this when I’m tempted to believe someone actually reads this blog. “Asymmetic” is a word I’ve used quite a bit lately, no? Yes!