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Kim Jong Il: I'm an Internet
Expert
AP
Saturday October 06, 2007
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il called himself
an "Internet expert" during summit talks with South
Korea's president this week, a news report said Friday.
The reclusive leader made the remark after South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun asked that South Korean companies
operating at an industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong
be allowed to use the Internet, Yonhap news agency reported, without
citing any source.
"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial
zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the
North are wired," Kim told Roh, according to Yonhap.
"If that problem is addressed, there is no reason not to
open" the Internet, Kim said.
(Article continues below)
This week's summit -- the second-ever such meeting between the
two Koreas -- produced a wide-ranging reconciliation pact that
calls for establishing a new special economic zone in North Korea
and expanding the Kaesong factory park.
North Korea is one of the world's most closed nations, with the
totalitarian regime tightly controlling outside information and
tolerating no dissent. Radios and TV sets in North Korea can only
receive state broadcasts and ordinary people are banned from using
mobile phones, let alone the Internet.
However, the country's ruling elite appear to have regular access
to outside information.
Kim reportedly asked former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
for her e-mail address when she visited Pyongyang in 2000. A North
Korean general cracked a joke about President Bush during high-level
military talks with the South earlier this year, saying he read
it on the Internet.
The North's leader is also a big fan of South Korean movies and
TV dramas, and Roh gave him a bookcase of South Korean DVDs as
a gift this week.
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