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	Major Events Around the Korean Peninsula (November 24, 1999 - February 22, 2000)
November
24	Fourteen social organizations in the North issue a joint statement urging the U.S. to make an official apology for the use of toxic defoliant (in the 1960s) along DMZ separating South and North Korea. The Japanese Liberal Democratic Party delegation visits China to meet with Chinese Communist Party authorities to discuss their disagreement in the area of fishing operations between the two countries. The National Peace Committee sends letters to "International anti-war peace-loving organizations" appealing them to take actions against Seoul's move toward long-range missile development.
25	NK has recently imported massive quantities of China military weapons while China has dispatched military advisers to promote further cooperation, Joongang Ilbo reports. NK has set up a new ministry, the Electronics Industry Ministry, exclusively responsible for promoting its lagging electronics industry, the Korea Herald reports. The SK and NK Agricultural Cooperation Working-level Commi-ttee of Kangwon National University announces that it has agreed with NK's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee to send 30 tons of Kangwon Province seed potatoes to the northern part of Kangwon Province of NK.
27	East Asia and Pacific bureau chief of the UN International Children's Emergency Fund, Kul Gautam visits Pyongyang. SK President Kim Dae-jung announces that he supports the Philippine move to normalize and eventually set up diplomatic relations with NK. The KCBS reports that three small- and medium-sized hydraulic power stations called Kumgang No.2, Jikha, and Kumgang No.3, have been built in North Hamgyong Province. Capacity of the powerplants was not revealed. The KCNA reports more than 193 million trees were planted during the 20-day period of the nation-wide land management campaign. The SK Defense Ministry announces that in preparation for the reunification of the Korean peninsula, SK and the US will conduct working-level talks on bilateral security issues in the year 2000.
28	SK President Kim Dae-jung meets with Japanese Prime Minister Keijo Obuchi and Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji in Manila and agrees to begin a joint study for economic cooperation among the three countries.
29	China is building a missile base which will reportedly house short-range M11-Mod2 missiles in Xianyou, Fujian province, directly opposite Taiwan, the Reuters reports. The SK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announces that US and NK officials will meet in New York in Dec. to discuss arrangements for next year's search for and repatriation of remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War.
December
1	A joint delegation of Japanese politicians, led by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, visits Pyongyang. The Korean Sharing Movement kicks of a campaign for public donation to buy 20 million SK eggs and send them to NK. The SK national KBS-TV and the Federation of Korean Livestock Cooperatives are also urging people to dial a hot line and donate 100 won, enough to buy and transport ten eggs to NK. The SK Defense Ministry announces that the SK government will compensate military and civilian victims of a US-manufactured toxic defoliant that was sprayed along the SK-NK border in the 1960's.
2	A two-day national meeting of "model cultural educators" in social organizations opens at the People's Palace of Culture, with Party Secretary Kim Jung-rin attending. A SK clothing firm, Nix, announces that it will deliver 10,000 pairs of blue jeans and 5,000 sweaters, together estimated to be worth 1.5 billion won, to NK on Nov. 11. The NK's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee asked for the firm to offer 30,000 pairs of blue jeans to the country on the condition that they were dyed a dark color. NK had banned young people in the country from wearing blue jeans because it regarded them as a symbol of capitalism. Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and NK Secretary of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers's Party Kim Young-sun agree that Japan and NK will resume unconditional bilateral negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations within the year. Interior ministers and national security heads of the Shanghai Five (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan) sign a memorandum agreeing to meet at least once a year for a security summit to cooperatively fight terrorism, separatism and cross-border crime, the Agence France Press reports. Roger Clinton, a pop singer and half-brother of US President Bill Clinton, arrives in Pyongyang to join in the "2000 Peace and Friendship Concert scheduled for December 5.
3	Party Secretary Kim Yong-sun and Tomiichi Murayama, head of a Japanese parliamentary delegation, issue a joint statement in Pyongyang urging both governments to reopen talks for normalizing ties at the earliest date possible. The North Korean government, political parties and social organizations issue a "joint letter of appeal," urging foreign countries again to put pressure upon Seoul to remove its "concrete wall" along the military demarcation line.
5	The Chosun Ilbo reports that it was confirmed on Dec. 2 in clauses 13 and 14 of a copy of the 1990 border treaty between Russia and NK that Russia agreed to send migrant workers such as loggers, defectors and asylum seekers back to NK. Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Foreign Minister Yohei Kono agree lift sanctions against NK as a preliminary step to resuming talks on diplomatic ties, the Associated Press reports.
6	A six-member Canadian delegation, including three officials, visits NK. NK and the US recently agreed to station approximately 42 officials at each other's liaison offices, the Korea Herald reports.
7	Chinese For eign Ministry spokes-woman Zhang Qiyue announces that China opposes using religious issues to interfere in internal affairs of other countries adding that the US reverse its decision on the aforesaid sanctions, canceling the impact on Sino-US relations. The KOTRA releases a report that goods which SK companies manufactured in NK have been sold on the US market at a price 30 to 40 percent higher than Chinese products.
9	China President Jiang Zemin and visiting Russian President Boris Yeltsin held an informal meeting in Beijing. Russian President Boris Yeltsin visits China and meets the chairman of the Chinese National People's Congress Li Peng and Jiang Zemin. Both countries foreign ministers signed three accords establishing the countries 2,630-mile border and the joint use of disputed islands.
11	A delegation from the international liaison department of the Chinese Communist Party, led by deputy head Ma Wenbao, visits Pyongyang. A delegation from the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean residents in Japan (Chongryun), led by its deputy head Nam Sung-u, visits Pyongyang.
14	An 11-member delegation led by US Army Inspector-General, Lieutenant General Michael Ackerman, meets their SK counterparts to coordinate separate investigations of the July 1950 incident at Nogunri. The Japanese government announces that it will lift sanctions on food aid against NK and resume diplomatic normalization talks.
15	Representatives from Japan, SK, the European Union and the US sign an agreement on delivery of nuclear reactors to NK. The project is estimated at $4.6 billion, with SK paying $3.2 billion, Japan paying $1 billion, the US paying $115 million, and the EU paying $80 million. The KCNA reports that North Korea won about a hundred medals in various international competitions this year. The radio station listed the medal winners, including Chong Song-ok, who won a gold medal at the women's marathon of the seventh World Athletics Championships held in Seville, Spain, last August, and Li Song-hui, the female weight lifter who set a new world record in the jerk last month. The main contract to finalize the light-water reactor project is signed between the KEDO and Seoul's state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. The SPA Presidium bestows citations in Pyongyang on some Korean immigrants from Japan to mark the 40th anniversary of the arrival in the North of the first portion of Korean immigrants from Japan, attended by Vice SPA Presidium Chairman Yang Hyong-sop.
16	The number of people suffering from malaria in NK has reached about 100,000, the Chosun Ilbo reports citing a report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC).
17	Chang Jae-on, chief of the North Korean Red Cross Society, sends a letter to his South Korean counterpart, Chung Won-shik, asking him to allow Kim Yang-mu, vice chairman of the South Korean headquarter of the National Alliance for the Coun-tries's Reunification (Bomminryon), to receive medical care in the North. The US and China reach an agreement on compensation for the damage inflicted by a US missile on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the NATO military operation in the former Yugoslavia. The US will pay China $28 million. China in turn will pay the US $2.87 million for the repair of US building damaged during the anti-US demonstrations in Beijing following the incident in Belgrade. The US and NK negotiators end talks in Berlin without reaching agreement on joint recovery of the remains of US soldiers missing in action from the Korean War.
18	NK and China sign in Pyongyang an agreement on meteorological cooperation between the two countries.
19	Elections to the Russian State Duma are held. Japan and NK open a three-day meeting in Beijing to discuss methods for the resumption of diplomatic normalization talks. Working-level Red Cross and foreign ministry officials from NK and Japan hold preliminary meetings in Beijing to discuss Tokyo's food aid and other humanitarian issues before the expected resumption of normalization talks.
20	Kim Yong-nam send a dispatch to the "brothers in China," congratulating them on the reversion of Macau to Chinese sovereignty, amidst continuing Red Cross and director-level preparatory meetings between their respective ambassadors from Dec. 19 to 21.
21	A 62-member NK delegation led by a vice minister-level official arrives in Seoul for a four-day visit aimed at holding friendly basketball games with SK teams. Red Cross officials from Japan and NK sign an agreement on humanitarian cooperation after three days of talks. The two sides agreed to resume home visits by next spring for Japanese citizens married to NK spouses who had not previously been permitted to leave the country.
22	The WFP and 20 non-governmental organizations participating in aid activities in NK released a joint statement on Dec. 21 condemning the NK authorities' methods of inspection and delivery of aid supplies, the Chosun Ilbo reports.
23	Inter-Korean friendship basketball games between players from the South's Hyundai team and North Korea are held in Seoul.
24	A NK Foreign Ministry spokesman welcomes the KEDO's signing of a contract to build two nuclear reactors in the North, but says the US should pay for losses in case of a delay in the project. The KCBS says South Hwanghae Province has redeveloped about 6,000 hectares of arable land during the past month.
29	The KCNA announces NK has been detaining a 60-year-old Japanese citizen, Takashi Sugishima, who hed been on a visit to Pyongyang, on charges of "spying."
30	Japan's government announces that it had told NK of its extreme concern and demanded an explanation over the arrest of a former journalist accused of spying.
31	Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigns.
January
1	Rodong Shinmun, Choson Inmingun and the Youth Vanguard, the organs of the Workers' Party, the military and the Kimilsung Socialist Youth League, carry a joint New Year's editorial, titled. "Transforming the 55th anniversary of the foundation of the party into a year of brilliant glory and victory powered by the fire of Chollima spirit." NK's senior leaders of the Party, government and the military pay a visit to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where the embalmed body of the deceased Kim Il-sung lies in state.
3	Rodong Shinmun says NK is willing to improve ties with the US and Japan if the two countries are ready to abandon their anti-North policies. SK President Kim Dae-jung proposes in his new millennium address that SK and NK government think tanks should open discussions on the formulation of an inter-Korean economic community. Kim also urged NK to agree to SK proposal to arrange reunions for families separated by the Korean War. The (South) Korea National Tourism Organization announces that the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas can be developed into an eco-tourism site.
4	Italy announces that it has decided on diplomatic relations with NK. Radio Pyongyang asks Seoul to repatriate all unrepentant NK spies in the South, including those who have a home in the South but have expressed hopes to live in the communist state. The SK MOFAT releases a report that the UN has provided assistance worth $580 million to NK since 1995. According to the report, the largest donor to NK was the WFP, which has sent aid worth about $530 million to NK over the past five years. The UN appealed last month for member countries to donate $331.7 million in aid to NK this year.
5	Japanese-US talks on the special pact on Japan's financial support for the US forces in Japan, which is to be terminated in March 2001, begins in Washington. The KCBS says that NK has established ambassador-level diplomatic relations with Italy. US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth expressed a largely positive view of the security situation in NK this year pointing to political developments on the peninsula in 1999, the Korea Herald reports.
9	NK's gross national income (GNI) last year was estimated at about $130 billion, almost half of the $240 billion recorded 10 years ago, a report of the SK Unification Ministry reveals. The NK government spent an estimated $4.78 billion, 52 percent of its total budget, on defense in 1999.
10	Chinese President Jiang Zemin meets with a group of US congressmen, led by Matt Salmon, at the Great Hall of the People.
11	Park Tae-joon has been appointed SK Prime Minister to replace Kim Jong-pil, who resigned on Jan. 11. The SK Defense Ministry announces that SK will increase national defense expenditures to strengthen the combat capability of its navy and air force. It was estimated that the total expenditure of SK national defense this year will be 5,343.7 billion won ($4.77 billion), an increase of 2.2 percent from last year.
12	A Report of NIS reveals that overseas tours by NK officials have been on the rise since Kim Jong-il formally took office as head of state in Sep. 1998, indicating NK is beginning to practice a more pragmatic diplomacy. NK officials made 134 and 222 overseas visits in 1998 and 1999, respectively, an increase from the 99 visits in 1997.
13	The SK MOFAT announces that China has sent back a family of seven NK nationals who were caught crossing into Russia.
17	Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian and Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev sign a memorandum to boost military ties.
18	Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian visits Seoul marking the first official visit by a Chinese defense chief since the Korean War. The President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, may have given NK access to the country's largest uranium mine as payment for supplying troops and training Congolese, Chosun Ilbo reports citing Daily Telegraph.
19	SK President Kim Dae-jung proposes a summit with NK leader Kim Jong-il, during a ceremony in Seoul to launch his new ruling party, named the New Millennium Democratic Party.
20	NK signed an agreement in Dec. last year to borrow $10 million from the OPEC to help rebuild its agricultural system, Joongang Ilbo reports. The money is the first loan from OPEC to NK. The bus, specially converted by Hyundai for Lee Myung-hoon, the world tallest basketball player, for his Dec. SK visit, was donated to NK.
21	Minju Choson, the NK Cabinet organ, reports about the Internet in detail. It is unusual for Pyongyang's state-controlled media to carry articles about the Internet for their readers, especially ordinary citizens. NK negotiators arrive in Berlin to attend talks with the US delegation. Vice-ministerial level talks between Japanese and US foreign affairs and defense authorities begin in Tokyo to discuss Japanㄳ host-nation support for US forces in Japan.
23	China's People's Liberation Army Lieutenant General Xiong Guankai, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, visits Washington to begin three days of meetings in the first military exchanges since NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last May, the Associated Press reports.
24	Rodong Shinmun asks the UN to conduct a probe into the alleged US massacres of Korean civilians during the Korean War, saying the the US soldiers committed these crimes as members of the UN allied forces.
25	The EU will give 800,000 Euros ($880,000) in aid to NK for a public health project, the Korean Herald reports. The fund, collected by non-governmental organizations like CAD of Britain, CONCERN of Ireland and CESVI of Italy, will go to public health centers and hospitals, to buy clothing and coal. SK MOU announces that trade between SK and NK last year was estimated at $333 million, up 50.2 percent from 1998. SK imported $121 million worth of goods from NK, an increase of 31.8percent, and exported goods worth $211 million, a 63.4 percent rise.
27	East Timorese independence leader Jose Alexandre Xanana Gusmao arrives in SK to ask SK to help to rebuild East Timor's economy.
29	A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland issues a statement criticizing Seoul over its defense policy guidelines for the year 2000, which pledged a strong security stance against possible military threats from the North. The SK Defense Ministry announces that it has secured a list of 268 SK soldiers captured during the Korean War and presumed still alive in NK. The US and NK agree in Berlin to start high-level talks in Washington in March.
30	SK First Lady Lee Hee-ho visits the US to deliver a keynote speech at the US National Prayer Breakfast (NPB).
31	The SK Ministry of Finance and Economy announces that the SK economy is estimated to have grown by between 10.1 percent and 10.2 percent last year following a 5.8 percent contraction in 1998.
February
1	The Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group is held in Seoul by US State Department counselor Wendy Sherman, SK Deputy Foreign Minister Jang Jai-ryong, and Japan's Deputy Vice Minister for Foreign Policy Yukio Takeuchi. The US House of Representatives passes the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act by a vote of 341 to 70.
2	The (South) Korea Rural Economic Institute announces that NK is headed for yet another food shortage this year. The estimated food requirement for the year 2000 is 6.31 million tons, but food production last year is estimated to be about 3.32 million tons. The Philippines rejects a protest from China over the treatment of a group of Chinese fishermen taken after a confrontation in the South China Sea, the Reuters reports.
3	The KCBS reports relatively in detail that the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the Pyonghwa (Peace) General Motor Works, the first inter-Korean joint venture for automobile assembly.
4	A Philippine navy patrol ship fired three warning shots near two Chinese fishing boats to warn them to leave the Scarborough Shoal, the Associ-ated Press reports.
5	NK has been stepping up its naval exercises in the West Sea because of its defeat at the hands of SK Navy forces last June, the Korea Times reports citing a report by the SK Defense Ministry.
7	NK's official news agency announces that the Unification Church opened construction on Feb. 3 of the first auto plant to be built jointly by SK and NK partners in Nampo, NK. Pyonghwa General Motor Works is an inter-Korean venture, led by SK's Pyonghwa Motor Company, which is affiliated with Reverend Moon Sun-myung's Unification Church, and NK's state-run Yonbong Corporation.
8	Rodong Shinmun demands the US lift all its economic sanctions against NK, warning Washington would face the "consequences" of isolating NK.
9	In Pyongyang, NK Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun and his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov sign in a new treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries which nullified Russia's former obligation to send troops to NK in case of war. The new treaty replaced an old one signed between NK and the Soviet Union in 1961, and which expired in 1996. The Public Security Ministry of NK holds an exhibition of Kimjongilia (a flower named after NK leader Kim Jong-il) to mark Kim's 58th birthday.
11	Admiral Kosei Fujita, Japanese Navy Commander, made an official visit to Russia, the first visit since the last military contact between the two countries more than one hundred years ago. Vice SPA Presidium Chairman Yang Hyong-sop holds talks in Pyongyang with Alberto Velazco San Jose, a special envoy of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
12	The KCBS reports that China has completed as of Feb. 2 the delivery of 150,000 tons of food and 400,000 tons of coke to NK, aid promised last June.
14	A delegation led by US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott leaves to visit Japan and China.
16	NK officially opens a consulate in Hong Kong.
20	A 59-year old NK missile expert named Lim, his 31-year old son and his 32-year old nephew-in-law, defected to the US via China, Chosun Ilbo reports. NK leader Kim Jong-il is believed to receive $60-70 million yearly from various sources as slush funds and manages at least $2 billion as such, the Korea Times reports.
21	The Chinese State Council issues an official white paper, entitled "The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue."
22	A delegation of four Australian diplomats visits Pyongyang with a $3 million-aid plan to discuss reestablishing ties which have been suspended for the past 25 years.