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Freedom: The Price of Communistic Utopia

North Korea has recalled mobile phones from its citizens, nearly a year and a half after the service was introduced in the communist country, South Korean media reports say. (article)

A North Korean official attending an inter-Korean economic meeting in Pyongyang confirmed that mobile phones were banned from May 25, according to pool reports.

"It's true that mobile phone use was prohibited," the official was quoted as saying yesterday.

North Korea's mobile service began in November 2002, with products from Motorola Corp. of the United States and Nokia Corp. of Finland on the market in Pyongyang, Yonhap news agency said.

North Koreans were seen using mobile phones last month when the two Koreas held minister-level rapprochment talks, it said.

Experts believe North Korea had introduced the mobile technology to make communications convenient but later realised the device caused floods of foreign culture into the reclusive country, Yonhap said.

Kim Yeon-chul, an analyst at Korea University's Asiatic Research Centre in Seoul, said: "The North Korean authorities would be able to partially control the more-than-wanted distribution of information, at the same time enabling (a mobile phone's) role in communication.

"But it's difficult at the moment to give a clear definition to the policy, because the subjects of the ban and its boundary are not clearly known."

Source: Syndney Morning Herald

Posted by tim at June 4, 2004 6:23 AM

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