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John Burton

John Burton is freelancer writer. He was Korea correspondent of the Financial Times, business editor of Korea JoongAng Daily, vice president of Insight Communication, Korea.

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John Burton

Gaining access

By John BurtonThe Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) is a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the impact of humanitarian assistance worldwide. Twice a year, it issues a report identifying countries that are not getting the humanitarian assistance they need due to access constraints. It will come as no surprise that North Korea routinely appears on its list of countries that have “extreme” or “very high” constraints on humanitarian access, whose number now stands at 17. In its latest report issued last month, ACAPS described the situation in North Korea, which it designates as having “very high constraints,” as follows: “Overall humanitarian access is limited, though improvements have occurred since 2018.”It notes that international staff have access to all North Korean provinces, although tight restrictions exist for Chagang Province in the north.“Travel and humanitarian activities remain highly regulated by national authorities. International humanitarian agencies, as well as DPRK nationals, are required to obtain advance clearance

Nov 11, 2019By John Burton
Gaining access
John Burton

A delicate balancing act

By John BurtonThe Committee on Human Rights in North Korea is one of the fiercest critics of the Pyongyang regime in Washington, D.C. But a new report it commissioned has asked the international community to step up humanitarian aid efforts even as it castigates North Korea for its continued violations of human rights.“Lost Generation: The Health and Human Rights of North Korean Children, 1990-2018,” produced by Dr. W. Courtland Robinson and a team from the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, paints a troubling picture of the status of North Korean children in the aftermath of the country's famine in the mid-1990s.Although conditions have improved since the peak famine years of 1995-98, “the health and human rights conditions of children remain dire,” the report concludes. “The mortality and other demographic impacts” of the famine “were severe in the 1990s but have also persisted into the 2000s and the 2010s,” with the impact “most acute among children.”Healthcare systems h

Oct 28, 2019By John Burton
A delicate balancing act
John Burton

Green energy is worth the cost

By John BurtonAre Koreans willing to pay more for a cleaner planet? That is the challenge the country faces as its struggles with the dilemma of delivering cheap energy while generating more clean energy.Under its latest energy plan, the government wants to increase the use of more expensive renewable energy from nearly 8 percent to between 30 percent and 35 percent by 2040. But at the same time, the Moon administration does not want to increase electricity rates for households to prevent an increase in living costs.The two goals appear to be irreconcilable. Something has to give.The only realistic option is to persuade the public to accept higher electricity fees to promote the use of renewables, while encouraging people to reduce energy consumption.As it is, Koreans now enjoy much lower electricity rates than those in many other developed countries, including Germany, France, Spain, the U.K., Italy, the U.S. and Japan. Some of these countries, such as Germany, Spain and Italy, already have a high reliance on renewable sources in their energy mix, approaching 40 percent.Low utility

Oct 14, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

Signs of hope

By John BurtonHumanitarian aid flowing to North Korea provides a useful barometer in determining the state of Pyongyang's relations with the rest of the world ― particularly the U.S. Current trends paint a mainly positive picture.The U.N. Security Council sanctions committee on North Korea, the so-called 1718 Sanctions Committee, is continuing to waive sanctions for humanitarian aid groups.One notable example was permission given to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) to deliver nine Italian IVECO ambulances to North Korea in September. The ambulances are needed to transport children and their mothers in rural communities to provincial hospitals in emergencies.Over the past month, the U.N. has also granted permission for the World Health Organization and the Paris-based aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres to ship medical equipment into North Korea for public health projects. Ignis Community, a U.S.-based Christian NGO, was also allowed to deliver materials for a new Spine and Rehabilitation Center in Pyongyang, which treats children with disabilities.These actions may address some

Sep 30, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

N.Korea's spat with UN

By John BurtonIt might seem perverse for a country where 40 percent of the population faces the risk of going hungry that North Korea should request a reduction in the number of United Nations humanitarian aid workers there by the end of 2019.But the intention of Pyongyang's rather unusual request might be to underscore its unhappiness over what is sees as the U.N.'s slow progress in approving sanctions exemptions for the supply of materials related to humanitarian relief.North Korea has preferred the U.N. as the main deliverer of humanitarian aid since it is considered more neutral than other groups, and one in which Pyongyang is represented. U.N. agencies are involved in food, nutrition, water and health projects and reach more than two million people in North Korea.Earlier this month, Kim Chang-min, head of North Korea's National Coordinating Committee for the U.N., said in a letter to the top U.N. official in Pyongyang, Tapan Mishra, that his government valued its collaboration with U.N. agencies and appreciated Mishra's efforts “to reactivate U.N. support” for the co

Sep 16, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

Loosening the screws

By John BurtonIn recent weeks, the United Nations has been quietly accelerating approval of exemptions for international humanitarian groups to deliver aid to North Korea amid reports that food conditions are deteriorating and cases of tuberculosis and malaria are rising.In July and August, the U.N. Sanctions Committee on North Korea granted exemptions to eight groups compared to the 10 exemptions given for all of the first half of 2019.International aid groups cannot ship any material, ranging from toothpaste and hospital gowns to medical equipment and building supplies, without the approval of the so-called 1718 Sanctions Committee, named after the U.N. resolution that first imposed international sanctions on North Korea in 2006.New estimates suggest that the food crisis in North Korea is worsening. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) recently said that a severe drought in North Korea this spring, the worst in a century, could cut the expected harvest output this year in half. This follows a poor harvest in 2018, the worst in a decade, with 4

Sep 2, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

North Korea's TB crisis

By John BurtonIt is approaching crunch time in dealing with North Korea's tuberculosis crisis. Stocks of TB medicine could be severely depleted by the middle of next year. This is due to a shortage of funding by international donors and difficulties in delivering medical assistance as a result of sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear program.North Korea had more than 130,000 TB patients in 2017, according to the World Health Organization, while there were at least 5,200 new cases of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), the deadliest form of the illness, up from 3,500 cases five years earlier. The WHO estimated that 16,000 North Koreans died from TB in 2017. North Korea accounts for around 1.3 percent of TB cases worldwide and one percent of all TB deaths.North Korea is estimated to need $5 billion to $6 billion to get normal TB drugs annually, but this amount excludes more expensive MDR-TB drugs. Medicine supplies in North Korea are already stretched. The number of TB cases is expected to grow due to food shortages, which exacerbate chronic malnutrition and leave the population mor

Aug 19, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

Who's next?

By John BurtonWhat type of policy on North Korea will the Democrats pursue if they defeat U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election? It is a hard question to answer. For one thing, foreign policy has been scarcely discussed during the current Democrat presidential primary campaign and North Korea even less so. Instead, the more than 20 primary candidates have focused their attention on domestic issues from healthcare to immigration policy.But several broad trends could be detected among the Democratic candidates as the North Korea nuclear crisis evolved over the course of Trump's presidency, based on their statements made at the time.In 2017 and early 2018, during Trump's “fire and fury” phase when he was threatening North Korea with a military strike if Pyongyang refused to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, most of the candidates urged caution.In a letter sent to Trump in February 2018, 18 senators said they were “deeply concerned about the potential consequences of a preemptive military strike on North Korea and the risks of miscalculation and ret

Aug 5, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

Humanitarian roadmap

By John BurtonThe Federation of American Scientists recently issued a report, co-authored by 14 international experts on Korea, that declared that current U.S. sanctions regime on North Korea has been a failure. It suggested instead a more pragmatic approach that would both contain that country's nuclear program while also shaping its future development.The study, “Report of the International Study Group on North Korea Policy,” said the current U.S. policy of “maximum pressure” is unlikely to succeed in disarming North Korea. It recommended instead a more flexible sanctions policy to promote increased international engagement in economic projects. This would reduce North Korea's paranoia about the outside world and provide economic incentives for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. One place to start would be humanitarian assistance. In theory, both U.N. and U.S. sanctions do not impede humanitarian aid to North Korea. But in practice, various bureaucratic procedures have been put in place that hamper aid efforts. Humanitarian aid organizations are compl

Jul 22, 2019By John Burton
John Burton

Biegun vs. Bolton

By John BurtonIt was just a few months ago that many observers, including myself, believed that U.S. President Donald Trump had fallen under the sway of hawks in Washington after the collapse of his summit in Hanoi with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That no longer appears to be the case following Trump's recent meeting with Kim at the DMZ.Notably absent from the latest Trump-Kim encounter was John Bolton, the U.S national security adviser, who has consistently pursued a hardline policy on North Korea since his days in the George W. Bush administration. Instead, Trump sent Bolton to Mongolia for a meeting with that country's foreign minister while the U.S. president pursued his personal diplomacy with Kim.Bolton had been partly blamed for the failure of the Hanoi summit. He urged Trump to pursue a “big deal” with Kim ― demanding that Pyongyang trade away all of its nuclear weapons before sanctions can be lifted ― instead of adopting a more incremental approach. Kim balked at that suggestion.There is speculation in Washington that Bolton is on the way out. Trump also poi

Jul 8, 2019By John Burton
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