Rail survey to go ahead

South Korea said yesterday it had received sanctions exemptions from the UN Security Council for a joint survey of inter-Korean railways to reconnect links cut during the 1950-53 Korean War.

In April, the leaders of the Koreas agreed to adopt steps to reconnect railways and roads.

South Korea’s presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said quick construction would take inter-Korean cooperation to a new level. challenges to his power, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin university.

“In order to keep the country stable they have to keep it isolated. If they open it, it will be suicidal for the elite and even for many common people because if you have revolution in North Korea it’s going to be very messy and bloody,” he said.

“Basically, you cannot maintain such a level of ideological mobilisation forever. Information is getting in.”

In a sign that the secluded society is slowly opening up, Oh Chong-song, 25, the soldier who was shot while defecting last year, told Japan’s

Sankei Shimbun paper this week that “probably 80 per cent of my generation is indifferent and has no loyalty” to Kim.

“I actually think that most North Koreans think the ideology is kind of bunk,” said Kelly. But, he added, “without the Kim cult then North Korea just becomes a poorer version of South Korea”.

For now, the regime’s imperative remains shaping the minds of children.

At the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace, Ri Jin-hyang, a 12-year-old guide, wearing the red scarf of the Children’s Union, was unsure what to reply when asked what she knew about the UK. But her response on America was immediate and scripted to perfection. “The US is the country that invaded us,” she said.