Nuclear North Korea lights candles to stave off dark

PYONGYANG, Dec 19: Banners in the North Korean capital proclaim a bright future for the world's newest nuclear power, but after sunset pedestrians make their way in near darkness because there is not enough power for streetlamps.

The reclusive state's first nuclear test in October is a key focus of international negotiations this week in Beijing to persuade North Korea to give up its weapons programme.

Among North Korea's demands for agreeing is that the outside world provide it with a civilian nuclear power plant, and it wants respect from Washington at the negotiations as a fellow atomic weapons power.

But a trip to the North shows the enormous distance between the world's biggest economy of the capitalist United States and a communist system many say has spawned an economic basket case.

As night falls in the mostly empty streets of Pyongyang, shopkeepers at the few stores remaining open light candles because of the power shortages.

Trolley-buses run in the darkness but without lights.

One building that was ablaze with light was a monument, modelled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and built in honour of the founder of the state and president for eternity, Kim Il-sung.

''The energy situation has become more severe after the Americans stopped supplying heavy oil to us as they had promised to under the KEDO project,'' a North Korean tour guide told a group of visiting South Koreans.

A deal struck 12 years ago to provide North Korea energy aid in return for freezing its nuclear weapons programme has been suspended, with the United States accusing the North of violating its terms by secretly enriching uranium.

EMPTY ROADS, DARKENED HOMES

''Let's build our strong nation with the pride of being a nuclear power,'' read banners in the capital. They underline the policy of leader Kim Jong-il to rank the military first in his impoverished country. North Korea, with about 22 million people, produces only some 4 percent of the electricity that its booming neighbour South Korea manages to generate for a population of some 48 million.

North Korea says it has built thousands of hydroelectric plants but experts say most are small, providing barely enough power for a village.

And some aid officials have warned that the country, which relies on handouts even in the best of harvests, could be slipping back towards famine this winter.

Earlier this week, the special U N envoy for human rights in North Korea urged Pyongyang to spend its limited resources on its people rather than developing nuclear weapons.

North Korea has one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the world and the lack of economic activity is visible at almost every turn in the capital.

At Pyongyang airport, only a handful of planes were on the tarmac. And the only one moving was a North Korean Air Koryo plane which had made a rare trip to Seoul to bring back a group of South Koreans who had helped finance the construction of a hospital in the capital.

On the drive into town, there was almost no traffic on the roads, which looked as though they has seen no major repairs for many years.

And inside block after block of barely lit apartments, workers huddled in the darkness on a winter's night waiting for day to break.

Reuters