Felix Abt's Blog, page 4
June 24, 2017
HUMAN RIGHTS QUIZ
human rights violations in North Korea and seldom, if at all,...
June 17, 2017
GOOD MEMORIES
NORTH KOREA ONE OF THE SAFEST DESTINATIONS FOR ORDINARY TOURISTS (AND BIZ PPL)
So Felix Abt wouldn’t recommend anybody to...
June 13, 2017
North Korea Assassinates People with Food Poisoning according to...
North Korea Assassinates People with Food Poisoning according to Pulitzer Prize Winner and New York Times Journalist
When Felix Abt ran a pharmaceutical enterprise he talked to numerous
doctors in
North Korea on botulism (and many other diseases), corroborated by
discussions with WHO and other NGOs working in the country, which he considered as part of his job - but
journalist Jonathan
Weisman from The New York Times gets his North Korea wisdom exclusively from a novel and is convinced it’s true.
The Torturer (“Interrogator") in this extremely brutal
North Korea novel kills his parents by feeding them a can of peaches
infected with botulism. But Botulism poisoning from commercially canned
foods has been virtually eliminated. The reason is that manufacturers
and even private households have known for decades that for botulinum
toxins to develop they need a non-acetic, anaerobic situation, i.e. no
acid and no air.
Also
peaches is a high-acidic food containing enough acid to block Botulinum
growth. The author who was given the Pulitzer prize for this North Korea novel
invented a rather absurd scenario; he should have used vegetables instead
for the
parents’ killing since they are low-acidic and have a high Botulinum incidence (and he also ignored the fact that peach trees and
North Korea’s cold climate don’t mix).
Publisher and author
claim the novel The Orphan Master’s Son provides a unique insight into North Korea. This case shows once more that journalists who are as gullible as biased tend to ignore Felix Abt’s factual and insightful book and happily embrace invented North Korea “facts”…
North Korea Assassinates People with Food Poisoning: Pulitzer...
North Korea Assassinates People with Food Poisoning: Pulitzer Prize Winner and New York Times Journalist
When Felix Abt ran a pharmaceutical enterprise he talked to numerous
doctors in
North Korea on botulism (and many other diseases), corroborated by
discussions with WHO and other NGOs working in the country, which he considered as part of his job - but
journalist Jonathan
Weisman from The New York Times gets his North Korea wisdom exclusively from a novel and is convinced it’s true.
The Torturer (“Interrogator") in this extremely brutal
North Korea novel kills his parents by feeding them a can of peaches
infected with botulism. But Botulism poisoning from commercially canned
foods has been virtually eliminated. The reason is that manufacturers
and even private households have known for decades that for botulinum
toxins to develop they need a non-acetic, anaerobic situation, i.e. no
acid and no air.
Also
peaches is a high-acidic food containing enough acid to block Botulinum
growth. The author who was given the Pulitzer prize for this North Korea novel
invented a rather absurd scenario; he should have used vegetables instead
for the
parents’ killing since they are low-acidic and have a high Botulinum incidence (and he also ignored the fact that peach trees and
North Korea’s cold climate don’t mix).
Publisher and author
claim the novel The Orphan Master’s Son provides a unique insight into North Korea. This case shows once more that journalists who are as gullible as biased tend to ignore Felix Abt’s factual and insightful book and happily embrace invented North Korea “facts”…
June 9, 2017
PIZZAS ARE BANNED IN NORTH KOREA! A “shocking fact” presented...
PIZZAS ARE BANNED IN NORTH KOREA!
A “shocking fact” presented in a video in 2017 to 6 million viewers!
Like many other ‘facts’ presented by media about North Korea it wasn’t true though.
Indeed, Felix Abt ate his first pizza in Pyongyang in 2005 at the Pyolmuri restaurant.
This restaurant was set up by his friend Marcel Wagner (seen in this video which got only 65 views!) from ADRA International,
with the objective to generate hard currency. The hard currency was
needed to import and pay for spare parts, flour etc. for an industrial
bakery he set up. The bakery produced vitamin-enriched bread for
orphanages. Abt was proud of having supported that project.
But as he wrote in his book the pizza didn’t taste very well (at least in his
perception) and he advised the Korean restaurant manager (also seen in the same
video as Wagner) to invite an Italian chef from Beijing for a holiday to teach her
chefs how to make real Italian pizzas.
A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR - IF YOU BELIEVE WIKIPEDIAFelix Abt paid...
A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR - IF YOU BELIEVE WIKIPEDIA
Felix Abt paid his workers in North Korea a good salary
plus bonuses, rice, cooking oil, Kimchi etc. They felt well treated and
liked to come to work every day. He also met family members who looked
well fed, well dressed, healthy and happy. And some of his employees
started their own business which would not have been possible if they
could not have made savings as employees.
He is glad his workers in North Korea had a substantially higher purchasing power than those of VICE News which is slandering him for exploiting ‘abused’ North Korean workers. He feels sorry for VICE’s workers who, unlike his North Korean workers, can’t make ends meet and pay their monthly rent, see here.
Wikipedia deemed it necessary to regurgitate and present false claims as facts (see above excerpts) from a shoddy piece by this tabloid magazine.
In addition, VICE and Wikipedia compare Abt to
Genoud
(“Switzerland’s greatest embarrassment to humanity since [Third Reich financier] François Genoud.”) who was a glowing admirer and supporter of Hitler and a member of his Nazi
party and later a supporter of terrorist groups. They use a polemical statement by political activist Joshua Stanton (which VICE calls a “North Korea expert”).
Stanton made it his mission to bring the DPRK down by isolation and
coercion. Unsurprisingly, he viciously attacks people like Abt who prefer a peaceful transformation through engagement (“I
wouldn’t piss on Felix Abt if he was on fire”, “I’m sure Abt could find
another profession equally suited to his character, like selling cutlery
to ISIS, or picking through the dirt at Auschwitz to scavenge for gold
fillings”, “My favorite anagram of Felix Abt is Latex Fib”).
Stanton not only wants a foreign businessman like Felix Abt to stop
producing medicine for the North Korean people but is also fighting tour operators for bringing foreign tourists to North Korea: he called to
boycott Koryo Tours, URI TOURS INC.
and other tour companies accusing them of “supporting proliferation and
crimes against humanity and of delivering hostages to Kim Jong Un.”
He works as a lawyer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and has helped draft the most strangulating North Korea sanctions for U.S. Congress in seven decades.
And thanks to his efforts to ban components necessary for the
manufacturing of medicine Abt admits it has become impossible to
produce safe and effective pharmaceuticals at affordable prices for the
North Korean people.
Obviously, Wikipedia contributors use VICE and Stanton as crown witnesses on North Korea and attack people
like Abt. Happily joining Stanton’s mission they avoid discussing Abt’s
business ethics and actual investment and business practices in emerging
markets he has explained in great detail, for example in these two interviews:
1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-stine/business-as-reform-in-nor_b_9849500.html
2) http://northkoreacapitalist.tumblr.com/post/159747691502/the-banned-north-korea-interview-this-interview
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HOW FAKE NEWS BECOMES WIKIPEDIA REALITY
Wikipedia based its description of Abt on a VICE News
piece bullshitting from the title (“Secretive Group of Western
Investors - including Abt - Bullish on Business in North Korea“) to the
last sentence. Vice decided to ignore sober and informative
explanations it got from Abt (see below).
Interview excerpt:
quote
VICE:
Quick additional question, if you don’t mind: re: your quote about
established investors being able to "harvest over-proportionally when
the market gets more mature and larger.” My editors asked me about
Orascom’s recent troubles with their Koryolink investment in regard to
this, as they would seem to be an example of one company ostensibly
attempting to position themselves for later success. Can you expand on
this at all? Should it serve as a caution for others, or were there
other circumstances that explain it?
Other than that, we’re all set. Jim Rogers
had some really interesting things to say, and thinks Korea will unify
in a few years. He is REALLY bullish on DPRK as an investment
destination.
A Capitalist in North Korea’s
answer: Smart emerging markets investors would never invest in a mega
project like Orascom’s (which by the way had only a few years of
contractual protection against competition). You would set up first a
representative office in such a country doing market intel for a couple
of years while developing a strong network and then start setting up
smaller projects or medium-sized projects with capital disbursement over
a longer time. And when you produce locally you make sure you have
control over some key components which you keep importing. That’s how
you can control the sizeable risks inherent to such a market.
Jim
Rogers has been saying that in public for a couple of years but all he
did is buying some gold coins. I guess he is smarter than what he
appears to be when talking about North Korea…
In case there is
reunification in a few years (as he believes) it will be a reunification
by absorption after North Korea’s collapse, which will be a rather
unfriendly takeover by the South. Former landowners will aggressively
reclaim land in the north, the new Southern controlled government would
probably deny foreign investors’ legal titles under DPRK-law etc. For
South Korea and the U.S. the bonanza (from cheap labor to rare earths
that high tech, military and other industries badly need to U.S. troops
on China’s and Russia’s doorsteps) will only come if the DPRK collapses.
Current strangulating embargoes are indeed aimed at making this happen.
unquote
June 2, 2017
THE ANANTI KUMGANG MOUNTAIN, A LUXURY RESORT YOU CAN’T...
THE ANANTI KUMGANG MOUNTAIN, A LUXURY RESORT YOU CAN’T STAY AT
It was the first and only luxury resort in North Korea and a symbol of
co-operation between the two Koreas when it opened in 2008, the same
year when Lee Myung-Bak, a hardliner who was against the Sunshine
policies (engagement with N.Korea) of his predecessors, became S.Korea’s
president. After a S.Korean tourist, one of about 200,000 South Koreans
who annually spent holidays in the area, was shot dead by a N.Korean
soldier after she had crossed into a military area near a beach
according to Yonhap, South Korea stopped all tourism with the North.
The resort offered five star accommodation, a lavish spa, natural hot
springs and championship golf, in a magnificent region until it was
banned to visitors.
Today Felix Abt happened to drive behind a Hyundai
bus in Vietnam which used to belong to the resort. It had a number plate
from Tiền Giang, a Vietnamese province in the Mekong delta (see his
picture).
Let’s hope that “Sunshine” (a policy S.Korea’s current president Moon is embracing) and “Moon-shine” will make
it possible for the resort to buy new buses and reopen for South Koreans
soon again.
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WHEN ‘SUNSHINE’ RULED ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA
Remembering a period of unprecedented cooperation
between the two Koreas, despite being technically still at war.
By Felix
Abt
This piece was published by The Diplomat magazine in July 2016
May 25, 2017
MAKE CASH NOT WAR! More quotes:“Swiss businessman Felix Abt has...
MAKE CASH NOT WAR!
More quotes:
“Swiss businessman Felix Abt has a unique insight into life in North
Korea, where he’s conducted business for 14 years and lived for seven.”
“Instead of strangling the country with sanctions, we need to cultivate
contacts there in many ways. Only by going there can you know the
intentions of the North Koreans and influence things for the better.
Foreigners who deal with North Koreans confront them with new ideas,
which they question but often accept, as I know from my own experience,” explains Abt to the news outlet.
Read the full piece here
MAKE CASH NOT WAR! “Swiss businessman Felix Abt has a unique...
MAKE CASH NOT WAR!
“Swiss businessman Felix Abt has a unique insight into life in North
Korea, where he’s conducted business for 14 years and lived for seven.”
“Instead of strangling the country with sanctions, we need to cultivate
contacts there in many ways. Only by going there can you know the
intentions of the North Koreans and influence things for the better.
Foreigners who deal with North Koreans confront them with new ideas,
which they question but often accept, as I know from my own experience,” explains Abt to the news outlet.
Read the full piece here
