NORTH KOREA:North Korea is set to take a potentially giant leap out of the intellectual cold with the construction of a new English-language university staffed by academics from around the world teaching the cream of the country's graduate students.
Building of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) is nearing completion on a plot of land leased by the People's Army in the North's capital. The army has lent 800 solders to build the campus, largely funded by Christian evangelicals.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is believed to have ordered the site cleared for use and granted the university the right to hire staff from anywhere in the world. PUST is expected to train a new generation of elite business executives and technicians.
The project's leaders in South Korea and the US are playing down its potential impact for fear of spooking the North's jittery authorities, but they agree that it represents a seismic shift in the reclusive state's largely frozen relations with the rest of the world.
"It will be the country's first international university," says Prof Chan-Mo Park, PUST co-chair and a prominent Seoul scientist.
"The North has good universities, but they don't communicate with the rest of the world. This will let everyone know that the capacity of their scientists is very high."
Despite crumbling facilities, the North's standards of computer science, software and applied maths are world-class, say experts, and its youth is bursting with pent-up business energy. The university is expected to germinate spin-off businesses and eventually a Silicon Valley-style business park.
The faculty of 45 will offer an MA in business administration as well as courses on information technology and agriculture to an initial cohort of about 150 students recruited from the country's top research institutions.
But the unpredictability of the Kim Jong-Il government could still throw a spanner in the works. A key issue is whether staff and students will be allowed to access the internet freely, potentially a serious source of instability to the closed regime.
The facility could also face opposition from hardliners in the US administration of President George W. Bush, who may baulk at allowing the transfer of advanced technology to the PUST labs. Strict US export regulations forbid the sale of technology which could be used to make weapons to so-called "rogue regimes".
Meanwhile, Prof Park faces an uphill struggle convincing new lecturers to invest their future in a country with few of the traditional perks of academic life.