NKorean wage demands could jeopardize factories

A joint project between the Koreas to build an industrial park in the North was hailed as a symbol of detente, but it has now become another point of friction between the two countries.

Drawn by cheap North Korean labor, more than 100 South Korean companies have set up factories at Kaesong. The North says the labor is too cheap, a position that some South Korean analysts said Wednesday could threaten the existence of the complex itself.

North Korean workers in the complex just north of the heavily armed border are paid about $70 a month on average _ about half that of Chinese laborers at South Korean factories in China, according to the South Korean …