The most bitterly funny story of the week is that a defector from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is ‘not as nuts’ as the indoctrination now forced on Western students. Yeonmi Park fled from the Hermit Kingdom when she was just 13, and endured horrible things during her escape. Eventually, she reached South Korea. … Read more
North Korea said on Saturday that the Biden administration had taken a wrong first step and revealed ‘deep-seated hostility’ by criticizing its self-defensive missile test. On Friday, North Korea said it had launched a new type of tactical short-range ballistic missile. President Joe Biden said the test violated UN Security Council resolutions but he remained … Read more
Kim Jong GONE? North Korean despot misses test firing of Pyongyang’s short range tactical ballistic missile North Korea claimed it successfully launched a new short-range ballistic missile The tactical missile launch was the first test by North Korea in more than a year Kim Jong Un normally attends such shows of strength to provide ‘field … Read more
North Korea has fired its first ballistic missiles in a year, Japan’s Defense Ministry confirmed – a move likely to increase tensions after it fired its first cruise missiles at the weekend. The two short-range ballistic missiles were launched from North Korea on Wednesday (Thursday, local time) – fired from Wonsan on North Korea’s eastern coast … Read more
North Korea fires off short-range missiles following ‘sleep in peace’ warning from Kim Jong-un’s sister, presenting Joe Biden with another foreign policy challenge The launches came over the weekend They follow a round of joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises Dictator’s sister Kim Yo-jong said if the U.S. ‘wants to sleep in peace for the coming … Read more
Russian diplomats are forced to leave North Korea on foot while pushing their luggage on a rail trolley after Kim Jong Un closed border to fight Covid Pictures showed Russia’s third secretary Vladislav Sorokin pushing his family The group of eight people took a 32-hour train ride, then two hours on a bus The youngest … Read more
North Korean in diving gear swims to the South and crawls through drain pipe to defect A man in his 20s swam for six hours in an attempt to defect from North Korea Diving gear and a metal helmet were discovered on beach in Goseong, Gangwon The man also crawled through a drainage pipe underneath … Read more
Kim Jong Un admits North Korea is facing its ‘worst ever’ difficulties in rare admission of failure amid pandemic, US sanctions and spate of natural disasters Kim is facing what appears to be the toughest crisis of his nine-year dictatorship With the economy already troubled, the pandemic has compounded its issues Pandemic-related border closings and … Read more
North Korea continued its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes throughout 2020 in violation of international sanctions and funded them with £220m ($300m) stolen through cyber hacks, according to a confidential United Nations report. Kim Jong-un’s regime ‘produced fissile material, maintained nuclear facilities and upgraded its ballistic missile infrastructure’ while continuing to seek material and technology … Read more
Coronavirus lockdowns have stripped the world of democratic freedoms, with 2020 returning the worst scores in the 15-year history of an annual democracy index. The United Kingdom slipped two places, while France and Portugal joined the US in the ‘flawed democracies’ categories compiled in the Economist’s Democracy Index. Norway, Iceland and Sweden were unchanged at … Read more