North Korea amends constitution to finalize rejection of unification
Sign up here. North Korea has revised its constitution to remove references to reunification with South Korea, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said on May 5. The...
Can South Koreans change how they see North Koreans?
Sign up here. When North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC arrives in Suwon on May 17, how will South Koreans view them? This is far from the...
Illegal transfer of funds to North Korea and forcible repatriation of defectors: Will justice ever be served at the highest levels?
Sign up here. In 2024, when President Lee Jae-myung was leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), he was indicted over allegations...
North Korea amends constitution to finalize rejection of unification
Sign up here. North Korea has revised its constitution to remove references to reunification with South Korea, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said on May 5.The amendment,...
Is South Korea starting to give up on re-unification?
When North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced in late 2023 that re-unification was no longer going to happen, the reaction in South Korea was as...
The horizon I had to cross, the life I had to endure
The nights in my hometown were not a time for dreaming. Life then was a matter of endurance and the night the only time to...
Party Congress reaffirms rejection of reunification, South Korea is now an “enemy”
The 9th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which ended on February 25, reaffirmed Kim Jong-un’s position as General Secretary, solidifying his absolute...
Why is the government changing the official way of referring to defectors?
One of the questions I was asked most often as I settled in South Korea was whether I preferred to be called a defector (talbukmin),...
2025: A year of milestone anniversaries for Korea
The year 2025 saw some significant anniversaries for Korea, some of which were for the better, while others were for the worse. The best known...
Proposal to amend Article 3 of the ROK Constitution is a flawed effort to accommodate North Korea
The debate in South Korea over North Korea’s “hostile two-state theory” now seems to be going beyond mere diplomatic rhetoric. Moon Chung-in, a prominent former...
Reunification has disappeared, leaving only hostility
When I lived in North Korea, our rivals in the South were depicted as “the same people, a counterpart we must one day reunite with.” ...
Ordinary North Koreans express optimism over Lee’s inauguration in the South
Following a straight news report by the Korean Central News Agency on the inauguration of President Lee Jae-Myung, informing the populace about the change at...
The anti-Americanism and pro-North Korea tendencies of South Korea’s Candlelight Action protest movement
After President Yoon Seok-yeol took office in May 2022, there was immediately a rebirth of the so-called candlelight protests which had targeted and led to...
Was there almost a second Korean War in 1980?
South Korea this week marks the 44th anniversary of protests in Gwangju, where over 200 civilians were killed by martial law forces suppressing what was...
Why are North Korean defectors conservative?
Nine out of ten North Korean defectors in South Korea support conservative parties. In National Assembly elections in 2012, for example, the turnout among defectors...
South Korea through the eyes of North Koreans
If you were to ask North Koreans how they view South Korea, their response might vary according to their job, the part of the country...
South Korea is making it more difficult for defectors to send money to their families
“I once cried and swore all night, praying the broker who stole my money would die. I lost all I had. After that, I borrowed...
When the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend: the South Koreans who scratch Kim Jong-un’s back
In a peculiar dynamic, North Korean media has been reporting on the activities of certain leftist lawmakers and activists in South Korea in a way...