Neighborhood watch units now expected to do police work
Police in North Korea are handing responsibility for local crime to neighborhood watch units. Untrained residents are even being held accountable for crimes in their...
Women forced into military service face increasing sexual abuse
After graduating from middle school in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province in 2019, Kwon (not her real name) enlisted in the Korean People's Army, determined to...
The logging company that functions like a labor camp
When Choi, 57, failed to turn up for work at the Pihyon Logging Company at the end of May, the work unit sent someone over...
Residents complain about Pyongyang’s fancy new apartments
It has been three years since people moved into their apartments in the futuristic 83-story Songhwa Street Main Tower in Pyongyang and they’re not happy. ...
New policy to bombard North Koreans with information could spark new wave of defections
Could South Korea’s new unification policy unleash a flood of defections and undermine the regime of Kim Jong-un? While some defectors are critical of the...
600 escapees repatriated from China are sentenced to life in the gulag
Six hundred North Korean escapees who were rounded up last year in China and forcibly repatriated have been given life sentences in political prison camps...
A virgin raped in a prison camp
We won’t say her full name, for reasons which will become obvious, but Choi was not really a defector. Nor was she caught by the...
Kim comes to the rescue of flood victims
Kim Jong-un personally directed rescue operations last weekend following severe flooding in the city of Sinuiju and Uiju county on the Chinese border, according to...
Russians promote weirdness of North Korea for tourism
When 200 young Russians arrived at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport on Monday this week, they were excited to touch down in a strange and exotic place...
Do recent changes presage an imminent wave of mass defections?
The arrival in South Korea of a senior North Korean diplomat based in Cuba, which was confirmed earlier this month by Seoul’s intelligence agency, highlights...
Kim Jong-un new leadership style is just a cosmetic change
During a visit to a modern defense industry factory on July 2, Kim Jong-un behaved in a way that was a departure from the usual...
Are the upgraded Russia-North Korea ties just skin-deep?
Russia and North Korea last week upgraded their relationship from “friendly” to a strategic partnership with a mutual defense commitment that has prompted concerns about...
Excessive security annoys Putin aides and disturbs citizens in Pyongyang
Several senior Russian officials were undiplomatically expelled from a meeting room by North Korean security during last week’s visit to Pyongyang by Vladimir Putin, underscoring...