The Associated Press (AP) reported from Pyongyang on the recent announcement of the United States and North Korean agreement to freeze North Korea’s nuclear activities in exchange for much needed food aid. Washington sees this as a promising first step towards discussing disarmament; yet, according to the AP, “rare interviews”…
Category: North Korea
THE TWO KOREAS: The Reaction to Pyongyang’s Overture (an Update)
The Western news media – and especially The Economist Magazine of London – have been almost incautiously optimistic about recent diplomatic developments coming out of North Korea. But the media in South Korea has been rather cautious about Pyongyang’s latest pitch to suspend parts of its nuclear program, to allow…
BREAKTHROUGH IN NORTH KOREA?
The news media in South Korea is properly cautious about North Korea’s latest pitch to suspend parts of its nuclear program, to allow international inspectors onto suspected sites, and to halt long-range missile tests. Since 1994, endlessly back and forth across the Korean Peninsula, after all, negotiations of some sort over the nuclear issue have been on-going or going off on tangents — or (most often) going nowhere.
NORTH KOREA: A Happier ‘Pen’ for Defected North Korean Writers
Twenty writers claim they are ready to use their “pens, which are mightier than swords, to lead the spread of democracy in North Korea,” reports the Chosun Ilbo, a widely circulated South Korean daily newspaper. These writers, once considered among the elite in North Korea before they defected and continued…
NORTH KOREA: The Young Kim Shocks By Shirking Tradition
In Korean tradition, a soul is believed to stay in this world for 49 days before departing to another world, a period traditionally reserved for mourning. So when Kim Jong-un is caught smiling and being friendly in recent pictures taken within the 49 day period following his father’s death, many…
SOUTH KOREA: Director Locates the Future Hope of North Korea
South Korean director Jung Sung-san’s film, Ryanggang Children, portraying the lives of children in North Korea, is finally being released big-time. The director finished filming in 2006, but it would be nearly six years before the film found a distributor. According to The Chosun Ilbo, a widely circulated newspaper, Jung…
NORTH KOREA: China’s TV Interviews ‘Fading’ North Korean News Anchorwoman
China Central Television’s Pyongyang reporter gets an exclusive look inside North Korea’s Central Television news studio while interviewing the country’s most recognizable star, anchorwoman Ri Chun Hui, according to the Korea Realtime of the Wall Street Journal Asia. According to NorthKoreaTech.org, a site dedicated to reporting North Korean news, Ri,…
NORTH KOREA: Sibling Resentment Or a Clear-Eyed Assessment?
Not everyone appears thrilled that North Korea’s new beloved leader is second-son Kim Jong-un, reported to be all of 28 years old. Case in point: His elder brother, Kim Jong-Nam.
NORTH KOREA: The Associated Press is Now in Full Operation in Pyongyang
It finally has happened! After all these many years, a major U.S. news organization is opening shop in North Korea. It’s the Associated Press, fittingly enough, which after months of negotiations is receiving a permit from North Korean authorities to open a media bureau in Pyongyang. According to Yonhap News…
NORTH KOREA: College Students Get Third Degree on Hurry-up Construction Sites
Pictures taken in North Korea by an American tourist purport to show that the country is mobilizing college students to help finish massive construction projects in time for the nation’s centennial birthday celebration of its late founder Kim Il-Sung, according to Yonhap News Agency, the leading news agency of South Korea.
NORTH KOREA: Communist Country’s Citizens Stranded Across the Middle East
North Korean citizens are stranded in the Middle East, specifically Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Kuwait. They are being prevented from returning home, for fear that they would spread news of the social unrest in the region throughout North Korea.
JAPAN: Free Speech VS. Political Correctness in Journalist’s Comments
According to the Japanese government, seventeen Japanese citizens were abducted and taken to North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. Among those who are reportedly held by the communist nation is Keiko Arimoto. In 2009, TV Asahi, a Japanese television network, featured a debate program during which journalist Soichiro Tahara…
NORTH KOREA: Border Guards Shoot Defector on Chinese Soil
According to the prominent Seoul-based daily newspaper Korea Times, Kim Yong-hwa, head of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea, witnessed a North Korean defector shot to death by North Korean border guards on Chinese soil shortly after the defector crossed a border river…
NORTH KOREA: Is Its Collapse Imminent?
The Chosun Ilbo obtained a 480-page special report that features five pages dedicated to the Korean Peninsula and included is an estimate that North Korea’s collapse is imminent, perhaps as soon as 2020.