Story Archive
2008-12-23
Four children in a group of would-be North Korean defectors arrested in Burma had mothers waiting for them in South Korea.
2008-12-16
A mobile phone service is launched in North Korea, but who will have access to it is unclear.
2008-12-09
South Korea warns of damaged ties with North Korea if activists persist in launching propaganda leaflets across the border.
2008-12-05
A North Korean move to shut down the jointly operated Kaesong Industrial Complex could gravely harm the country’s fragile economy.
2008-12-01
Read extracts in English from Shin Dong Hyuk's unprecedented memoir of growing up in one of North Korea's most brutal prison camps.
2008-11-30
A North Korean who escaped from one of the Stalinist regime's total-control prison camps wants the world to read his memoir.
2008-11-11
Amid signs of worsening food shortages, laborers from North Korea appear to be eating less and missing more work.
2008-11-07
U.S. officials conclude talks with North Korean delegation in New York.
2008-11-06
U.S. president-elect Barack Obama gets urging from North Korean defectors and rights groups to keep up the pressure on Pyongyang.
2008-09-15
Rumors are swirling over the reported ill health of the North Korean leader, but who would succeed him if they prove true is a mystery.
2008-09-10
Ever hear the one about the communist kittens? The fish who escaped being eaten? Adam and Eve in the Workers' Paradise? These North Korean political jokes hint broadly at the grit and tenacity of citizens living under the world's last surviving Stalinist government.
2008-07-31
The Czech Republic gives temporary safe haven to a group of North Korean asylum-seekers.
2008-07-16
An unremarkable South Korean village is home to a little-known cemetery for North Korean war dead.
2008-06-03
Never mind that state media still demonize anything marginally capitalist. In North Korea, nothing shouts "status" like a smuggled kitchen appliance.
2008-05-29
A young mother from North Korea dies of lung cancer just three weeks after settling as a refugee with her family in the United States, after a harrowing journey that highlights the plight of North Korean defectors.
2008-05-21
Sent back to North Korea from China four times, the Cho sisters finally won resettlement as U.S. refugees. Now they're planning for the future but still worrying about those they left behind.
2008-05-13
As court poet for North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, Jang Jin-sung enjoyed all the trappings of life among the Pyongyang elite. But he traded it in for a dangerous flight to South Korea, where he is now a best-selling author of poems chronicling the grueling misery of North Korean life.
2008-04-14
North Korea has a well-earned reputation as one of the most tightly closed and rigorously controlled countries on Earth. But when it comes to the privacy of the bedroom, even the all-powerful North Korean Workers’ Party is largely hands-off, according to North Korean defectors.
2008-03-21
Chinese police have arrested some 40 North Koreans in a series of raids on a border area in Liaoning province, with others detained as they tried to cross the Tumen River into China, according to authoritative Korean sources. Analysts say the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing are pushing China to crack down on undocumented North Koreans, whose suffering will likely escalate further.
2008-03-05
North Korea is still one of the least hospitable societies for people with a disability, but charity workers say attitudes to the disabled are slowly changing as the government begins to build facilities and request specialized equipment for them.
