Some North Korean hospitals are posting prices for treatment and medicine in a break from past practice that suggests authorities are abandoning the goal of providing free health care, sources in the country have told Radio Free Asia.
The North Korean army is ordering soldiers to stop scrounging the streets for cigarette butts to smoke even as commanders keep some of the soldiers’ monthly cigarette rations for themselves, members of the country’s military told Radio Free Asia.
Although it isn’t legal for women to obtain drivers’ licenses, it isn’t exactly easy for men to get them either. Only men who are in the military or work in a factory and are approved by the government are eligible to undergo driver training, which can take three to six months to complete.
Bitter cold in North Korea has forced schools to close, hospitals go into emergency mode and water supplies to be disrupted as pumps freeze over, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.
North Korea has banned two popular dishes from being sold in restaurants because they are South Korean in origin, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.
A rare video clip that shows North Korean women — dispatched to China as workers — dancing with Chinese men to loud disco music, indicates that they are picking up elements of capitalist culture that would be forbidden in their restrictive home country.
North Korea has added the “rooster hairstyle” and blouses with see-through sleeves to its banned fashion list, saying they “obscure the image of a socialist system,” sources inside the country said.
A group of North Korean defectors based in Seoul launched a news website with the aim of exposing North Korean human rights abuses.They also want to provide a more nuanced perspective about their homeland.
Authorities in North Korea are showing propaganda videos meant to scare people off watching media from rival South Korea, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.
North Korea is opening more information technology exchange centers across the country – facilities that sell apps to the growing number of smartphone users, residents told Radio Free Asia.