A gigantic steel tower in China – part of a tourist attraction with views into the North Korean city of Hyesan – that leans almost over the Yalu River between the two nations could be demolished after several tense interactions between Chinese tourists and North Koreans below, residents in both countries told Radio Free Asia.
Most of the North Koreans who escape to China are women, and they can become easy targets for human traffickers. Some end up being sold into marriages, sex work or other forms of servitude.
North Korean authorities are cracking down on people who use unregistered laptops and tablets to keep them from watching foreign “anti-socialist” videos, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.
South Korean authorities said Tuesday it detained a North Korean boat carrying four people believed to be seeking to defect, to assess the legitimacy of their intentions.
North Korea has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for talking on the phone to her daughter who had escaped the country and resettled in South Korea, sources in the North told Radio Free Asia.
This week, Japan commemorates the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945, which killed hundreds of civilians and ended World War II, the postwar constitution of Japan limited its military forces and renounced war as a right of the nation.
North Korea is one of the most closed-off countries, especially to foreign media. However, years of reporting from within the country helped Jean Lee, the first American news bureau chief in Pyongyang, in providing the audience with a more comprehensive understanding of the country.
Russian authorities grounded a Moscow-bound flight to arrest a North Korean diplomat’s wife and son who went missing from the far eastern city of Vladivostok last month, residents in Russia familiar with the case told Radio Free Asia.
Russian authorities have issued a missing persons alert for the family of a North Korean diplomat, in what local and international media reports said could be an attempted defection.
A childhood friend that has visited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times over the years told Radio Free Asia that he has never met Kim’s son, casting doubt on previous intelligence reports about the leader’s family life.