Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com North Koreans some years ago had an unusual way of acquiring professional expertise in teaching people foreign languages. Rather than advertise for teachers, they kidnapped native speakers. Most of them were Japanese, but they also captured likely candidates from Europe and the Middle East. Robert Boynton, a professor […]
Special to WorldTribune.com The mysterious death of a top aide to Kim Jong-Un has all the markings of another purge by the young leader, analysts say. Kim Yang-Gon, secretary of the Workers’ Party and Kim Jong-Un’s point man on South Korea, was killed in a car crash in Pyongyang at 6:15 a.m. on Dec. 29. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com North Korea’s young leader appears to have a popularity problem with the country’s young residents. According to a report in the Daily NK, North Korean students “do not even consider Kim Jong-Un to be a real leader.” The report said that previous generations of schoolchildren had looked at Pyongyang’s leaders as though […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Video footage smuggled out of North Korea shows an open air public trial of two men who are condemned to a labor camp for a “grave criminal act” which includes watching an American film. The video, filmed secretly in September 2013, shows the two accused men, aged 30 and 27, standing in […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The North Koreans could not have come up with a better way to publicize a movie. Can anyone imagine a Hollywood comedy causing a diplomatic storm involving United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and threats of “resolute and merciless” retaliation against the country that spawned this slapstick nonsense? The […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea has dropped the image of its founding father Kim Il-Sung from new banknotes as grandson and new leader Kim Jong-Un struggles to assert his authority, sources and analysts said. The North’s new 5,000-won bills obtained by the South Korean government no longer feature Kim Il-Sung. On […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Kim Sol-Song, a half-sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, is a “hidden power center” involved in key policies, slush funds management and cyber-security, sources and analysts here say. “Kim Sol-Song has not been seen in public, but she had long been groomed by her late father Kim […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The Workers’ Party is believed to have increased its power relative to the military in North Korea as new leader Kim Jong-Un has refocused the regime and enhanced the Party’s status, sources and analysts here said. The Party was sidelined under Kim’s late father Kim Jong-Il who ruled […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — A majority of North Korean defectors here believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s public approval rating is above 50 percent thanks to programs to shape his image as a genial and friendly leader, a poll shows. [See also: Basketball diplomacy: The Harlem Globetrotters inside the hermit kingdom of North […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — A visiting Chinese senior official’s comment about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program at a meeting with its leader Kim Jong-Un is being viewed by South Korean government officials and analysts here as one of the clearest signs that Beijing may be reviewing its decades-long policy toward its client […]