Korea

A selection of news from and about North Korea and North Korean defectors. Most of these articles were aired in Korean and can be found, in their original language, on the Korean Web site, in written and audio format. For maps, slideshows, and videos, please visit the multimedia section of the Korean Web site.

It's All About Rice Cookers

2008-06-03

Never mind that state media still demonize anything marginally capitalist. In North Korea, nothing shouts "status" like a smuggled kitchen appliance.

21 Days of Asylum

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.

Sisters Fear for 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.

Defector Is Best-Selling Poet

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.

Love and Sex in North Korea

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.

Chinese Stage Sweep, Arrest 40 North Koreans

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.


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