Korea, North

On a frozen day in December, 1950, as the Korean War raged below him, Jesse Brown crash landed on a North Korean mountainside. A few minutes later, Tom Hudner followed…

Starting on October 20, 2015, a group of South Koreans will have the chance to cross the DMZ to meet with brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, and other family members that…

October 2015 will mark 25 years since the official reunification of East and West Germany. Meanwhile, the Korean Peninsula remains divided. South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has referenced Germany many…

The Eugene Bell Foundation has been working in the DPRK for 20 years. Now they focus on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a deadly disease that is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to…

With Joe Biden headed to the White House, North Korea watchers are speculating how the incoming administration will deal with this long-standing foreign policy irritant. One place to look for cues: how Obama’s first year with Kim Jong Il panned out. In doing so, we now have the advantage of several new memoirs—from Susan Rice,…

South Korea in 2020 faced difficult challenges both off and on the Korean Peninsula. As in other states, the coronavirus pandemic took center stage by irreversibly changing every aspect of society. And inter-Korean relations remain stalled, as Pyongyang continues to stonewall every entreaty from Seoul. But this year also saw Korea make significant advances in…

The UN Security Council discussed North Korea’s human rights abuses in a closed session on Friday December 11.  Because of the Covid pandemic, it was a virtual (online) meeting rather than an in-person session, and because of Chinese and Russian objections, it was a closed session without the presence of news media to report on…

In the next few days, the United Nations General Assembly will approve a resolution on “The Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”  The text of the 11 page resolution reviews the human rights abuses that the UN Commission of Inquiry on North Korea’s human rights documented (2013-2014), as well as…

Please join KEI for a discussion on North Korea’s potential incorporation of AI into its cyber arsenal.