Edward Howell is a politics lecturer at Oxford. He was involved in launching the BBC World Service in North Korea.
If you visit South Korea, you may be startled at the presence of road signs pointing towards Kaesong and Pyongyang: two destinations that many of Seoul’s visitors will rarely have frequented. The latter – informally known as ‘Pyonghattan’ for its high-rise buildings – needs no explanation. The former was once the capital of dynastic Korea
The sight of a grimacing Kim Jong Un on board an inflatable rubber dinghy is not what one would expect from the leader of a country which has repeatedly threatened to ‘annihilate’ the United States. As floods ravage across provinces along North Korea’s border with China, the North Korean leader has leapt upon the occasion
When dealing with North Korea, it’s important not just to look at what the regime says about its present and future policies. Arguably more important is what the regime doesn’t say. Sometimes we might need to read between the lines. The two meetings between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin within the space of a
When Vladimir Putin lands in Pyongyang today on his first visit to North Korea in 24 years, it will be the second time he has met his fellow dictator, Kim Jong Un, in under a year. Even if the summit simply brings more bright lights and signatures, it would be a mistake to dismiss the
North Korea has long been known for its rhetorical braggadocio. Most of the time, the regime’s bluster needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. But on occasion, we should be less quick to dismiss the threats emanating from it and its state-controlled media mouthpieces. Earlier this week, North Korea launched over 250 balloons
Think of North Korean propaganda and you might think of old-fashioned revolutionary marches praising the Supreme Leader, denouncing the United States, and intercontinental ballistic missiles ready to be launched. The sight of cheering military officials using computers, donning a pair of Sony headphones, may not immediately come to mind. Even more unimaginable, however, is the
Recently, it was reported that North Korean animators may have been working on cartoon projects for western firms, including Amazon and HBO. Data found on a North Korean computer server suggests they worked on programmes such as Amazon’s Invincible, without western studios knowing. To those more used to North Korea’s frequent warnings about crushing the
The threat North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme poses to the world is well known. But as the hermit kingdom actively expands its weapons arsenal, and international institutions struggle to contain it, we shouldn’t ignore its development of chemical and biological weapons either. A recent report from the United States State Department asserts that North Korea has a
Alan Titchmarsh presumably did not expect to see his programme Garden Secrets, filmed in 2010, air on North Korean state television this week. He would perhaps have been even more surprised to see the network blur out his blue jeans for viewers. In the mid-to-late 1990s, under the rule of Kim Jong Il the anti-jeans rhetoric heightened
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader, is back. This time, though, Kim Jong Un’s sister doesn’t seem her usual vitriolic self – at least at first glance. Earlier this week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida offered an olive branch to the North Korean leader, outlining his willingness to engage in talks
South Korean voters will be among the more than four billion people going to the polls this year. With a huge potential range of outcomes, North Korea will be watching closely. The annual new year fireworks and pop concert in Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square concluded five days of high-level meetings of Kim Jong-un’s Workers’ Party
Crying in public is something we tend to associate with the North Korean people rather than their rulers – who are often described as having a near god-like status. Who can forget, following the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011, how the streets of Pyongyang were lined with weeping mourners? So perhaps it was surprising to
North Korea is hardly the first country that comes to mind when you think of elections. Yet since the inception of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, parliamentary and local polls have, in fact, taken place. The former occur every four to five years and elect members of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the
First, it was Russia’s war with Ukraine. Then, it was Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel. Both of these events, in gross violation of international law, have certainly not escaped the watchful eyes of that infamous state sponsor of terrorism, North Korea. Earlier this week, a Hamas official said North Korea is ‘part of [Hamas’s] alliance’,
Perhaps he was not so useful after all. Yesterday, North Korea’s decision to expel Private Travis King, just over two months after the US soldier bolted across the inter-Korean border, quashed speculation that he would be held captive for years. A month after admitting that King had been detained, Pyongyang decided to ‘expel’ the man
On 27 July, while commemorating the 70th anniversary of what North Korea perversely terms its ‘victory’ in the Korean war, Kim Jong-un proudly gave a guided tour of his intercontinental ballistic missiles, drones and missile engines. The lucky visitor was none other than Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Later that day, Shoigu stood next to the
After nearly a month of silence, North Korea has finally spoken out about Travis King – the US soldier who dashed across the border while on a guided tour from South Korea. To the dismay of observers, however, the press release by the state-controlled media outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, offered no details as to his current
Silence is not a common feature in the North Korean regime’s playbook, and this year is no exception. Only this past week, North Korea’s flurry of ballistic missile launches has been complemented by a cornucopia of threats from senior officials – including Kim Yo-jong, the sharp-tongued sister of Kim Jong-un – who have upped the
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Such is the axiom underpinning North Korea’s (DPRK) approach towards its nuclear and missile development. The hermit kingdom’s acceleration in its nuclear and missile capabilities demonstrates how Kim Jong-un is working down his wish list of expanding his country’s conventional and unconventional weapons, which he declared
North Korea’s spring has started with a bang. The United States and South Korea have staged their largest joint military exercises in five years, and Pyongyang’s rhetoric is becoming more aggressive. Kim Jong Un has warned that the US and South Korea would ‘plunge into despair’ for holding the drills, as he fired two missiles into the sea between the
