Most Popular
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[Exclusive] Korean adoptee sisters meet for the first time in 39 years
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Signs point to N. Korean troops in Russia-Ukraine combat zone
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Yoon calls for measures to protect Koreans amid escalating Iran-Israel conflicts
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Rose's 'Apt.' redefines K-pop's global appeal
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Civil servant’s death linked to workplace bullying
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Two years on, thousands mourn Itaewon tragedy, calling for accountability
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[Weekender] Walk around Korea to really get to know the country
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N. Korea slams Seoul-Washington joint air exercise
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[Herald Interview] Love for K-drama, food defines 'Secret Ingredient'
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[Herald Interview] K-pop’s 'best years are ahead of us': Spotify’s general manager for Asia Pacific
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NK's largest youth group vows support for state-led fight against anti-socialist practices
North Korea's largest youth group held a meeting and discussed ways to help the state-led campaign to eradicate anti-socialist practices in their country, state media reported on Thursday. The Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League, governed by the Workers' Party, held an enlarged meeting on Wednesday via video conference and urged its members to intensify efforts to execute a "stout and vigorous ideological offensive," according to the Korean Central News Agency. "The meeting d
March 4, 2021
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NK adopts social insurance, disinfection laws at Supreme People's Assembly meeting
North Korea adopted laws on social insurance and disinfection at a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly, state media said Thursday, amid a nationwide campaign against the coronavirus. The North also approved a "master plan" for land development in the east coastal area, possibly including the Mount Kumgang resort area that the country used to run jointly with South Korea. These laws were adopted at a SPA meeting held Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The soc
March 4, 2021
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NK leader stresses local party officials' role for balanced national development
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stressed the role of local party officials in archiving national development as he attended a workshop of chief secretaries of city and county committees of the ruling Workers' Party, state media reported Thursday. The workshop, the first of its kind, was held on Wednesday at the building of the Central Committee of the party in Pyongyang to discuss ways to implement goals put forth during a rare party congress in January, according to the Korean Central News Age
March 4, 2021
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Seoul’s North Korea human rights law at standstill for 5 years
South Korea’s North Korea Human Rights Act remains of little real consequence five years after its enactment, with the ruling liberal bloc showing no particular urgency in dealing with human rights violations in the North amid stalled peace talks. On Wednesday, the law marked its fifth anniversary since it was enacted on March 3, 2016, more than a decade after similar laws took effect in the US and Japan in the early 2000s. But little progress has been made in carrying out the concrete
March 3, 2021
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Sanctions not sole reason for humanitarian crisis in N. Korea: unification ministry
Unification Minister Lee In-young did not mean that global sanctions are the sole reason for causing a humanitarian crisis in North Korea when he recently stressed the need to review their efficacy, his spokesperson said Wednesday. In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Lee raised the need to see whether sanctions have just ended up causing hardships to North Korean people without achieving their intended purpose of forcing Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. The rem
March 3, 2021
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N. Korea lost forest area size of 330,000 soccer fields in two decades
North Korea lost forest area the size of 330,000 soccer pitches in nearly two decades, data showed Wednesday, further accelerating the country's deforestation problem. From 2001 to 2019, North Korea lost a total of 233,000 hectares of tree cover, according to data by Global Forest Watch, a global monitoring service. The country's deforestation area increased sharply in 2019, recording the highest figure during the period with 27,500 hectares of tree loss. The provinces of Ryanggang, Jagang an
March 3, 2021
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[Newsmaker] N. Korea to be supplied with 1.7m doses of coronavirus vaccines through COVAX
North Korea is expected to be supplied with around 1.7 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 by May through a global vaccine distribution program. According to a vaccine allocation plan unveiled by the COVAX Facility, a total of 1.704 million doses of the AZ-Oxford vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca will be provided to North Korea from February to May. The amount will be enough to inoculate around 852,000 people given that a person should be shot twice. The COVAX Facility earlier said
March 3, 2021
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Satellite images show N. Korea built structure to conceal nuclear weapons site: CNN
Recent satellite images show that North Korea may haven taken steps to hide a facility that the US believes is used to store nuclear weapons, CNN reported Tuesday. The images, captured by a US space technology company, Maxar, on Feb. 11, show new structures at the North's Yongdoktong site to conceal entrances to two underground tunnels, the report said. "Yongdoktong has been previously identified by US intelligence as a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons storage facility and is still
March 3, 2021
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US must use maximum pressure to convince N. Korea it is safer without nukes: McMaster
The United States and its allies must maintain maximum pressure on North Korea to make the country realize that it is safer without nuclear weapons than it is with them, a former US national security adviser said Tuesday. H.R. McMaster also said the US must make it clear to the North that its goal is not to remove leader Kim Jong-un. "Multiple diplomatic efforts to ensure that the North Korean regime did not pose a grave threat to the world have resulted in failure and disappointment,&quo
March 3, 2021
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NK blasts Harvard professor for labeling sex slaves ‘prostitutes’
North Korea’s propaganda outlet on Tuesday slammed the Harvard Law School professor who claimed that “comfort women” were voluntary prostitutes. Comfort women is a euphemism for women from Korea and other countries who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military before and during World War II. Mark Ramseyer, Mitsubishi professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School, earlier prompted international outcry with his paper arguing that the sex slaves will
March 2, 2021
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Signs of activities detected at NK’s nuclear site: IAEA
Signs of activity have recently been detected at some North Korean nuclear facilities, the UN nuclear watchdog chief said Monday, expressing “serious concern” at the reclusive regime’s continued activities. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the board of governors that there was evidence that the regime has continued construction at an experimental light-water reactor at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, including testing of the
March 2, 2021
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Military to overhaul Army division following NK man's border crossing
The military will overhaul an infantry division in charge of guarding the heavily fortified border separating South and North Korea, the defense ministry said Tuesday, following a series of security failures in the eastern region. Officials from the ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army will soon visit the 22nd infantry division in the eastern border town of Goseong to assess the unit "from a perspective of reorganization and operation," according to the ministry. The divi
March 2, 2021
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N. Korea's paper stresses tree planting on arbor day
North Korea's official newspaper on Tuesday stressed the importance of planting trees to make the country less vulnerable to natural disasters as Pyongyang marked its arbor day. "Forestry is a valuable resource for our country and important asset for our country's prosperity and people's happiness," the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, said in an editorial. "Planting and taking care of trees is important work that cannot be delayed or suspended
March 2, 2021
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NK media criticizes Ramseyer as 'disgusting money grubber' and 'pseudo scholar'
A North Korean propaganda outlet Tuesday strongly criticized a US professor over his controversial claim that victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery are voluntary prostitutes, calling him a "disgusting money grubber" and "pseudo scholar." This marked the first time that a North Korean media outlet has mentioned J. Mark Ramseyer, Mitsubishi professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, since he caused a stir by describing the former sex slaves as prostitutes u
March 2, 2021
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IAEA chief: NK shows signs of operating steam plant at plutonium reprocessing facility
North Korea has been showing signs of operating a thermal plant used to provide heat to a nuclear fuel rod reprocessing facility, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog said, an indication that Pyongyang could try to harvest plutonium for nuclear weapons. During Monday's session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi took note of the indications at the Yongbyon complex, north of Pyongyang, calling the North's continuing nuclear progr
March 2, 2021
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COVID response blocks N. Korea aid efforts: US State Dept.
The US State Department said North Korea’s border shutdowns to combat the pandemic are preventing the country from receiving outside help from humanitarian aid groups. “These severe measures have significantly hindered the efforts of humanitarian organizations, UN agencies, and other countries to deliver aid to those most in need after they received swift exemptions from the 1718 Committee,” the State Department told Voice of America on Sunday The statement came in response t
March 1, 2021
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N. Korea's severe virus measures hinder humanitarian aid: State Dept.
The US State Department assessed that North Korea's stringent measures against COVID-19 have significantly impeded efforts of outside organizations to deliver humanitarian aid to the impoverished nation, according to a news report Sunday. Radio Free Asia quoted a State Department spokesperson as saying that Pyongyang's "extremely stringent COVID-19 response" has "significantly hindered the efforts of humanitarian organizations, UN agencies and other countries to deliver aid to th
Feb. 28, 2021
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NK workers stage pep rallies for new 5-year economic development plan
North Korea has staged worker pep rallies en masse across the country to boost morale in achieving a new five-year state economic development put forward by leader Kim Jong-un last month, the country's state media said Sunday. The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that workers' rallies aimed at encouraging the fulfillment of the year-one goals of the five-year economic plan were held in multiple industrial fields and units. The rallies were held as answers to an earli
Feb. 28, 2021
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[Weekender] North Korean defector runs in UK election to defend ‘voiceless’
Park Ji-hyun still remembers the feeling when she first arrived in the UK in 2008. Having fled repression and poverty in North Korea and human trafficking in China, she was glad to find a refuge, but also nervous to start a new life thousands of kilometers away from home. “Many people welcomed me when I got here,” Park told The Korea Herald in a recent interview via Zoom. “Back then, I couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of the word ‘welcome,’ but just
Feb. 27, 2021
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Unification minister urges review of negative impact of sanctions
Unification Minister Lee In-young called Friday for efforts to ensure that international sanctions on Pyongyang do not result in unintended negativec effects on the lives of ordinary North Korean people. "We need to assess how effective sanctions have been on the desired goal of denuclearization five years since they were imposed," Lee said in an interview with the Financial Times, according to a Korean-language release from his ministry. "If the lives of North Koreans have wors
Feb. 26, 2021