As Sweden’s ambassador to South Korea from 2018 to 2021, Jakob Hallgren saw firsthand as the pendulum shifted from hope and optimism about the future of inter-Korean relations to pessimism and doubt a

June was a busy month on the Korean Peninsula. The leaders of the U.S., Japan and South Korea met for the first time in nearly five years as Tokyo and Seoul began to repair ties. North Korea blamed ‘a

Growing up in Kobe, Park Hyangsu lived in a world apart from most of the Japanese people around her. At school, her teachers spoke Korean. In the classroom, portraits of North Korean leaders Kim Il Su

When the war in Ukraine broke out earlier this year, Russian leader Vladimir Putin justified his country’s invasion as an effort to “denazify” its smaller neighbor, a striking claim given that Ukraini

The assassination of Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Un’s older half-brother who was at one time believed to be in line to succeed their father, stands among the most shocking episodes of the current leader’s

From 1959 to 1984, some 93,000 ethnic Koreans voluntarily left Japan to go live in the DPRK. Driven away by discrimination in Japan, and lured by promises of free housing and health care in socialist

In late May, Korea Risk Group hosted a special three-day conference on South Korea’s east coast for NK Pro subscribers and other North Korea watchers. Called the East Coast Exchange, the event feature

North Korea has rapidly expanded its cyber capabilities over the last decade, from marginal operations focused on distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to large-scale cyberwarfare capable of co

When North Korea imposed strict pandemic border controls in Jan. 2020, the country simultaneously closed its door to international tourists and suspended a growing industry that brought in hundreds of

Two and a half years into the global COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea reported its first outbreak on May 12, with cases of “fever” quickly surpassing a million. How prepared is the DPRK to fight the spr