New reports on that North Korean soldier’s defection at the Joint Security Area last month have added even more dramatic detail to his story. First, we learned of the heroism of the ROK soldier...
The U.N. Command, which stands face-to-face with the Korean People’s Army (NKPA) at the Korean DMZ, has released footage of the defection last week of an NKPA soldier right through the so-calle...
It has been an eventful day along the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). South Korean authorities say that a 58-year-old Louisiana man was found on the wrong side of the Civilian Control Line, wher...
Nat Kretchun’s latest report on Pyongyang’s efforts to control the spread of outside and subversive information suggests that the state has mostly written off its thirty- and forty-somethings...
I haven’t yet had time to read Nat Kretchun’s new report on the circulation of samizdat inside North Korea, but Reuters, The Washington Post, and Sokeel Park helpfully summarize its bleak ...
He reported that “According to an officer of the Military Service and Mobilization Division, the number of new recruits is only around 86% in proportion to the number of discharged soldiers. Si...
This blog has closely followed reports of indiscipline within the North Korean military, resistance against the state, strategies for political subversion, and the breakdown of border control. La...
When the U.S. Army wants to breach a minefield, it deploys a Mine-Clearing Line Charge to blast a path through it with 1,750 pounds of C-4. The procedure looks like this: Obviously, the North Kor...
https://freekorea.us/2016/08/to-prevent-war-talk-to-north-koreas-soldiers-about-rice-peace-freedom/
Via the Daily NK and Yonhap, we have yet another report of fratricidal violence, corruption, and indiscipline among North Korea’s border guards, except this time, the fratricidal intent wa...
https://freekorea.us/2016/08/n-korean-nco-kills-wife-daughter-of-his-company-commander/
It has been three months since 12 young women and a man defected from that North Korean restaurant in Ningpo, China, and since 100 North Korean workers in Kuwait staged a mass protest against the...
A few days ago, the Korea Times carried a profile of Lee So-yeon, a native of Hoeryong in North Korea’s far northeast, who defected to the South in 2008, did menial jobs for a few years, later ...
https://freekorea.us/2016/04/the-north-korean-armys-rape-epidemic/
Last week, a 19 year-old North Korean army private fled “repeated physical abuse at the hands of his superiors” and “the realities of his impoverished country,” walked and rode for a wee...
https://freekorea.us/2015/06/is-the-north-korean-military-falling-apart/
It has been four whole days since I said I was done talking about Women Cross DMZ for a year. How foolish it was of me to write that. For one thing, I did not anticipate having this detailed his...
https://freekorea.us/2015/05/the-north-korean-armys-rape-problem-gloria-steinem-and-kangan-province/
In the eleven years I’ve been writing OFK, I’ve observed a cycle in North Korea’s border security. – In Phase One, the lure of capitalism coopts and corrupts the men (and they are mostly ...
Rimjin-gang updates us on the meth trade in North Hamgyeong, in the extreme northeast of North Korea: I would say that the buying and selling of these substances are far more active than ever bef...
https://freekorea.us/2015/01/meth-prices-inching-up-in-north-korea/
Last week, China filed an official protest with North Korea over the December killing of four Chinese civilians by a rogue North Korean border guard who had turned to robbery. A Bloomberg reporte...
Twenty years ago in North Korea’s outer provinces, heavy industry seized up. In short order, so did most of the beneficial functions of government, including the food distribution system. The s...
The North Korea part begins around the one-minute mark. Chang and Bechtol think North Korea is unstable, but they may know something I don’t. I agree that the turnover seems to have been high l...
https://freekorea.us/2014/11/bruce-bechtol-and-gordon-chang-on-the-john-batchelor-show/