Worldcrunch
Welcome to Wednesday, where Taliban leaders reportedly brawl inside the presidential palace, North Korea fires more missiles, and we learn that whales used to, er, roam around Egypt. We also explore some of the increasingly hostile, atypical — and sometimes downright weird — anti-vax protests around the world. ✍️ Newsletter by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Anne-Sophie Goninet […]
? Dobrý deň!* Welcome to Monday, where North Korea tests a new long-range missile, the Taliban will not ban women from university this time (though under several conditions), and a jar of hair has the auction world all shook up. Meanwhile, French daily Les Echos looks at how cosmetic and apparel companies in China (a […]
Kim Jong-Un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, has been summoned to appear in a Japanese courthouse. Five people who moved to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) between 1959 and 1984 are seeking 500 million yen (3.8 million euros) in damages from the North Korean government for deceiving them with promises of a prosperous […]
The U.S. may need to accept that Pyongyang doesn’t give up its nuclear program.
-OpEd- TOKYO — The United States has turned to inward-looking politics, while the unifying force of Europe has waned due to rampant populism and confusion in Britain, Germany and France. The pillars that have sustained global stability are seemingly fading away. Given the situation, we cannot but be wary of confusion stemming from the intense […]
Despite Kremlin denials, Western sanctions are hitting Russia hard, and prompting its president to look elsewhere for new alliances and opportunities.
With its mineral resources and cheap labor, the country has significant potential for growth, but economic openness could undermine its dictatorship.
SEOUL – They are the simplest of dreams. To see familiar streets once more. Or walk along a river at the center of childhood memories. Or throw a big party with wine. These dreams belong to people who risked everything to flee North Korea and then, as some of the most high-profile defectors, spoke out about the rights abuses and repression of Kim Jong Un’s regime. But now, ahead of Tuesday’s summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in Singapore, the defectors are considering a question that until recently seemed foolish to ask: Could they one day return home? Such […]
WASHINGTON — When Kim Jong-un came out in the open, analysts, spies and all kind of experts were running through the footage, sound bites, testimonies, intelligence reports and open-source information collected during the few hours the North Korean dictator visited South Korea, Pyongyang’s staunch enemy since 1953. Since that year, not a single member of […]
Kim Jong Un’s historic call for peace also included an unspoken message to U.S. President Donald Trump: North Korea won’t surrender its nuclear weapons easily. The agreement Kim reached Friday with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in declared “a new era of peace” and sought a formal end to the seven-decade-old Korean War. While it said both countries committed to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, it gave no details on concrete steps to achieve it. More ominously, North Korean’s state-run media released a commentary shortly after the agreement was announced calling on the U.S. to drop its “anachronistic hostile policy” and “bad […]
It will be marked in the historical record as the date when China took over control of Far East Asia.
PARIS — “Previously on President Trump …” We have gotten used to following the news from the White House as we would a prime-time television drama. This week’s plot includes the long-awaited boot for Big Rex. Did he know it was coming? Who said what to whom, and when? What does it mean for Vlad? […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/i2yAKwn4wBk?rel=0 expand=1] 2017 In 2 Minutes, A Video Year In Review
With each passing day, war with North Korea seems to draw closer. Kim Jong Un continues to test his arsenal; Donald Trump issues new threats and nicknames his nemesis “Rocket Man“; Kim responds in kind, saying the U.S. president’s speech yesterday at the United Nations was “the sound of a dog barking.” Some say the […]
In May 1999, I visited North Korea. I was based at the time in Beijing as a correspondent for a Slovenian newspaper, and it was impossible not to visit the country that had aroused so many questions and offered so few answers. One just needed to see the place. So I did. I joined a […]
North Korea may now be too dangerous to be attacked. But that may force all to find a diplomatic solution.
-Analysis- As Kim Jong-un again edges the world closer to an unthinkable nuclear showdown, the tribulations of a humble music store owner in Berlin may help explain why it’s so hard to figure out what to do with North Korea. German daily Die Welt spoke last week with Andreas Schmucker about a court case pending […]
Basketball star-cum-celebrity apprentice-cum-cultural envoy Dennis Rodman is in North Korea for yet another rendezvous with his “lifelong friend” Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of the hermit kingdom. When Rodman last visited Pyongyang in 2013, he blasted then President Barack Obama for nurturing hostile relations between the U.S. and the pariah state. But now, under Donald […]
An Italian reporter gets a rare glimpse past the North Korean regime’s attempt to portray the country in a positive new light.
Kim Sul-song, the Supreme Leader’s enigmatic half-sister, has extended her influence to new heights. Could she be the real threat to her brother?
-Analysis- When a hit has been ordered, the chosen method for assassination is ultimately of secondary importance. A “successful” car bomb, stabbing or long-distance rifle shot all have the same final result for the intended victim. Still, there’s something about poisoning. The Shakespearean plotting and preparation required to secure and administer the fatal potion give […]
Kim Jong-un will be celebrating his 33rd birthday this Sunday. Wishes and presents are usually in order on this type of occasion, but it’s difficult to see any desire the North Korean dictator hasn’t already seen fulfilled in his five years in power. For starters, the cult of personality has never been bigger in North […]
Whatever the hopes for Cuba, the country’s regime seems keen to follow the profit model for the economy to shore up its political grip. Just like China and Russia.
At first, most thought it was another earthquake. But the 5.3-magnitude rumble coming from the northeastern corner of North Korea was a potentially much more frightening event: Pyongyang had set off its most powerful nuclear weapon test ever. World leaders were quick to react to this latest act of defiance. South Korea denounced Pyongyang leader […]
Brazil struggled to complete the sporting venues needed for the Olympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro. But what about the brand new stadiums that were built especially for the FIFA World Cup, just two years ago? Although they cost billions, most of these stadiums now have a very low occupancy rate: The Arena Pantanal only […]
Pyongyang’s Mansudae monument — Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen BEIJING — “This summer, cross the world’s most difficult border and visit a country with the highest index of happiness and security” reads the advertisement of the travel agency in Taiyuan, in the remote western Chinese province of Shanxi. “Experience the China we used to know!” On […]
SPOTLIGHT: SARAJEVO RUBBLE TO TRUMP TOWER The pace of modern communication tells us that what’s here today is gone … tonight. The potential worldwide virality of any piece of digitally circulated information comes with the caveat that everything is also potentially, and eternally, invisible. The tree falling in some proverbial unseen forest of the Internet. […]
Switzerland-born globetrotter Olivier Racine does things because he can. He wanted to give the North Korean dictator two gifts from his country, a giant Toblerone chocolate bar and a piece of the Matterhorn mountain. This excerpt from his recently publish
North Korea says it has been granted access to pursue commercial activities on Svalbard, the Arctic archipelago under the sovereignty of Norway but governed by a century-old international treaty. Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ane Lunde told the Oslo-based daily Aftenposten on Wednesday that Norway has not yet been notified of North Korea’s access to the […]
NORTH KOREA CLAIMS FIRST H-BOMB TEST Photo: Yonhap News/ImageCollect/Newscom/ZUMA North Korea claimed Wednesday it had successfully conducted its first hydrogen-bomb test, with the regime’s official television network hailing the move as “a world-startling event to be specially recorded in the national history.” VERBATIM “We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of […]
PYONGYANG — In the Beijing airport, as I was preparing to fly to North Korea, you could practically smell the communism. Traders were checking large, beat-up bags of household items. A family was buying a large appliance in the duty-free shop. The North Koreans were easily identifiable: They were required to wear buttons with portraits […]
Is capitalism coming to Kim Jong-un’s North Korea? According to South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo, North Koreans who got rich thanks to state-backed monopolies are being encouraged by the regime to open small banks across the capital in a bid to boost the free economy. Some of the money-lenders even have installed ATMs, though these […]
Photo: Li Jing/ZUMA TURKEY TO BOOST SECURITY POST ISIS ATTACK The Turkish government is set to bolster its security along the border with Syria after a suspected ISIS bombing in the town of Suruc killed 30 people, mostly students, yesterday. At a news conference, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said “measures on our border with […]
SEOUL — North Korea is sometimes seen as being trapped in a Stalinist time warp. And because it’s so isolated, some South Koreans think that even the way people there speak Korean is stuck in the past. It’s becoming clear that one of the biggest challenges for the nearly 28,000 North Korean escapees who now live below the border is overcoming linguistic differences. So researchers are trying new ways to help close the language divide. The North Korean accent is sometimes mocked on South Korean comedy programs for sounding quaint or old-fashioned. But Lee Song-ju says that when he speaks […]
RESCUE OPS RESUME AFTER SECOND NEPAL QUAKE EPISODE Rescue teams have resumed their quest to find survivors in devastated Nepal, after yesterday’s 7.3-magnitude earthquake. It came less than three weeks after an even more violent one that destroyed part of the impoverished country and killed more than 8,000 people, AFP reports. Reports say at least […]
A visit to North Korea reveals fears about the Internet’s pernicious influence on youth, but also a big push in computer science training. The market economy calls, but ‘social control’ is at risk.