DPRK

A scandal that involved thirteen North Korean defectors—a restaurant manager and twelve waitresses, employees of a North Korean restaurant, which was already covered in our previous articles () is gaining momentum. Following the public request, the waitresses were required to appear before court. After some details of their detention were disclosed, even the UN human rights authorities decided to step in and investigate the case. 

Reading Western media, one can get the impression that the sanctions introduced after the nuclear missile tensions of 2016 significantly hit the DPRK economy. That famine, followed by the “Maidan” and regime change, is already knocking at the door. Is this true?
No. The effects of any sanctions manifest themselves roughly in a year and a half, but even now, it is possible to note a few interesting developments.

In the session of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) of North Korea convened on June 29 in Pyongyang, the National Defense Commission was announced to be replaced with the State Affairs Commission. According to the amended North Korean Constitution, the Chairman of this new institution is considered the supreme leader of the country.

On July 7, 2016, the United States included the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the sanctions list for human rights violations. The statement made by the U.S. Treasury lists a total of 15 individuals, including Kim Jong-un, and 8 organizations directly involved in human rights violations, tracking down defectors and carrying out censorship.

North Korea once again was on a brink of a war, and it once again managed to pull back out of it. While another escalation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is subsiding, the global community is wondering what the future holds, and whether there is a way to halt a negative development of events.

After the People’s Republic of China held back from opposing the American project of tough sanctions, a question that many people might have is whether the Chinese side made a bad bargain, and whether or not solidarity with the US package of sanctions was rather a strategic mistake, a forced measure or an action taken under the influence of emotions.

Prior to the parliamentary elections in South Korea, the news was awash with a beautiful story regaling readers with the refrain: “they chose freedom!”. 13 people (12 women and one man, the manager) escaped from the North Korean restaurant, Ryugyong, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in Southeast China to South Korea.

On May 6-9, Pyongyang hosted the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In the run-up to the congress, experts of different degrees of involvement made various predictions. On average, Korean studies experts maintained that the congress would be just another event in the life of North Korea.

Following the North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, the virtual dust had hardly settled, before South Korean experts began to talk about the eminence of the fifth. Yet, the few dates, which South Korea had set for the North Korean nuclear fireworks, have already passed.

By Caleb Maupin | New Eastern Outlook | May 11, 2016 In almost every US aligned Gulf State, you can find an autocratic monarch who rules over a small, oil-rich corner of the world via an outdated, pre-democratic legal system that grants him absolute authority. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarch with dictatorial […]