In 2012, the film division of North Korea’s propaganda machine released parts 2-5 of a movie entitled The Country I Saw (part 1 came out in the late 1980s). The movie provided insight into what the country hoped to achieve with its nuclear-weapons program—namely, recognition from the US for the ruling regime, and normalized relations between the two nations.
Good news: North Korea indicated it’s willing to return to the negotiations over denuclearization. Following a year of stalling and name-calling, that comes as a relief. US officials remain wary, however, with the secretary of state cautioning, “It is not our goal to have talks about talks, but to have progress in the talks.”
Donald Trump said at an annual dinner with journalists on Saturday night (March 3) that North Korea had recently called him. Turns out, it was actually South Korea.
When Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion last June, it wreaked havoc on a US grocery industry already struggling with slim margins. Now the retail giant has its eyes on France’s grocers.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern will lead a delegation to South Pacific islands on March 4-9, taking in Tonga, Samoa, Niue, and the Cook Islands. The main goal is to see how Tonga and others are recovering from last month’s Cyclone Gita, but Ardern and her ministers are also worried about another force that’s hit the region: China.
In November 2013, an entrepreneur named Jamie Siminoff pitched his idea for a “smart doorbell” on the reality show Shark Tank. The show’s judges turned him down. Siminoff forged ahead with the concept, and this week we learned that Amazon is buying his company, Ring, for over $1 billion.
In an interview with Fox News last November, Donald Trump addressed a question about the many unfilled positions in the US State Department. ”Let me tell you, the one that matters is me,” he said. “I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.”
The closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea will take place on Sunday. Aside from providing the usual entertainment, the games this year served another purpose: They gave the world a breather from worrying about North Korea.
Japan plans to buy at least 20 more F-35A stealth fighters over the next six years, according to a report by Reuters yesterday. What’s most notable about the news is not the number of jets, but where they will be made and assembled.
Generally speaking, a sovereign nation dislikes it when a foreign power establishes new military bases within striking range of its capital. But when it comes to China doing just that to the Philippines in the South China Sea, Rodrigo Duterte, it seems, doesn’t mind at all.
You might assume that little has changed in the world of curling, a winter sport tracing back to medieval Scotland. That would be wrong. As in other sports, mounting competitive pressure and new technology are taking their toll on the game.
Just ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, Chinese president Xi Jinping visited a satellite launch site in the southwest Sichuan province, where he cheered the modernization and technological advances of China’s military. The setting was appropriate: Beidou 3 satellites were about to be sent into orbit, part of an effort to boost the satellite navigation system used by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—one goal being the ability to strike enemy targets with millimeter-level accuracy.
Roared on by a home crowd, South Korea’s Yun Sung-bin made history today. In an event that until now had been dominated by Western athletes, he became the first Asian to win gold in skeleton at the Winter Olympics.
Members of the family regime that’s long ruled North Korea tend not to pop up in South Korea—technically the countries are at war, after all. But Seoul’s unification ministry announced today (Feb. 7) that supreme leader Kim Jong-un’s influential younger sister Kim Yo-jong will attend the Winter Olympics, to be held in the South’s Pyeongchang County starting on Feb. 9.
Most countries hosting the Olympics don’t have to worry about a belligerent, unpredictable neighbor acting out. South Korea, which is hosting this month’s Winter Olympics, doesn’t have that luxury.
When news broke last August that Donald Trump was likely to make Victor Cha the next US ambassador to South Korea, many North Korea experts applauded the expected move. The knowledgable Cha, a Georgetown University professor and previously George W. Bush’s top North Korea representative, seemed the perfect choice amid rapidly escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Organizers of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea have plenty to deal with, including the late addition of North Korea as a participant. But it’s not just events on the ground they have to worry about. Security personnel will be looking skyward, as well—for suspicious drones.
As North and South Korea enjoy a diplomatic detente ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics, Kim Jong-un has called for “independent unification” free from the interference of other countries, in particular the US.
There’s only one active-duty vessel of the US Navy being held captive by a foreign government. It’s a North Korean tourist attraction.
In December, North Korea warned that a naval blockade would be considered an “act of war.” This week, foreign ministers from the US and about 20 other countries will discuss the possibility of intercepting vessels headed to North Korea, as part of expanding efforts to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” remark earlier today (Jan. 11) is being heavily criticized in many parts of the United States and around the world. But there’s one place in the US where residents are particularly vexed by it: south Florida.
Bitcoin prices fell last month after South Korean authorities announced steps to regulate cryptoassets. This week, authorities raided some of South Korea’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.
The meetings between North Korea and South Korea today (Jan. 9) were remarkable in a number of ways, most notably that they were the first high-level talks between the nations in more than two years. North Korea offered to send a delegation of athletes, officials, and cultural performers to next month’s Winter Olympics, to be hosted by South Korea. It even proposed sending cheerleaders.
North Korea and South Korea held high-level talks today (Jan. 9) for the first time in over two years. Representatives from the two sides focused mainly on how North Korea could participate in next month’s Winter Olympics, to be hosted by South Korea.
