North Korea's "150 Day Battle" has been extended for another 100 days. The initiative was ostensibly aimed at ramping up internal production in the face of growing external trade reductions. Some analysts think it's a ploy, combined with recent missile launches , to solidify the base for the next regime.
posted by Burhanistan on Sep 14, 2009 - 5 comments

North Korea’s Dollar Store - Office 39, North Korea’s billion-dollar crime syndicate, pays for Kim Jong Il’s missiles and cognac. Why did the Bush White House choose not to shut it down? [via] [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan on Aug 12, 2009 - 27 comments

North Korea's concentration camps reportedly contain over half a million citizens, and is possibly one of the worst cases of systematic human rights abuses occurring in the world today. Ahn Myong Chol, an ex-prison guard, describes the conditions of the inmates of Camp 22, in objective and chilling detail. On medical experiments being performed on prisoners: "....the glass chamber has 3 main subdivisions: one is for blood experiments, another is for poison gas, and the third is for suffocation gas. 3 or 4 people, normally a family, are experimented on. The scientists sit around the edge and watch from above...". [more inside]
posted by thisperon on Jun 23, 2009 - 91 comments

North Korea announces it will no longer abide by the ceasefire that ended the Korean war. Previously. [more inside]
posted by NoraReed on May 26, 2009 - 139 comments

In September of 2008, two Austrians traveled 13,000km by rail from Vienna to Pyongyang - without asking permission and going through the official Koran travel agency. [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc on Apr 5, 2009 - 36 comments

ViceTV takes a relaxing North Korean vacation (video, in 14 parts).
posted by kickingtheground on Mar 24, 2008 - 17 comments

Gov. Bill Richardson takes a tour of the captured USS Pueblo in the DPRK.
posted by Burhanistan on Apr 9, 2007 - 26 comments

A Year in Pyongyang.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jan 20, 2007 - 24 comments

Kim Jong Il's Ringtones and Wallpaper and other fine, fashionable accessories for your digital lifestyle. (via waxy.org.)
posted by loquacious on Oct 25, 2006 - 20 comments

Newsfilter: North Korea's response to a toothless UN resolution may be a second nuclear test. With military solutions pretty much off the table, it may be up to rival factions within the DPRK to topple the regime. NK coups have been discussed here before, and the end result may not be as pretty as one would hope, but maybe this time the Chinese have had enough.
posted by ernie on Oct 17, 2006 - 57 comments

Happy belated birthday, Kim Jong Il.
posted by kickingtheground on Feb 17, 2005 - 24 comments

A trickle of reports coming out of North Korea paint a picture of a regime in its dying days
posted by Pretty_Generic on Dec 29, 2004 - 106 comments