North Korea & Kim Jong Un News

North Korea has issued a series of truculent missives warning of dire, though unspecified, military actions in an attempt to intimidate the U.S. and its allies into canceling planned military exercises. Pyongyang responded strongly last year when Washington and Seoul restored large-scale military exercises and resumed deployment of nuclear-capable strategic assets after a four-year hiatus….

Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. How serious are those threats? Is the United States prepared to respond in the face of a nuclear attack? And what role do China and North Korea play in the discussion of nuclear war?  “We’ve been hearing threat after threat, nuclear threat after nuclear threat against…

Growing up in North Korea, Hyun-Seung Lee says, he had no real understanding of the concept of freedom or human rights. The communist regime monitors citizens so closely, he couldn’t speak freely even in his own home, says Lee, who goes by the nickname Arthur. “I believe that in my home, there [were] bugs or listening…

South Korea concluded a bitterly divisive presidential campaign season Wednesday with the election of Yoon Suk Yeol. Both he and his opponent, Lee Jae-myung, engaged in a battle of mudslinging and accusations, making this an acrimonious campaign. Both candidates were highly unfavorable, making this a true “election of the undesirables.” The contest was unusual since,…

North Korea was likely always going to restart its nuclear reactor, regardless of which presidential administration was in office, an expert on the region told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in late August that North Korea had restarted a plutonium-producing 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon in July, after previously shutting it down…

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently assessed that North Korea resumed operations at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which produces plutonium for nuclear weapons. Pyongyang also may have reprocessed nuclear fuel from previous reactor operations. The developments are worrisome and will test the Biden administration on how to respond to North Korea expanding its ongoing production…

White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on April 30 that the Biden administration had completed its North Korea policy review. A Washington Post article, quoting anonymous senior officials, provides some broad parameters of the policy, but details remain sparse. The unveiling of the full policy position has been repeatedly teased as occurring in the…

North Korea has been relatively quiet until recently, but that looks like it is changing. Keeping the Hermit Kingdom from becoming President-elect Joe Biden’s first crisis could well require learning some lessons from what the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump got right. Incoming presidents always like to start out focusing on domestic issues. Biden may not…

Americans aren’t the only ones waiting for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. So are people around the world. And they are asking the same question many Americans are: What difference will it make for them? No poll-watchers are more attentive than America’s adversaries are. So how will the world turn when the global bad guys find…

On just about any list of international “bad actors,” North Korea and Iran certainly make the cut—and any news of them working together (and likely against the U.S. and our friends) is quickly put in the category of “trouble.” So you can imagine the concern recently when an unidentified U.S. official told the press that:…

This article is an excerpt from the “2020 Mandate for Leadership: A Clear Vision for the Next Administration.” It looks back at policy decisions made by the Trump administration over the past four years. You can purchase your copy of “Mandate 2020” here. Russia The Trump administration has enhanced NATO’s capabilities while pushing back against Russian…

Pyongyang is putting pressure on South Korea through increasingly acerbic means, including aggressive missives, breaking off communications, and threatening to take future steps against its “enemy” to the south. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is behind these actions. She recently was made responsible for overseeing North Korea’s relations…

Reports continue to surface saying that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is in critical condition after a recent surgery.  Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who specializes in Northeast Asia, joins a bonus episode of The Daily Signal Podcast. We discuss whether there is any substance to those reports, who Kim’s…

Her name isn’t Hae Woo, but—like a lot of traumatized North Koreans—she doesn’t want to take any chances. “I’m a believer,” she says, “because of my husband, because of the things he told me and my children about Jesus. ‘You cannot see Him,’ he would say, ‘but He is alive and working.’” That became harder…

No, North Korea didn’t launch an intercontinental ballistic missile on Dec. 25, as predicted by some observers disturbed by its recent hints about a “Christmas present” for the U.S. But we shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Pyongyang, after all, marked the culmination of its highly anticipated end-of-year deadline with a strident threat…

Observers first see Ilhyeok Kim’s joyful, room-lighting smile before they notice he is relatively short—because he is North Korean defector short.  “For me, freedom means that when I want to do something, I’ll do it, and if I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to do it,” Kim told The Daily Signal last…

North Korea and the United States gave strikingly different interpretations of the collapse of working-level denuclearization talks in Stockholm. Pyongyang characteristically took a maximalist approach, both in its rhetoric and its demands. Having commanded the United States to adopt a totally “new method of calculation,” the regime disparaged Washington’s new proposals.  North Korean negotiator Kim…

North Korea ramped up its provocations by firing a medium-range submarine-launched ballistic missile 450 kilometers (280 miles) at a lofted trajectory of 910 kilometers (565 miles) on Tuesday night that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Had the missile flown on a normal, rather than lofted, trajectory, it would have flown 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles)….

BANGKOK—Brushing aside repeated entreaties from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a meeting, North Korea was a no-show at a diplomatic forum in Bangkok.  The snub didn’t deter Pompeo from holding out hope that Pyongyang soon will come back to the table and resume denuclearization talks. From the get-go, North Korea loomed large over…

The Wall Street Journal quietly added a massive correction to a story that, if accurate, would have had significant implications for nuclear talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. On Thursday, the newspaper reported that analysts with the Defense Intelligence Agency believe that North Korea may have developed as many as 12…