The UN Security Council will discuss the human rights situation in North Korea behind closed doors this week for a third consecutive year, since 2020 despite human rights organizations’ calls for an open discussion. The US will raise North Korean human rights issues under “Any Other Business (AOB),” at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, a US diplomatic source with knowledge of the m...

North Korea on Tuesday fired around 100 artillery shells toward the inter-Korean maritime buffer zone in a tit-for-tat action against South Korea and US live-fire drills staged near the border, further escalating tensions on the peninsula. Around 90 artillery shots were fired from the area of Kosong County in Kangwon Province toward buffer zones in the East Sea from 10:00 a.m. local time, South ...

Who is Lazarus Group? The world’s most sophisticated cybercrime unit North Korea has several groups of world-class hackers trained at its elite institutions despite its poor internet infrastructure and severely restricted and state-controlled internet access. The state-run Lazarus Group, accused of committing high-profile cryptocurrency thefts, including the $625 million Ronin bridge heist in M...

North Korea on Monday fired around 130 artillery shells into inter-Korean maritime buffer zones as South Korea and the US kicked off regular live-fire drills near the border. The artillery shells were fired from Jangsan Cape in South Hwanghae Province and Kumgang County in Kangwon Province from around 2:59 p.m. local time, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday afternoon. The artill...

South Korea’s Air Force said Thursday it had expanded its space operations unit to enhance interoperability between the South Korean and US space forces against air and missile threats from North Korea. The launch of the “Space Operations Squadron” aims to strengthen the South Korean Air Force’s “capabilities to conduct space operations in practice," it said. The squadron will surveil space obje...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledged to make the country’s military strength “more absolute and irreversible” and push for nuclear buildup at an “exceptionally rapid speed” at a pseudo-event celebrating the successful launch of the new Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile where he brought his second daughter Kim Ju-ae again. “It is the truth taught by history that only when we become...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un brought his “beloved” second child, styled just like her mother this time, into the public eye for the second time in about a week through a photo published in state media on Sunday. Photos showing a very intimate father-daughter moment at a large-scale event celebrating the successful launch of the new Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, suggest that J...

Economic dialogue Tokola said the US could entice North Korea with a renewed economic approach, given that the framework of exchanging denuclearization measures in return for sanctions relaxations “has failed.” “The economic offers to North Korea are generally good, but we could be more specific,” he said. “We could talk about trying to help them join the World Bank or the IMF (International Mo...

The South Korean military on Friday conducted strike drills attacking a mock North Korean missile launcher with aerial laser-guided bombs, in response to North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile toward the East Sea. The live-fire drills were staged at Pilsung Range in Kangwon Province in the afternoon, about six hours after the North Korean missile was launched to waters off...

South Korea and the United States on Friday launched a new working group tailored to step up their policy coordination and communication to strengthen the alliance’s counter-missile capability and posture in light of escalating North Korean missile threats. The first meeting of the Counter-Missile Working Group was held in Seoul around two weeks after the South Korean and US defense chiefs discu...

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday called for a strengthened defense posture and tough economic sanctions on North Korea after the country launched another intercontinental ballistic missile. “President Yoon instructed to strengthen the South Korea-US combined defense posture, actively implement the measures agreed between South Korea and the US to enhance the viability of US extende...

North Korea on Friday fired another intercontinental ballistic missile in two weeks, which Japan said appeared to have fallen into waters within the neighboring country’s exclusive economic zone. North Korea fired the ICBM from Sunan District, Pyongyang, toward the East Sea at around 10:15 a.m. local, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The ICBM traveled about 1,000 kilomet...

North Korea on Thursday fired a ballistic missile off its east coast, after the country warned it would take “fierce” military action against US efforts to strengthen its extended deterrence posture against Pyongyang. A short-range ballistic missile was fired from an area around the coastal city of Wonsan in Kangwon Province toward the East Sea at around 10:48 a.m. local time, South Korea’s Join...

Brinkmanship, diplomacy South Korea has faced existential and escalating threats from North Korea. In early November, a North Korean missile flew across the de facto inter-Korean maritime border for the first time since the Korean War. Since mid-October, North Korea has fired more than 1,000 artillery shells into inter-Korean maritime buffer zones, which the two Koreas agreed on under the Sept....

Don’t let N. Korea define objectives But Cronin pointed out that China will try to exploit a gap between the political will and capability of South Korea and the US to deter China, when asked about how the allies can bridge the difference in their strategic objective in terms of deterrence posture. “I don’t intend to encourage a gap between the two. So, I don’t think we can afford to ask Korea ...