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February 11, 2025
 

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DEFECTORS

Kim Seongmin, president of Free North Korea Radio, edits content for the station at his home on Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul, on Nov. 21. Kim has cancer and was recently told that he has months to live.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 3, 2024
A North Korean voice that Kim Jong Un would like to silence
North Korean defectors have been infiltrating the North with outside media for two decades, through balloons floated across the border or radio broadcasts.
A North Korean prison policewoman stands guard at a jail on the banks of Yalu River near the Chongsong county of North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, in May 2011.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 31, 2024
Dozens of North Koreans held for defecting 'vanish', says rights group
Of 113 people whose cases were examined in a study, more than 81% disappeared after being detained by the North's secret police.
Choi Min-kyong (right), a North Korean defector who said she was deported by China four times before making it to South Korea in 2012, and Shin Ju-ye (left), who fled North Korea in the 1990s and settled in China before defecting to South Korea last year, speak during an interview in Seoul on July 19.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 25, 2024
China cracks down on North Korean defectors with biometric surveillance
Facial-recognition cameras now monitor China's border with North Korea, documents show, while police have collected biometric data of North Koreans in the country.
North Korean soldiers are seen outside a guard post (top) from near South Korean guard post in the South Korean border city of Paju in April 2022. A North Korean has defected to the South by walking across the heavily fortified border that separates the peninsula, Seoul's military said Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 20, 2024
Second North Korean soldier defects to South this month
Preliminary figures from the Unification Ministry show this year until June some 105 people had defected.
Then U.S. President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 1, 2024
North Korea wants to restart nuclear talks if Trump wins, says ex-diplomat
The former diplomat said North Korea has also set Russia, the U.S. and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities.
North Korean soldiers look toward the South side of the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas on April 16.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 16, 2024
High-ranking North Korean diplomat in Cuba defected to South
The defection came around three months before Seoul and Havana — one of Pyongyang's oldest allies — announced they were establishing diplomatic ties.
North Korea has tightened its borders further over the past few years.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 8, 2023
Up to 600 North Korean defectors deported by China 'vanish,' report says
The defectors may face imprisonment, torture, sexual violence and execution in the isolated state, the report warned.
Kim, 31, who loaded his family into a homemade wooden boat in May and sailed away from his native North Korea, attends a job fair for North Korean defectors in Seoul while holding a whiteboard that reads "Navigator."
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 6, 2023
North Korean defector plans new life after high-risk escape by sea
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, but most go overland.
U.S. Army soldier Travis King. Details are still scarce about King's treatment in North Korean custody and the soldier has not publicly explained why he fled to one of the world's most reclusive nations on July 19.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 20, 2023
U.S. Army charges Travis King with desertion over North Korea dash
Details are still scarce about King's treatment in North Korean custody
South Korea's government and international rights organizations have said defectors who are deported back to the North face harsh punishment.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 13, 2023
South Korea protests to China over suspected North Korea repatriations
South Korea had been unable to determine the number of people involved and whether there were defectors among them.
A man walks past a television showing a news broadcast featuring a photo of U.S. soldier Travis King, who ran across the border into North Korea while part of a tour group visiting the Demilitarized Zone on South Korea's border, in Seoul, on Aug. 16.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 28, 2023
U.S. soldier in American custody after release from North Korea
U.S. Army soldier Travis King was released by Pyongyang more than two months after he sprinted across the border from the South in July.
A United Nations Command soldier conducts a media tour of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas as a South Korean soldier and other UNC soldiers stand guard at the Joint Security Area in the truce village of Panmunjom last October.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 16, 2023
North Korea claims U.S. soldier seeking refuge from mistreatment
Pyongyang said U.S. Army Pfc. Travis King had “admitted that he illegally intruded” into North Korea last month.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Jul 22, 2023
Bringing Private King home: Reaching Pyongyang is the first challenge
Securing the return of citizens from North Korea has never been easy for the U.S. It may be even harder now, with communications now almost nonexistent.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 20, 2023
How a U.S. soldier made a mad dash into North Korea
The U.S. military was scrambling on Wednesday to determine the soldier's fate, as well as his motive.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 19, 2023
U.S. soldier in North Korea far from first American to flee to reclusive state
Numerous U.S. citizens — including soldiers, tourists, journalists and scholars — have been detained or crossed into North Korea since the Cold War.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 19, 2023
U.S. soldier facing disciplinary action slips across inter-Korean border into North Korea
An American soldier facing disciplinary action at home “willfully and without authorization' fled Tuesday into North Korea, where he was apparently taken into custody.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 18, 2023
U.S. national in North Korean custody after crossing inter-Korean border during tour
The U.S. citizen crossed into the nuclear-armed country while on a tour of the Joint Security Area at the border with the South, the United Nations Command said Tuesday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 28, 2023
North Korean defectors are dying lonely deaths in wealthy South Korea
Nearly 90% of defectors in Seoul said they’ve had trouble settling into their new homes after a decade, with many experiencing mental health problems and other adjustment issues.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 4, 2023
High-level defection: Why a North Korean diplomatic family chose freedom
Born into an elite North Korean family with ties to the ruling dynasty, Oh Hye Son grew up believing she was 'special' — but then she tasted freedom overseas and decided to defect.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 16, 2021
North Korean crosses armed border in potential defection to South
South Korea's military said on Tuesday it had captured a North Korean individual who crossed the heavily fortified border between the two countries in a rare potential defection amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Saitama sinkhole search for missing driver shifts to sewer pipe
The sinkhole in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, on Feb. 3
Trump aware and supportive of AUKUS pact, U.S. defense secretary says
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks as he welcomes Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles to the Pentagon for talks in Washington on Friday.
Ishiba says Trump didn't push defense spending hike or discuss tariffs
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Saturday.
Domino's pizza to close 172 outlets in Japan
Domino's Pizza will close 172 unprofitable outlets out of about 1,000 stores in Japan.
Anthony Davis dominant in Dallas debut
Dallas Mavericks forward Anthony Davis (right) and guard Klay Thompson celebrate after Davis dunked the ball during the second quarter against the Houston Rockets on Saturday.
How giving chocolates on Valentine’s Day is evolving in Japan
Giving out courtesy chocolates to coworkers on Valentine's Day is becoming obsolete.
Yuki Harada's contemplative artworks ponder vanishing
“Light Court” (2024) is based on the “Lightcourt” space at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by metabolist architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007).
Some traditional Japanese culinary rules are meant to be broken
Arranging your dish in this checkerboard pattern is said to bring good luck, but if that holds true for eating this to start the year, what's stopping you from cooking in a bit of good fortune whenever you need it?
A 'joyful' Japan? Ishiba's slogan sparks the opposite feelings
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Jan. 27.
Brothers’ local focus lifts Shintaku to Niigata’s highest rank
Together, Shinsuke Yamagai (right) and his younger brother, Ryota, have elevated the cuisine at Shintaku, putting it on the map as one of Niigata Prefecture’s premier gastronomic destinations.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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