Read the latest news from regional and global sources, presenting different voices and perspectives.

asia North Korea opens landmark coastal Wonsan tourist zone
SEOUL — North Korea has completed construction of a massive tourist zone on its east coast, state media reported on Thursday (June 26), a key project driven by leader Kim Jong Un for years to promote tourism. With "great satisfaction", Kim...

Kim Jong-un hails new North Korean beach resort as one of country’s ‘greatest feats’ this year
Kim Jong-un is more accustomed to overseeing ballistic missile launches and political purges, but this week the North Korean leader opted for a change of pace with a family visit to a new beach resort – the vanguard in a tourism drive that may one...
FORCES: North Korean Soldiers Service Extended
June 26, 2025: North Korea has extended the service obligation for new recruits from eight to ten years for men and from five to seven years for women. This change is imperative because North Korea is running out of military age men. Women, on the...

Heart emoji banned, K-pop punished: Defectors share details on North Korea’s brutal controls
Published: 26 Jun. 2025, 09:59 Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI A North Korean defector speaks during an event hosted by the Seoul office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ohchr) held at the Global Center in...

Kim Jong Un opens massive Wonsan beach resort as he bets on North Korea tourism boom
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our...
World Reuters North Korea opens landmark coastal Wonsan tourist zone
By Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea has completed construction of a massive tourist zone on its east coast, state media reported on Thursday, a key project driven by leader Kim Jong Un for years to promote tourism. With "great...

How AI Can Fortify Cryptocurrency Security
The sudden rise in the popularity and use of cryptocurrency has attracted its own set of challenges in risk and security management… Weaknesses and threats that could compromise the integrity of digital user assets and currencies are growing...
North Korea fired multiple rounds with rocket launches in Yellow Sea
A day after South Korea conducted joint air drills with the US and Japan, North Korea fired over 10 rounds of rockets into the Yellow Sea on Thursday morning from Sunan near Pyongyang in a north-westerly direction, according to South Korea's...

Defectors testify to executions by firing squad of N. Koreans for watching S. Korean TV dramas
Watching or distributing South Korean TV dramas or K-pop songs is being punished by execution by firing squad in North Korea, with one young man shot to death in public on such charges, North Korean defectors testified Wednesday. The testimonies...

S. Korea approves civic groups' bid for N. Korean contact for humanitarian aid exchanges
SEOUL, June 25 (Yonhap) -- The government has granted permission for several civic groups to contact North Korea for humanitarian purposes in an effort to resume civil-level inter-Korean exchanges that had effectively been suspended during the...

Unification ministry greenlights NGO outreach to North Korea
The Ministry of Unification recently approved a series of requests from civic groups to establish contact with North Korea, signaling the Lee Jae Myung administration’s push to revive dialogue with Pyongyang. According to the ministry Wednesday,...

North Korea blurs Lee Kang-in out of its Club World Cup broadcast
Published: 21 Jun. 2025, 15:57 North Korea's state-run Korean Central Television blurred South Korean footballer Lee Kang-in in its broadcast on June 20. [KOREA CENTRAL TV] Pyongyang’s Korean Central Television (KCTV) on Friday blurred a moment...

Explained: Why North Korea Blurred Lee Kang-in’s Goal During Club World Cup Broadcast
North Korea’s state TV edited out a South Korean footballer’s goal during the Club World Cup broadcast. Here’s what was shown, and what was hidden from viewers in Pyongyang and why. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) once...

North Korea soon opening borders to 'select' Chinese tourists, travel agency says
Published: 21 Jun. 2025, 09:44 An undated image of a North Korean flight attendant pointing to a North Korean plane, posted on Koryo Tours' website [SCREEN CAPTURE] North Korea may be preparing to reopen its borders to foreign tourists, according...

“Wokeism is not progress—it’s ideological repression”—Policy Strategist
Shea Bradley-Farrell, Ph.D. is a strategist in national security and foreign policy in Washington, D.C., and president of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research, and Education. Her latest book is Last Warning to the West. You define Wokism as...

Why Trump’s bombing of Iran will only bolster North Korea’s nuclear resolve
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our...

North Korea flag disrupts South Korean church’s live stream in ‘hacking incident’
The incident occurred early in the morning of June 18, when the live stream was abruptly filled with the North Korean flag.PHOTO: REUTERS SEOUL - One of South Korea’s largest megachurches said on June 20 its YouTube worship service was briefly...

N. Korea flag disrupts S. Korea church livestream in ‘hacking incident’
SEOUL: One of South Korea's largest megachurches said on June 20 its YouTube worship service was briefly hacked during a live broadcast to display the North Korean flag, with a government agency saying it was checking the details. The incident...

N. Korea investigates officer after student self-harm at event
The North Korean military is investigating a case of self-harm by a student at a revolutionary school who attended a major event in Pyongyang, Daily NK has learned. “A female student at Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School who attended the national...

North Korea’s deadly COVID lie
A damning new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies reveals the true cost of North Korea’s pandemic deception—a systematic cover-up that likely condemned thousands of its own citizens to preventable deaths. Based on...