North Korea’s state media, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on 30 January 2009, released statement declaring the DPRK’s unilateral withdrawal from all political and military agreements with South Korea.
Specifically cited was a 1991 agreement that included a sea border in the Yellow Sea. This signals North Korea’s dissatisfaction with ROK President [...]

“Kimjongilia” [김정일화] is a documentary the depicts why the defectors fled, describes their escapes, and recounts the dangers they faced in China, hunted by Chinese police as well as North Korean intelligence services.
The director, N.C. Heikin, felt she must do something to expose the human rights disaster that North Korea is after hearing of Kang [...]

Via UPI: “A recent U.S. National Intelligence Commission report claiming that 1990s famines in the North have rendered many potential soldiers born during the period with “cognitive deficiencies” drew an angry official response from [the KCNA] Saturday… ‘They floated the cock-and-bull story… it is an open secret that the ill-famed intelligence and plot-breeding institutions of [...]

From the Korea Times (via ROK Drop): “The North Korean army should form part of peacekeeping forces to help reconstruct war-ravaged Afghanistan ― if Pyongyang normalizes relations with the United States, an opposition lawmaker said Thursday.” This from a South Korean Democratic Party (DP) member.

NightWatch has an interesting analysis of a statement issued by North Korea yesterday, which, “carries a credible threat of incidents at sea off the west coast, but omits many of the usual terms of threat.”

In mid-2008, North Korea turned over 18,000 pages of documents to U.S. officials to help prove it was telling the truth about its record of plutonium processing. Ironically, those documents had trace amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) that was likely not possible transfer from Pakistani equipment obtained via A.Q. Khan. The North [...]

In November I speculated that Kim Jong-il’s apparent stroke in August might prompt him to select a successor before he dies or becomes incapacitated. Reporting from Yonhap claims that Kim Jong-il’s third son, Kim Jong-un (김정운) (also Romanized as Jong-eun and Jong-woon, has been chosen as his successor:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has [...]

In 1999 the news on North Korea was both alarmist over North Korean antics and naively hopeful of peace suddenly breaking out. A decade later the news is still often alarmist - North Korea did test a nuclear device in 2006 after all - but less naive after decade of reneging on agreements and [...]

Via the Korea Society, North Korea made the U.S. an offer it could refuse, and apparently will:
North Korea offered to send its chief nuclear negotiator to next week’s inauguration of US President-elect Barack Obama, but Washington has responded coolly, South Korean news reports said Monday.
[. . .]
“The North, through its United Nations mission office [...]

Nothing dramatic or theatrical like the Sopranos — mostly what one might call “arbitraging” cigarette price difference between New York City and Virginia (although there is a mention of an almost comical “hitman” recruitment attempt):
The astonishing discovery came during a two-year investigation into a Korean organized crime ring based in Annandale that trafficked in untaxed [...]