North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive and patriarchal countries, dominates in a surprising arena: women’s football.

The hermit kingdom became a powerhouse after the regime invested heavily in the women’s game as a tool of soft power and propaganda. The youth team still excels internationally, but after losing the Asian Cup final to Australia in 2010 the senior team “all but disappeared from global competition”, said The Guardian.

Now, the Eastern Azaleas are back in the tournament, playing their opening match against Uzbekistan in Sydney tomorrow. Invigorated by a “new generation of youth World Cup winners”, they are “hoping to return to the summit of Asian football”.

Rise and fall

At Fifa’s annual congress in 1986, the Norwegian delegate “demanded the creation of a World Cup for women”, said The Guardian. North Korean officials, so the story goes, were “inspired”. They returned to Pyongyang with a plan to use women’s football as a “tool to reassert their collapsing power on the world stage”.

Like China, the government saw sport as an opportunity to “strengthen their international profile”. Under Kim Jong Il, the women’s game “became a proxy platform” for North Korea’s political agenda. The government introduced development programmes in schools, built new facilities and even had teams in the military where players trained full-time at the state’s expense. That investment “paid off almost immediately”.

Between the 1990s and the 2010s, North Korea had one of the world’s best women’s football teams, winning three Asian Cup titles and more trophies across the continent. Then Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011 and, like his father, made competitive sport a “key policy priority”, said Jung Woo Lee, senior sport lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, on The Conversation. Any victory on the global stage “helps boost nationalism among the country’s people”. As North Korea grew more internationally isolated, sport became one of the only avenues through which it could assert itself.

But in 2011, a major doping scandal “put the brakes on this success”. Five players tested positive for a banned steroid at the Women’s World Cup in Germany. North Korea had a “bizarre excuse”, said The Times, claiming they had been “struck by lightning” and given a traditional Chinese medicine of deer musk gland, which caused the positive tests. Fifa was “not persuaded”.

North Korea was banned from the 2015 World Cup, then failed to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2018 and the World Cup in 2019. Tightening sanctions also made it impossible for players to sign overseas contracts. Then, when the pandemic hit, North Korea shut its borders and withdrew from both tournaments.

The missing decade

During the senior team’s missing decade, the youth teams flourished. The regime has “developed a sporting powerhouse of young girls”, said The Observer.

In 2013, it opened a state-run elite training facility to develop talent. At the Pyongyang International Football School, young girls are “selected, developed and educated following a highly disciplined and scientific approach”, said DW.

The first generation of graduates from that school are the reigning under-20 and under-17 World Cup and Asian Cup champions, and have won five of these titles since 2020. They have “cemented their status as the dominant force in women’s youth football”.

Their success is “the product of a broader strategy aimed at strengthening national pride and boosting the country’s international standing”, said Lee. Domestically, the regime uses the popular sport of football as a “propaganda tool to glorify their leaders and also how great their country is”, Lee told DW.

Many North Korean media reports say that players under a communist regime “do whatever they can, even if they’re physically exhausted”, said Lee. “Then they directly compare those mentalities with capitalist countries.” When those athletes are exhausted, they are substituted.

“That psychological element has seemingly given the team an edge, but beyond a strong sense of patriotism and years of disciplined work lies the motivation of a life-changing reward.” The regime can give players living in poorer rural areas, where food and healthcare shortages are common, a chance of a far better life in Pyongyang. It’s like “winning a lottery”, said Lee.

It remains to be seen whether North Korea can qualify for the senior women’s World Cup in Brazil next year. But this year’s Asian Cup, said The Guardian, will be “the best glimpse yet of whether this old, unlikely superpower of women’s football is rumbling back to life”.

“Dear American friends, Europe is your closest ally, not your problem,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk posted on X. “Unless something has changed.”

Tusk was reacting to the new US National Security Strategy, which has landed in European capitals at the weekend “like a bucket of cold water”, said The Wall Street Journal. Hailed by Russia as aligning “in many ways” with “our vision”, the explosive 30-page document criticises the “unrealistic expectations” of “European officials” backing Ukraine. It also castigates the EU for “censorship of free speech”, praises the “growing influence of patriotic” political parties, and warns of the “civilizational erasure” of Europe.

Signalling a more isolationist approach to Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the document declares “the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over”.

What did the commentators say?

This “grenade” of a policy paper will have stunned European leaders by revealing “the depth of ideological vehemence within the White House”, said Ishaan Tharoor in The Washington Post.

The “pointed criticisms” of Europe, cast as “tough love advice”, stand in marked contrast to the document’s “approach to traditional US rivals”, said Daniel Michaels, David Luhnow and Max Colchester in The Wall Street Journal. Russia “isn’t mentioned a single time as a possible threat to US interests” and China, North Korea and the Middle East receive surprisingly little attention.

European leaders should “assume that the traditional trans-Atlantic relationship is dead,” Katja Bego from the Chatham House think tank told the paper. It’s “the mother of all wake-up calls for Europe”, historian Timothy Garton Ash added. “It essentially declares outright opposition to the European Union. It’s J.D. Vance’s notorious speech in Munich but on steroids and as official US policy.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has sought to downplay European concerns, conceding that “some” of the US criticism is “true”. Europe “has been underestimating its own power towards Russia,” she told a panel at the Doha Forum in Qatar this weekend. “We should be more self-confident.”

What next?

Since Trump’s return to the White House, “European leaders have kept up a remarkable performance of remaining calm amid his provocations, so far avoiding an open conflict that would sever transatlantic relations entirely”, said Tim Ross on Politico. But for centrists like Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, “the new Trump doctrine poses a challenge so existential that they may be forced to confront it head-on”.

But there’s a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Trump’s document. “By underplaying – and refraining from even referencing – the conventional threat Russia poses to transatlantic security”, it does nothing to “empower those nations that are working to take on greater defence responsibilities”, said Torrey Taussig, a director at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, on Atlantic Council.

Instead, this strategy paper “seeks to embolden” Europe’s “nationalist and populist parties”, who would probably “cut defence budgets and downplay the conventional threats”. In this sense, the document is an “own goal that undermines the administration’s stated objectives” of “shifting the burden of defence onto the shoulders of European allies”.

On 31 August, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) noticed an attack on its computer systems. JLR – which employs 32,800 people and supports another 104,000 jobs through its supply chain, mostly in the West Midlands – had to close its factories for over a month. It is estimated that the attack will cost some £1.9 billion. JLR is only the latest victim in a string of ransomware attacks. In the UK alone, Marks & Spencer, the Co-op Group, Harrods, Heathrow Airport, Transport for London and the British Library have all had their operations disrupted in the past two years.

According to GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, “highly significant” attacks rose by 50% in the past year, with 18 incidents affecting the Government, essential services, the economy or a large number of people.

Why is this happening?

Because we’ve built a world that is entirely dependent on a set of technologies which are intrinsically insecure and ultra-complex, and which few people understand. The internet is designed to be easy to access, which of course makes it vulnerable; it suffered its first big hack attack in 1988, when few people had even heard of it.

The more that organisations rely on networked computer technology, the more they’re vulnerable to attack and extortion. Manufacturing and logistics, such as JLR’s, grind to a halt when the systems go down. Hospitals, law firms and other institutions where privacy is paramount can be threatened with data leaks.

How do these hacks work?

There are various ways of invading or disabling a network. Hackers can gain access directly via software vulnerabilities; they can hack lots of unprotected computers and use them as a sort of zombie army, known as a “botnet”, to overwhelm a network.

At present, we are seeing a spate of ransomware attacks. The first step is to get into a network, usually by impersonating an employee. This often involves “phishing” emails, or other inventive forms of manipulation known as “social engineering”: in 2023, hackers combed LinkedIn for MGM Resorts employees with high-level system access, then called an MGM helpdesk posing as one of them and asked for a password reset, which got them in. Once inside, they extend their access, steal sensitive data for extortion purposes and, where they can, take control.

A favoured current target is the “hypervisor”, a server computer that allows many remote machines to use one system (as when employees work from home). Then they use ransomware to encrypt its data, rendering the whole system unusable and making it impossible to recover without paying the hackers for a decryption key.

Why has the problem got worse?

One reason is the huge growth in cryptocurrencies, which make money safer to receive and launder – a record $1.1 billion is thought to have been paid out globally in 2023. They also make it easier to buy illegal services on the dark web. The presence of groups offering “ransomware as a service” (RaaS) – currently the most popular business model – have greatly lowered barriers to entry for criminal hackers.

What is ransomware as a service?

RaaS groups – which advertise on the dark web, with names such as Hive, DarkSide, REvil and LockBit – sell tech support services for ransomware attacks. For a monthly subscription, or a share of the take, they’ll provide encryption software, a payment portal and a dedicated leak site for threatening the victim further, as well as help with the negotiations.

Some are picky about who they’ll hack; LockBit apologised and offered free decryption when one of its affiliates attacked a children’s hospital in Toronto in 2022. This may only be good business sense. DarkSide collapsed as a brand because of the law-enforcement attention it attracted by hacking the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies the east coast of the US with 45% of its fuel, in 2021.

Who are the hacking groups?

The perpetrators range from loose-knit bands of individuals to professionally structured illegal businesses. In the past, many have been in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. A Russian-speaking group known as Wizard Spider paid its employees salaries and commission; Evil Corp, another Russian hacking group, offered holiday pay, sick leave and more. Some groups have documented ties to Russian security services; Iran and North Korea appear to sponsor others.

But most cybercriminals are motivated by profit, and can come from almost anywhere. Many of the recent attacks on UK companies – including the Co-op, M&S and JLR – have been traced to, or claimed by, a loose, English-speaking group known as Scattered Spider or Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters. They are known for their exploitation of human vulnerabilities, and for their stunning speed in taking over a network once they have invaded it.

Why can’t they be stopped?

Hackers pose all sorts of problems for law enforcement. Groups are often based abroad in uncooperative jurisdictions, though pressure can be applied: four days after an angry call from Joe Biden to Vladimir Putin in 2021, REvil vanished. Even if based at home, though, groups usually have decentralised, evolving structures that make them difficult to track and stop. Members operate under aliases, using software to disguise their location.

The best way to deter such attacks is through boring but essential measures: installing software security updates; using multi-factor authentication for signing in. The National Cyber Security Centre thinks most ransomware victims aren’t specifically targeted; they just had a vulnerability that was noticed by hackers in a bulk search. Cyber-insurance now seems a necessity. Some smaller companies, like the Kettering haulage group KNP, have had to close because of hacks.

What is ‘Scattered Spider’

Many recent ransomware attacks are the work of closely linked, overlapping groups known variously as Scattered Spider, Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters and ShinyHunters, among other names. They stem from a large underground network that calls itself “The Community” or “The Com”, based largely in the US, the UK and Canada. Many members came into contact with each other as gamers, playing online games such as Minecraft, particularly among “griefing” circles. Griefers deliberately disrupt and “troll” other players. Members of The Com then graduated to cybercrimes: such as cryptocurrency theft and online grooming.

The security company Darktrace describes Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters as “English-speaking, aged 16 to 21, and a little bit neurodiverse”. Paul Foster of the National Crime Agency thinks “Covid probably accelerated their development: more time online, more time on devices”.

The groups plan their attacks through invite-only groups on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, and other sites. Their British and US accents make it easier for them to fool IT helpdesks. Law enforcement can eventually catch up with them: a series of men in their teens and early 20s, from Florida to Walsall, London to Las Vegas, have been arrested.

An average of about four “nationally significant” cyberattacks were launched in the UK every week in the last year, twice as many as in the previous 12 months, according to the UK cyber agency’s latest annual review.

“Cyber is being used by state and non-state actors,” said the National Cyber Security Centre, “and the overall cyber threat to the UK is growing from an already high level.”

Following the recent cyberattacks on Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer and Asahi, other companies are desperately trying to avoid the same thing happening to them.

Where do they come from?

Globally, around half of cyberattacks in 2024 may be attributed to financially motivated cybercriminals, while state-sponsored actors accounted for around a third, according to a report by Cognyte.

The “Big Four” – North Korea, Iran, Russia and China – are highest on the UK’s state actor list, said Politico. Three are considered “hostile states” and “Britain has an uneasy relationship with the latter”.

But a group of young, English-speaking hackers, who sometimes go by the name of Scattered Spider, claimed responsibility for the recent large-scale attacks on M&S and Jaguar Land Rover, although this hasn’t been confirmed.

How do the new hacking groups work?

Ransomware is still one of the “most acute and pervasive cyberthreats” to the UK, said the National Cyber Security Centre. This was underscored in the attacks on British retailers this year, but most cybercriminals are “sector agnostic”. They target organisations that are vulnerable, hold sensitive data and are likely to pay a ransom.

One Russian group, Qilin, is “cementing its place as one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service operations in the world”, said Digit. It recently claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Japan’s Asahi Group – which also owns Peroni and UK chain Fuller’s – forcing the “suspension of order and shipment operations in Japan”.

Like many other new groups, Qilin operates as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) network, said IBM. Unlike conventional “gangs”, it functions more as a “business model” that can even run “customer-service portals to help affiliates troubleshoot deployment”.

Whereas traditional attacks were carried out by highly technical malware, this “game-changing” RaaS business model rents out cutting-edge malware in return for “20% to 40% of the profits”. Overcoming the time-intensive and “limited scalability” of old gang models, RaaS provides “nearly anyone with malicious intent” with the means to “carry out powerful attacks using advanced tools”.

How are states using cyberattacks?

Countries like Russia, Iran and China are “increasingly relying on criminal networks” to target political “adversaries”, said AP News. Security officials are reporting more and more “growing collaboration” between governments and hackers, demonstrating “increasingly blurred lines” between state espionage and hackers motivated by financial gain.

This “marriage of convenience” is set to become more popular, as the symbiotic relationship is hard to break: governments experience a “boost” in cyber activity “without added cost”, while new profit opportunities and “government protection” are directly in the attackers’ interests.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, has “inspired a growing number of pro-Russia hacktivist groups”, said the UK cyber agency. Without formal state control, they choose Western targets based on vulnerability, which “makes their activities less predictable”.

Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, scripted by Noah Oppenheim, confronts a truly terrifying possibility, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: “that a nuclear war could or rather will start with no one knowing who started it or who ended it”.

It imagines a scenario in which a nuke has been launched from the Pacific and is heading for Chicago. Its predicted impact time is just 19 minutes. Blindsided, the US military at various bases scrambles to try to intercept the missile and figure out who launched it and how best to respond. They could launch a counterstrike – but that decision, which only the president (Idris Elba) has the authority to make, is very much complicated by the fact that, although North Korea is a suspect, they don’t know for certain who the enemy here is.

The action takes place mainly within this crucial 19 minutes, but to build tension and stretch out the running time, Bigelow examines the nail-biting countdown from three perspectives, said David Sexton in The New Statesman.

In the first, we follow Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), a mother with a sick child at home who finds herself in charge of the White House Situation Room on this terrible day; the second is set at US Strategic Command, where a bullish general (Tracy Letts) is urging a counterstrike. These sections are fast-paced and tense; but it all gets a bit slack in the third, when we see the unfolding crisis from the perspective of the president, who comes across as unconvincing and clownish.

Bigelow allows herself the odd indulgence, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times, but she is “a virtuoso talent”. Her film is a highly effective “symphony of dread” – which creates a catch: “I don’t remember the last time I saw a film this formally brilliant that I also wanted to stop.”

Kim Jong-un has been the supreme leader of North Korea since 2012, and now he has made an unconventional choice for his successor. Kim has reportedly selected his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, to be the next ruler of the hermit kingdom. Ju-ae is believed to be only in her early teenage years, which would make her one of the youngest world leaders — and also the first woman head of North Korea. But it may be a while before any official plans come to light.

Early life

Kim Ju-ae is thought to be around 13 or 14 years old, though her exact age is unknown. She is the “only known child of Kim Jong-un and his wife, Ri Sol-ju,” said BBC News; South Korean intelligence believes Kim may have an “older son, but this son has never been acknowledged nor shown on North Korean media.”

News of Ju-ae first emerged via an unlikely source: basketball star Dennis Rodman, who spoke of the girl during a 2013 trip to North Korea (Kim is known to be an ardent basketball fan). “I held their baby Ju-ae,” Rodman said to The Guardian, inadvertently revealing her existence to the world. Ju-ae made her first appearance on North Korean state TV in 2022, when she was “shown inspecting North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile while holding her father’s hand,” said BBC News.

Kim’s successor

The National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s foreign intelligence agency, believes Kim has long been angling for Ju-ae to take over as supreme leader. But Kim appears to have taken this to the next level by “taking steps to consolidate his daughter's position as successor,” said Reuters, citing the NIS. There are also “signs she is providing input on policy matters.” There were reportedly also signs Ju-ae could be given an official title soon.

The NIS has previously “described Kim Ju-ae as being ‘in study as successor’ but today the expression used was that she ‘was in the stage of being internally appointed successor,’” Lee Seong-kweun, a South Korean lawmaker, said to Reuters. Ju-ae has been featured prominently in North Korean propaganda videos in recent years, and South Korea “believes the role she has taken on during public events indicates she has started to provide policy input and that she is being treated as the de facto second-highest leader.”

One of Ju-ae’s most notable public outings involved an appearance with her father at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. The building is the mausoleum for former North Korean Supreme Leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and symbolizes the “eternal sanctuary of the entire Korean nation,” according to North Korea’s Constitution. And Ju-ae’s first “public trip abroad came last September when she accompanied her father to Beijing to attend Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s military parade,” said CNN.

Even though Ju-ae is the “only Kim child with any visibility,” some experts “argue it’s just a PR stunt to attract international attention,” said CNN, and that she may not actually be Kim’s successor. Viewing Ju-ae as the next supreme leader “reflects a hasty judgment that overlooks the fundamental nature of North Korean power structures,” Hyunseung Lee, a North Korean defector and human rights activist, said at UPI. Her continued media exposure “represents a different packaging approach in North Korean propaganda,” and her “actions and position remain exactly what they are: the daughter of Kim Jong-un, nothing more and nothing less.”

“Whatever you make of his grotesque politics, his execrable human rights record and his lamentable physical condition, Kim Jong Un is one of the most brilliantly successful national leaders in the world,” said Richard Lloyd Parry in The Times. When he succeeded his late father as head of the hermit kingdom in 2011, plenty of people wrote the young leader off as a weak and “callow fattie” who’d be gone within months.

Since then, Kim has purged his potential domestic challengers (including, allegedly, ordering the killing of an elder sibling with a nerve agent); established his own powerful cult of personality in North Korea; and built up a nuclear arsenal that has significantly strengthened his standing on the world stage.

‘Diplomatic victory’

That rise in influence reached its apogee last week, said Katsuji Nakazawa in The Nikkei (Tokyo), when Kim, 41, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with two of Asia’s most powerful leaders, China’s President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, at the massive military parade in Beijing. To be given equal billing with Putin was a huge “diplomatic victory”.

Kim had arrived in China in his own unique style, said Tetsuya Fujita in the same paper – travelling the 800-odd miles between Pyongyang and Beijing in an armoured train equipped with a special lavatory “to prevent the leak of any biometric data”. As he moved around the Chinese capital, aides wiped down every surface he’d touched, to stop foreign intelligence agencies from being able to gather any traces of his DNA.

‘Respected child’

The most striking aspect of Kim’s visit, though, said Roland Oliphant in The Daily Telegraph, is that he was accompanied almost everywhere by his 12-year-old daughter. Her name – at least according to ex-basketball player (and unofficial personal envoy to North Korea) Dennis Rodman – is Kim Ju Ae; though the North Korean press only refers to her as “respected child”. She often looks more “Bond villain than pre-teen” (on one previous outing she sported a fur-lined leather trench coat and gloves). But with her near-constant presence at Kim’s side, there is growing evidence she is being groomed to succeed her father as leader of the nuclear-armed nation. She is now potentially “the most powerful – and dangerous – girl in the world”.

Of course, there may be a more cynical reason Kim takes her everywhere, said Julian Ryall in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). The reclusive leader is famously fearful of assassination; “one theory”, says an expert, “is that he keeps his daughter close in the belief that the US would not be willing to kill her as well”.

‘A de facto nuclear power’

Kim’s triumphant tour of China culminated in a one-to-one summit with President Xi, said Choe Sang-Hun in The New York Times. And tellingly, this time Xi made no effort to pressure his neighbour into removing his nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. Kim’s main mission is complete: his rogue nation is now effectively accepted by both China and Russia “as a de facto nuclear power”. His economy is also experiencing a dramatic uplift, said Choo Jae-woo in The Korea Times (Seoul), thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine. Putin and Kim have become “blood allies”, after the latter sent 14,000 North Korean troops to fight alongside Russian soldiers in that conflict. In return, Kremlin gold is flooding into North Korea, to pay for millions of shells. Last week, Russia, China and North Korea also struck a trilateral agreement to make their new alliance more “economically formidable”.

All in all, the trio that stood on the podium at Tiananmen Square make for a sinister new force in global politics, said Lina Chang in Asia Times (Hong Kong). But I wouldn’t overplay their new relationship too much. Things between North Korea and China in particular blow “hot and cold”. Remember, it wasn’t long ago that Kim described China’s attempt to reform his country’s economy as a “filthy wind of bourgeois liberty”.

The leaders of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – a quartet described by Western policy analysts as the "axis of upheaval" – have met in public for the first time today at a huge military parade in Beijing.

China's display of laser weapons, nuclear ballistic missiles and giant underwater drones capped off a two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit of mostly non-Western world leaders, where President Xi Jinping urged them to take advantage of the turmoil sparked by Donald Trump's trade war, and work together to challenge the US-led world order.

Xi outlined his plan for "a more just and reasonable global governance system", telling the assembled leaders they should "shoulder together the shared responsibility of promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity". But the subsequent display of Chinese military might, in the presence of aggressor nations, undermine that message of unity.

What did the commentators say?

The sight of the leaders of China, Russia and India – the three most powerful countries not aligned with the West – "smiling and laughing" at the summit "like good friends" was "almost certainly intended" for a US audience, said The New York Times. It showed how "geopolitical disruption" caused by Trump has given China and Russia "a platform to rally" other countries.

The "tableau" was meant to convey the "close bond" between Xi and Vladimir Putin as "leaders of an alternative world order", while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to show the US "that India has other important friends".

Last week, Trump's 50% tariffs on Indian goods – punishment for the country's continued purchase of Russian oil – came into effect. India is "drifting closer to China and doubling down on its ties with Russia", said Semafor, "as Trump's tariff regime further fractures New Delhi's relationship with Washington".

Modi's visit to China – his first in seven years – "showcased his willingness to mend ties" with Xi, despite an unresolved border dispute. Modi also lauded India's "close cooperation" with Moscow during a "warm meeting" with Putin, "defying pressure from Trump to unwind India's dependence on Russian energy".

This was "a carefully choreographed summit", designed to showcase Xi's "vision of a new world order", said CNN. And, by following it up with a parade of China's "cutting-edge" weapons and "thousands of goose-stepping soldiers", Xi is sending a message that China is "a force that wants to reset global rules", unafraid to challenge the West.

"The message isn't new but Beijing is betting it lands differently" now that the US has "cut off its vast network of foreign aid". With the US "shaking up its alliances and causing economic pain" for friend and foe alike, Xi sees "an opportune moment".

But China's "attempt to take advantage of Trumpian chaos" has its limits, Amanda Hsiao, China director at the Eurasia Group consultancy, told the Financial Times. For many, the attendance of Putin, "amid his war on Ukraine", and of international pariah Kim Jong Un, will "undercut Beijing's message as champion of stability and multilateralism", said the paper.

It's clear that Xi is using the parade, officially celebrating his country's victory over Japan in the Second World War, to "recast history", with China as "guardian of the postwar international order". And he sees the projection of military power as strengthening "China's claims of sovereignty over Taiwan", towards which Beijing has grown increasingly aggressive.

But China is grappling with its own domestic issues, said the BBC: "a sluggish economy, youth unemployment and plummeting house prices". Even at Xi's big "moment in the spotlight", there is "discontent, even disillusionment".

What next?

Xi said leaders at the summit had agreed to China's proposals for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation development bank, and he pledged hundreds of millions in loans and grants to countries in the group.

But, despite "warm ties with Moscow", India cannot replace the West's economic support with sanction-battered Russia, said The New York Times. And even China has been "looking warily at Moscow's growing influence over North Korea".

Optics was "a key part of this summit, and the White House should grasp that its policies will result in other countries looking for alternatives to meet their interests", said Manoj Kewalramani, head of Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore. But "optics do little to alleviate the fault lines that exist in the troika of India, China and Russia".

North Korea has opened a huge new beach resort on its east coast in a bid to boost its struggling economy.

The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Area, which can accommodate 20,000 people, is a "pet project" for Kim Jong Un, who was pictured by state media "watching a man flying off a water slide in the resort", said France 24. Pyongyang has claimed North Korean visitors were "filled with joy at experiencing a new level of civilisation".

'Benidorm' of North Korea

Photos released by state media showed "children with tubes and inflatable balls dipping into the sea", said The Associated Press. Other people in "colourful swimsuits beamed" from underneath "red-and-white parasols". In the opening ceremony, Kim called it "one of the greatest successes this year", and "the proud first step" towards developing the nation's tourism.

The "mammoth" resort is the "biggest tourist complex in North Korea" and offers various sports, open water swimming, water park attractions and restaurants. It's "at the heart" of Kim's push to boost tourism and improve the country's "struggling economy". Yet, it is unlikely Western tourists will be able to visit the resort "anytime soon".

North Korea "sealed itself off from the world" when Covid-19 struck, said The Economist, and tourists only began to trickle back in last year. "Visits have since been sporadic and mostly for Russians only." Yet, despite the hermit kingdom's "reputation as a joyless place", it does have an "active domestic tourism industry" and "North Korea's Benidorm" is aimed at its own middle classes.

'Prioritising Russia'

The first Russian visitors were due to arrive on Monday, amid the "booming" military relationship between the two nations, said ABC News. Kim's recent foreign policy "prioritises relations with Russia" as he supplies troops and weapons to support the Kremlin's war against Ukraine, in return for economic and military assistance.

Chinese tourism, which made up 90% of visitors to the country before the pandemic, remains "stalled". Analysts say this is because relations with Beijing, which has long been North Korea's "biggest trading partner and aid benefactor", have recently "cooled" due to Chinese reluctance to join an "anti-Western alliance" with North Korea and Russia.

Yet observers say the "huge investment" that has come out of "North Korea's limited budget" to build the resort will eventually push Kim to welcome Chinese and other foreign tourists "to break even".

Suga, a member of the K-pop giants BTS, has been discharged from South Korea's mandatory national service, as the last of the seven boyband members to finish their military duties.

This is nothing less than a "momentous occasion" for the group's zealous fans, said The Independent, marking the end of a two-and-a-half-year break in the band's career, and now that all BTS members have completed their service, they plan to reunite by the end of the year.

Source of grievance 

All able-bodied South Korean men aged 18 to 28 are legally obliged to carry out 18 to 21 months of military service. This is a "source of grievance" for many young men, said the BBC, and they "begrudge it for taking them away" from their education, jobs and friends.

There were questions about whether the members of BTS, the world's most successful boyband, would join the military or if they might receive an exemption. At one time, there was a special unit for famous people, who would be given privileges and allowed to continue to work as entertainers, but it was scrapped in 2013 after some stars were found "leaving their barracks more often than allowed".

In 2022, there were rumours that the government might allow the members of BTS to "skip the service" altogether, when it was argued that they'd "already served their country by earning it billions of dollars", and would be of more help to the country by continuing to rake in the cash.

Gas chambers

At the Yeoncheon bootcamp, where band member Jin began training in 2022, life isn't easy. Cadets told the BBC that the challenges included being "sealed in a gas chamber", to experience the effects of CS gas, and detonating a live grenade.

Recruits "sleep on mats on the floor" with 30 people to a room, said the broadcaster, and are taught how to handle weapons and fire live ammunition before "being put through demanding wartime scenarios".

When he served at an outpost in the Demilitarized Zone that separates South and North Korea, one recruit saw North Korean soldiers being "beaten", and he spent days shovelling snow in temperatures of -20C. "Our eyelashes would freeze", he said.

Titles like Special Warrior, Elite Trainee or Platoon Leader are given to soldiers who "excel in areas like shooting, endurance, discipline or leadership", said SportsKeeda, and V, Jin, j-hope and Jimin earned some of these "high-performance" honours, which suggested they reached an "outstanding" level.

During their service, BTS members tried to remain engaged with fans, with high-profile album releases, innovative documentaries, fan letters and pre-recorded performances. They hoped to turn military service into an opportunity for personal and artistic growth.

But K-pop has "changed" while they've been away, said the BBC, so whether they can continue their success in the music industry is another question. Military service has proved "fatal" for some celebrity careers, but "if anyone can break the curse", it's BTS, said Lim Young-dae, music critic and author of "BTS: The Review".

A defiant Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran had "delivered a slap to America's face" and claimed "victory" over Israel in his first public remarks about the bombing campaign against his country.

But as he looks to rebuild his shattered authority at home, he might also be asking why Iran's powerful international allies and regional proxies failed to come to its aid.

The Islamic Republic had hoped to call on the so-called "Axis of Resistance", made up of political and militant groups in the Middle East. Iran was also banking on the so-called "Crink" group of authoritarian nation states that includes China, Russia and North Korea for support. But with starkly different ideologies and competing strategic objectives, this coalition is better understood as a "marriage of convenience" – and also "desperation", said The Washington Post.

Russia

Iran and Russia have continued to "deepen" military and economic ties in recent years, said the House of Commons Library.

Tehran has long been suspected by Western allies of supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine and in January the two countries signed a new strategic partnership treaty. While this committed them to "joint exercises and to exchange information", it "did not include a mutual defence clause". But Russian reliance on Iran "reached its zenith one year into the war, and has since been eclipsed by China and North Korea", said the Financial Times.

Moscow condemned Israel's strike on Iran as "unprovoked aggression" but in truth has, of late, "been cosplaying as an ally of Iran", said Owen Matthews in The Spectator. It still pays lip-service to Tehran but the "alliance of convenience is, in the Kremlin's eyes, very much secondary to Russia's more important role as a global power player that can stand alongside the US and China as an arbiter of world affairs".

China

China is a "key diplomatic and economic backer" of Iran, and "has moved to further deepen collaboration in recent years, including holding joint naval drills", said CNN. It continues to be the largest purchaser of US-sanctioned Iranian oil, and in 2023 Tehran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, deepening economic ties between the two countries.

Beijing has promised to deliver material critical for ballistic missile production, as President Xi Jinping tries to "insert himself as an influential player in allowing Tehran to rebuild its own arsenal and arm its various disabled proxies", said Devon Cross, a former defence adviser to the US government, in The Times.

But like Russia, China is playing a much bigger game. While it explicitly condemned Israel's "violation of Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity", Beijing has "appeared unwilling to become further entangled in the conflict past its diplomatic efforts". Instead, it is "using the situation as another opportunity to paint itself as a responsible global player and the US as a force for instability", said CNN.

North Korea

There should, on the surface at least, be little that unites the Islamic Republic and the secretive Stalinist state, but political necessity and their status as international pariahs has dictated a certain level of cooperation and alignment.

There has long been speculation that North Korea has helped with Iran's nuclear programme. In terms of its own capability, Pyongyang has "defied all international sanctions to build up a formidable arsenal of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles, enough to make any potential attacker think twice", said Frank Gardner on the BBC.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "could even try to smuggle one of his nuclear warheads – via Russia – to Iran", said the Daily Express.

Iran's proxies

Iran has invested heavily in a network of proxy allies across the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. It supported the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad until he was toppled last year.

But the so-called "Axis of Resistance" has been greatly "diminished" by over two years of Israeli operations, , said Le Monde, remained relatively silent as its patron faced the full force of Israeli and US air strikes.

Tehran's strategy has long been to use its proxies – chief among them Hezbollah – as its first line of defence in the event of a war with Israel. "The significant weakening of several members of the axis has changed the equation for Iran and limited its options" as the past few weeks have shown.

A secretive group of North Koreans have been securing IT jobs across the US and UK, using AI tools and local accomplices to obscure their true identities.

"Their goal? Cashing in on top tech salaries to funnel millions of dollars back to Pyongyang for its weapons programme," said Politico.

North Korean infiltration of tech firms has been a known issue for years, but "the scam is more widespread than previously understood". Tech leaders are opening up about their encounters with it while "law enforcement continues to crack down" and expose "how the expert operation is covertly conducted".

How do they get hired?

First, the North Korean nationals set up fake LinkedIn profiles, from which they can network with recruiters and apply for jobs using their false identities. Applicants "claim to be from countries including Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Ukraine, the US and Vietnam", said Bloomberg.

Most are actually based in Russia and China, said the US Department of Justice. Their fake identities are carefully crafted, including "pseudonymous email, social media, payment platform and online job site accounts as well as false websites, proxy computers, and witting and unwitting third parties located in the United States and elsewhere".

Once hired, the North Korean workers are onboarded with their false credentials, sometimes including a US "front" address, where American accomplices can receive company laptops and keep them running.

What's the goal?

To earn money for the North Korean regime. IT worker teams "are set 'earnings quotas' by Kim Jong Un's regime", Michael Barnhart, from risk management firm DTEX, told Wired. The workers operate on behalf of several North Korean military and intelligence organisations, with the money they earn channelled back into them.

In one operation, shut down by US authorities in February, North Korean IT workers had infiltrated more than 300 US companies, and collectively earned more than $17 million (£12.7 million). They are often paid in cryptocurrency, or via digital payment platforms, with traditional bank payments laundered through third countries like China before making their way back to North Korea.

What's being done about it?

North Korea has historically targeted US-based tech companies, but in response to increasing awareness of the problem among American employers, they are now expanding their operations to European firms.

John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google's Threat Intelligence group, said UK companies should insist on video or face-to-face interviews to help expose potentially fraudulent applicants. The "scheme usually breaks down when the actor is asked to go on camera or come into the office for an interview", he told The Guardian. However, it is reportedly becoming increasingly common for applicants to use real-time AI deepfake technology to change their appearance on video interviews.

Given the difficulty of targeting suspects based in North Korea or allied countries like Russia and China, US law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning their attention to the accomplices who help pull off the scams. In January, the Department of Justice issued indictments for two North Korean nationals and arrested three "facilitators". Two are US citizens accused of running so-called "laptop farms", which receive and operate company devices on behalf of North Korean operatives, while a Mexican national is accused of allowing fraudulent workers to use his identity.

Bryan Vorndran, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, said that the indictments "should highlight to all American companies the risk posed by the North Korean government".

What happened

Ukraine's military has captured two Chinese men fighting alongside Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, and there's evidence "significantly more Chinese citizens" have joined Moscow's war.

Who said what

The discovery "puts into question China's declared stance for peace," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X. China and Russia did not immediately respond to Ukraine's "first official allegation" that Beijing is "supplying Russia with manpower," the BBC said. But both have "boasted of their 'no limits' partnership" and military cooperation" since Moscow's 2022 invasion, said Al Jazeera.

The North Korean troops that have been fighting with Russia in recent months are gaining "unmatched battlefield experience" they can take home and "spread throughout the country's massive army," The Wall Street Journal said, unnerving "North Korea's own foes in Seoul and Tokyo." Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani Tuesday expressed interest in joining NATO's Ukraine support mission in Germany, offering a "major boost in ties" with the Atlantic alliance, The Associated Press said. "Both Japan and NATO face many challenges and our security environment has become increasingly more severe," Nakatani told NATO leaders.

What next?

Moscow has "effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day halt" in fighting, the AP said, and "both sides are believed to be readying a spring-summer campaign on the battlefield."

North Korea appears to have pulled off the world's biggest heist, another worrying sign of the hermit kingdom's growing prowess in cybercrime.

State-backed hackers stole about $1.5 billion from cryptocurrency exchange Bybit last week, according to the FBI. That's more than the largest known bank theft of all time, when Saddam Hussein stole $1 billion from Iraq's central bank on the eve of the 2003 war.

Pyongyang agents took more in the attack on the popular platform than all the funds stolen by North Korean cybercriminals last year, according to cryptoanalysts Chainalysis: more than $1.3 billion. Leader Kim Jong Un is increasingly relying on "elite units" of hackers to prop up the regime's "failing economy", said The Telegraph.

The 'magnum opus'

Just after 2pm on Friday 21 February, a "notorious group of hackers" pulled off what could be "their magnum opus", said The Independent. In just minutes, they stole from one of the world's most popular crypto exchanges and "funnelled" the digital currency "across the internet to anonymous wallets".

Investigators were able to follow the funds in real time using the blockchain – the online ledger of every crypto transaction. They noted a pattern of laundering "closely mirroring a technique" used by The Lazarus Group: one of the world's "most sophisticated hacking operations".

The group, allegedly "backed by North Korea since its inception in 2009", caused "worldwide chaos" in 2017 with the WannaCry ransomware attacks, which infected 200,000 computers across 150 countries – including NHS systems. But this latest theft would be the group's "largest strike to date" – the haul is equivalent to North Korea's entire annual defence budget.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has called for a "war against Lazarus", issuing a $140 million bounty to recover the funds. The move, a first for the industry, could mark the beginning of "coordinated global action" to "take down Lazarus".

A 'haven' for hackers

In the past, Pyongyang "relied on its elite hacking cadres to conduct espionage or steal trade secrets", said The Telegraph. Science prodigies are identified at a young age, and "pushed to compete in international maths and programming competitions".

But increasingly, these hackers are being used as "a weapon of economic warfare": a way to "bolster the coffers" of a regime battered by sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic. And the "virtually unregulated" cryptocurrency industry is a "haven" for hackers.

Attacks by North Korean groups have "plagued the industry for years", said The New York Times.

Last year, hackers linked to the country stole more than $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency: a "dramatic jump" from the $660 stolen in 2023, reported The Guardian, and about 61% of the $2.2 billion stolen globally. The proceeds of The Lazarus Group's "audacious thefts" are believed to have funded the regime's nuclear and missile programmes.

"Hackers linked to North Korea have become notorious for their sophisticated and relentless tradecraft, often employing advanced malware, social engineering, and cryptocurrency theft to fund state-sponsored operations and circumvent international sanctions," Chainalysis said in its report.

These attackers are getting "better and faster at massive exploits".

The "hermit kingdom" of North Korea is coming out of isolation, finally welcoming Western tourists again, after sealing its borders at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last week, a limited number of tour operators led visitors into the special economic zone of Rason, a remote city near the Chinese and Russian borders – and the only place in the socialist nation where free-market activities are allowed. Tourists from Australia, the UK, Jamaica and Germany were able to enter in time for the celebrations of late leader Kim Jong II's birthday – and the re-establishment of tours opens the door to much-needed tourism revenue.

'Desperate for foreign currency'

North Korea was one of the first countries to shut its borders in reaction to the spread of Covid-19 in January 2020, and it's been the last to re-open them. In the past year, the government has only allowed "some official business delegations and Russian tourists to enter the country", said ABC News, while keeping its frontiers "sealed to the rest of the world".

But North Korea is "desperate for foreign currency", said Hazel Smith, a professor at London's SOAS University, who has lived in North Korea. They need it "not just for oil, but for basic technology like irrigation or health services," she told NBC News.

Before the pandemic, the country received "hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists", said the broadcaster, who provided up to $175 million (£138 million) in extra revenue in 2019, according to the South Korea-based news outlet NK News.

"The return of tourists could help reshape North Korea's reputation, shifting it from a 'dangerous country' in the eyes of the international community to a potentially 'safe' travel destination," Dr Yee Ji Sun, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told The Independent.

The new tour itineraries include visits to a local brewery, a foreign language school and a taekwondo academy. But Pyongyang, the capital, remains closed to all but Russian tourists. Local markets are also off-limits to tourists, due to "lingering concerns over Covid", said the paper, while strict health measures, including temperature checks, are still in place at various locations.

'They wanted connection'

The US prohibits its citizens from visiting North Korea, after the detention and death of 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier in 2017. But some are still managing to get inside the secretive nation.

Justin Martell joined last week's small tourist delegation, becoming the first American known to step foot in North Korea since the onset of the pandemic. The Connecticut-born filmmaker was actually in North Korea when the US travel ban came into effect – and, by then, he had already visited the country 11 times. To bypass the ban, he has spent about a year obtaining expensive dual citizenship from Saint Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean nation. "I didn't want to stop coming," he told CNN. "I didn't want the conversation to end."

Inside North Korea, "pandemic paranoia remains deeply entrenched", said the broadcaster. "There seems to be a rumour that Covid-19 got into the country via a balloon sent from South Korea," said Martell.

But he says that, last week, he didn't encounter any of the once typical anti-US hostility. The children who approached him at a local school "didn't care about politics", he said. "They wanted to know about music, sports – what life was like in the US. They wanted connection."

On January 20, 2025, President Trump placed Cuba back on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism just one week after the Biden administration had removed the country's designation. That puts Cuba back on a short list with just three other countries: Iran, North Korea and Syria. With a major regime transition underway in Syria following the abrupt resignation of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the country's controversial inclusion on the State Department's list may eventually be scrutinized.

Only eight countries have ever received the designation, which is distinct from the State Department's much larger list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. How did Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria end up on the list and why are they still there?

A short history of a short list

The State Sponsors of Terrorism list was created in 1979 for countries that "have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," said the State Department. Designation as an State Sponsor of Terrorims carries with it prohibitions on certain kinds of commerce, including the sale of weapons and potentially dual-use items like commercial airplanes and equipment, as well as a ban on U.S. economic assistance.

"Syria is the last country from this original list to remain so designated today," said The Atlantic Council. Its original designation in 1979 stems from the Syrian government's support for "U.S.-listed terrorist groups," including Palestinian guerrilla organizations and the decision to allow those terrorist groups "to maintain headquarters in Damascus," said the Council on Foreign Relations. Over the years, Syria's portfolio expanded to include a significant role in the arming, funding and hosting of the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, which was founded after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Hezbollah also played a major role in landing Iran on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list on January 23rd, 1984. The action followed five years of escalating tensions between the two countries that began when dozens of U.S. diplomats and embassy workers were held hostage in Tehran for 444 days during the Iranian revolution and culminated in the 1983 Hezbollah suicide bombing of a Marines barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. military personnel. Today, Iran continues to back Hezbollah as well as "Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere throughout the Middle East," said the State Department.

North Korea was first designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988. The bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 from Baghdad to Seoul, which killed all 115 people on board, was "later linked to North Korean agents" said The Washington Post. The designation was rescinded in 2008 "in the hopes of salvaging talks on its nuclear program," only to be reimposed in 2017 by President Trump, said The Atlantic. The pretext was the shocking broad-daylight assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's half-brother at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13, 2017. Analysts at the time warned that the designation would "make diplomacy more difficult without increasing Washington's leverage," said The New York Times. Despite Trump's subsequent summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the designation has not been lifted.

Cuba was initially placed on the list in 1982 for "providing advice, safe haven, communications, training and financial support to guerrilla groups and individual terrorists," said the State Department. The U.S. claimed that Cuba was aiding a number of armed insurgent groups trying to overthrow governments including in El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as providing "funding, training, arms, safe haven and advice to a wide variety of guerrilla groups, and individual terrorists" in the region, said the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama removed the designation in April 2015, only to see President Trump place Cuba back on the list with just days left in his first term. President Trump's decision to reverse the Biden administration's last-minute order to remove Cuba from the list "aligns with his administration's hardline stance on Cuba," said CBS News. But while the move was expected, the new Trump administration's "rationale for the policy reversal was not immediately explained," said Politico.

Could more places be removed?

After a country is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, "it is hard to remove even if it does not support terrorism," said the Brookings Institution. Inclusion on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list is not permanent and can be rescinded if the country in question undergoes "a fundamental change in the leadership and policies of the government," as well as provides "assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future," said the Congressional Research Service.

Prior to President Biden's decision to remove Cuba from the list, the last time such a designation was lifted was in October 2020, when President Trump took Sudan off the list when its government agreed to "pay $335m in compensation for its alleged role in the bombing of two US embassies" in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, said The Guardian. Sudan had allowed al-Qaeda, which perpetrated the attacks, to operate out of its territory between 1991 and 1996.

What happened

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted videos Sunday of two North Korean soldiers captured while fighting in Russia's Kursk region. They are "the first captured soldiers from North Korea," but "there will undoubtedly be more," Zelenskyy said on X. He offered to exchange the North Korean prisoners for Ukrainian troops held in Russia.

Who said what

The North Koreans, captured Thursday, were wearing Russian uniforms and carrying fake identification, Zelenskyy said. Moscow and Pyongyang have not confirmed or denied Western estimates that 11,000 North Korean soldiers are fighting for Russia. The North Koreans were "kept from the front lines for months, digging trenches and offering logistical support," The Wall Street Journal said. But now about 30% "have been deployed into combat — and are being killed at a high rate."

South Korea's National Intelligence Service, which helped question the captured soldiers in Kyiv, said this morning that more than 300 North Koreans have been killed and at least 2,700 injured while fighting Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian and South Korean officials said the North Koreans, as trained, typically choose suicide over capture.

What next?

Ukrainian soldiers described the North Koreans as "disciplined and highly methodical" but using woefully "outdated" military tactics, The Associated Press said. They have "adapted quickly," however, and the North Korean military's gained battlefield experience "could have far-reaching consequences," far outside Ukraine.

The security chief of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has resigned, a week after leading the team that blocked Yoon's arrest over his brief declaration of martial law.

Park Chong-jun stepped down after being questioned by police over alleged obstruction of duties, and his resignation was accepted by the acting president Choi Sang-mok. Speaking outside police headquarters in Seoul, Park criticised attempts to arrest a sitting president, adding "there should not be any physical clash or bloodshed" in any further attempts.

Meanwhile, criminal investigators looking into Yoon's alleged insurrection are said to be "mulling their next move", according to Bloomberg. Yoon remains "holed up at his hillside residence" following last week's six-hour stand-off between police and the Presidential Security Service, led by Park, said Reuters.

What did the commentators say?

Yoon's short-lived declaration of martial law on 3 December has "plunged one of Asia's most vibrant democracies into a period of unprecedented political turbulence", said Reuters. While South Korean democracy looks "on balance" to be safe, recent events suddenly make its democracy look "young and vulnerable", said Tortoise. South Korea's military dictatorship ended less than 40 years ago, in 1987.

In Seoul, there is a "sense of underlying unease", said The Times. "Sure, the martial law declaration in early December only lasted six hours, but what if it hadn't?" For the younger generation, "martial law was something from their parents' stories or history textbooks about the 1980s. Now they've witnessed what many call the gravest threat to South Korean democracy since those dark days."

This is a country that has "masterfully projected itself globally through K-pop, award-winning films and Netflix sensations", such as "Squid Game". But "beneath the polished surface, old wounds and new crises are tearing at society".

Nowhere are the "bitter divisions" in South Korean society more apparent than the daily protests outside the presidential residence in Seoul. Here, "supporters of the impeached president wave flags and shout 'illegal impeachment' while opponents demand his immediate arrest for attempting to overthrow democracy".

Yoon's failed arrest also raised "urgent questions about the state of South Korea's governance and political disarray: Who's in charge?" said The Washington Post. Acting President Choi is the second interim leader since 14 December, after Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who initially took over from Yoon and was himself impeached amid opposition criticism he was stalling judicial appointments needed to continue Yoon's impeachment process.

And the "erosion of the rule of law and the chain of command comes at a worrying moment", said The Economist. A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile test, which took place while outgoing US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited Seoul earlier this week, served as a timely reminder "that the turbulent world around South Korea will not wait for it to resolve its own crises".

What next?

Criminal investigators have obtained another arrest warrant and Yoon now faces a "new and potentially more robust attempt" to arrest him for insurrection, said Reuters.

Yoon is also under a separate Constitutional Court trial reviewing parliament's impeachment of him, which will decide whether to remove him from office permanently or reinstate him. His lawyers have said Yoon will accept the verdict of the court.

What happened

President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine using U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia under certain circumstances, U.S. officials told multiple news organizations Sunday. The reversal in policy, after months of lobbying by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will initially allow Kyiv to fire Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets at 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops amassing to recapture Russia's Kursk province from Ukraine.

Who said what

Biden's "major change in U.S. policy" was prompted by "Russia's surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight," which the U.S. sees as a major escalation, The New York Times said. Allowing the use of ATACMS "deep inside Russia" probably won't "fundamentally alter the course of the war," but it could "help the Ukrainians blunt the effectiveness of the Russian-North Korean assault" and "send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them."

Despite the media reports of the ATACMS shift, "blows are not inflicted with words," Zelenskyy said Sunday night. "Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves." Ukraine "plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days," Reuters said.

President Vladimir Putin warned in September that Western rockets hitting Russia would "substantially change the very essence" of the conflict, and senior Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov called Sunday's U.S. shift "a very big step towards the start of World War III." But Russia has "set out 'red lines' before," the BBC said, and many were "crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and NATO."

U.S. officials noted that the damage from Kyiv's "significant new tool" will be constrained by Ukraine's "very limited stocks of ATACMS," The Washington Post said. But France and Britain quickly followed suit, allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with their similar SCALP/Storm Shadow long-range missiles, Le Figaro said.

What next?

Biden's ATACMS shift, made Thursday, appeared to be part of his team's "push to give what it can to Ukraine" before Donald Trump takes office, The Wall Street Journal said. Trump has said he wants to negotiate some end to the war, and Ukraine and Russia both view Kursk as one of Ukraine's biggest bargaining chips in those talks.

What happened

North Korea launched a new, more advanced intercontinental ballistic missile Thursday, with Kim Jong Un calling the missile test an "appropriate military action" against Pyongyang's "rivals." The test flight reached an altitude of more than 4,300 miles, according to Japan's defense ministry.

Who said what

North Korea's first ICBM launch in nearly a year "flew higher and stayed in the air for a longer duration" than any previous weapon, showing the country's "progress in acquiring a nuclear-armed ICBM that can hit the U.S. mainland," The Associated Press said. Analysts said the missile test was "largely meant to grab American attention days before the U.S. presidential election" and also "respond to international condemnation" over North Korea sending troops to fight Russia's war against Ukraine.

Some 8,000 of North Korea's more than 10,000 troops in Russia are likely to join combat operations against Ukrainian forces in the "coming days," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday. He condemned the ICBM launch "in the strongest terms" and said "all countries should be demanding" North Korea "cease these destabilizing actions." China in particular "should be asking Russia some hard questions at this point about whether it intends to broaden this conflict," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added.

What next?

The United Nations Security Council is expected to meet early next week to discuss North Korea's test launch. The U.S., one of the countries calling for the meeting, said the launch was a "flagrant violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions."

North Korean soldiers are making their way to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian army.

That is the "grim reality", said Edward Howell in The Spectator, after South Korea's intelligence agency confirmed what many had long suspected.

The move represents a "huge" escalation risk, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned over the weekend. While the numbers are small compared to the millions of people involved in the overall war effort, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that any third country wading into the conflict in Ukraine would be "the first step to a world war".

What North Korean troops are involved?

Around 1,500 troops from North Korea's special forces have already been deployed to Russia en route to Ukraine, a number that could eventually rise to 10,000, according to Zelenskyy.

It is not clear whether North Korean troops will be involved in frontline fighting or in a support role, but their elite status is "probably more an indication of perceived political reliability than how they will be used", said The Guardian. Sybiha said there is now a "big risk" of the conflict "growing out of its current scale and borders".

Why is North Korea doing this?

As the war drags on into its third year, Russia is "increasingly looking abroad not only for weapons, equipment and other resources, but also for fighters and workers to supply its conflict", said The Guardian.

Russian forces have become increasingly reliant on millions of rounds of North Korean artillery shells and, in recent months, have used ballistic missiles supplied by Pyongyang in their attacks across Ukraine, in a clear breach of UN Security Council resolutions. Their relationship is "largely transactional", Howell, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

Russia's "obstinacy towards continuing the war, coupled with North Korea's desire for financial and technological assistance (and for food), has allowed relations between the two pariah states to reach a whole new level", said Howell in The Spectator.

Last summer, Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty that commits both countries to providing military assistance to each other if either is attacked. Now, the deployment of North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine "highlights just how far the partnership has escalated".

How worried should we be?

Deepening military ties between Russia and North Korea have "earned condemnation" from the United States, South Korea and Japan, said Al Jazeera, with the three countries last week announcing a new team to monitor arms sanctions on North Korea.

Besides material weapons, Pyongyang will gain Moscow's "unwavering support" in the UN Security Council as part of this deal, Howell told Al Jazeera. "Pyongyang can thus escape scot-free if it chooses to bolster its nuclear and missile programme through testing and launches, which, as we know, is what North Korea intends to do."

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned that Pyongyang's involvement in the Ukraine conflict would pose a "grave security threat" to the world. The deployment of North Korean troops to Ukraine is a hugely symbolic moment in the "new, anti-western coalition" being forged between Russia, North Korea, China and Iran, said Howell in The Spectator. Moscow will do "all it can to prolong its now-global war".

Tensions on the Korean peninsula continue to rise, with North Korean state media reporting that the country has changed its constitution to define South Korea as a "hostile state".

The Pyongyang-based KCNA news agency said the recently-amended constitution "clearly defines the ROK [South Korea] as a hostile state", Reuters reported. The country's Supreme People's Assembly "had been expected to amend the constitution to officially designate South Korea as a separate country and a main enemy" at a meeting last week, but this is the first apparent public confirmation of such a move.

This week, Kim Jong Un's regime has blown up roads connecting it to the south, with Seoul firing from its side of the border in retaliation. The North accused its neighbour of engaging in "grey zone" drone operations over Pyongyang, part of "an escalation of hostility" on the Korean peninsula, where tensions were already "at their highest point in years", said the BBC.

What's going on at the border?

The North Korean People's Army said it blew up the roads as a "self-defensive measure for inhibiting war", in response to military exercises in South Korea and the frequent presence of US nuclear assets in the region.

South Korea's military said the explosions had not caused any damage on its side of the border, but the roads were "seen as symbolic of efforts to improve ties and, eventually, reunite the peninsula", said The Guardian.

Behind North Korea's "demolition politics" is the same "psychological game" as its destruction of the inter-Korean liaison tower in 2020, said South Korean author and commentator Sung-Yoon Lee on X. The aim is to "raise stress" and "war fear", as well as "bashing" the government of its neighbour.

The South Korean unification ministry described the North's move as "abnormal" and a violation of bilateral agreements that are supposed to reduce tensions. Its joint chiefs of staff said the military had fired "retaliatory" warning shots near the border, but didn't provide any further details.

How did we get here?

In January, Pyongyang constitutionally abandoned its "decades-long objective" to seek the "unification of the two Koreas", said Al Jazeera. Kim declared the South his country's "principal enemy" and the hermit kingdom has "laid fresh mines, erected anti-tank barriers and deployed missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads", said The Guardian.

Since then, the North has unveiled a "secretive" uranium-enrichment nuclear facility, and vowed to build more nuclear weapons while continuing its record run of "provocative" missile tests, said The Associated Press. Foreign experts believe that North Korea hopes to use an expanded nuclear arsenal as "leverage to win outside concessions like sanctions relief", particularly if Donald Trump is re-elected.

What do drones have to do with it?

Tensions reached a new high when North Korea accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang: a new "grey zone" attack. The drones allegedly scattered propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang in what the North described as a provocation that could lead to "armed conflict and even war". Pyongyang said last week it would permanently block its border with South Korea in response, build front-line defence structures and order border troops to be prepared to fire.

South Korea's defence ministry has denied involvement in drone flights over Pyongyang. But Seoul has warned that if the safety of its citizens was threatened, it would signal the "end of the North Korean regime". Its joint chiefs of staff said its military was maintaining "fully readiness posture under cooperation with the US".

What might happen next?

North Korea has threatened to respond with force if drone flights occur again, and to put frontline artillery and other army units on standby in such an eventuality. Pyongyang said North Korean forces would prepare "all means of attack".

The North is likely to stage more provocations, even a nuclear test explosion and a long-range missile test. Kim "has a habit of demolishing things when he is feeling cross", said The Times Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. Such "pointless pyrotechnics are part of North Korean rhetoric, on a par with the repeated warnings of imminent nuclear war". What was "notable" this week was South Korea's response: mysterious "counter-fire" intended to "make a point". South Korea has joined the North in "the game of setting off big bangs for rhetorical, not military, reasons". The policy of South Korea's conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, and his "uncompromising" defence minister is to "match North Korean provocation". But any all-out war on the peninsula would be "catastrophic", and likely to draw China into a superpower conflict.

Disney World? A Viking cruise down the Danube? A drive from coast to coast with stops at every roadside attraction? When getting out of the house and going on vacation, the options are virtually limitless. Virtually, but not absolutely — particularly for adventurous travelers interested in visiting one of the most isolated countries on Earth, North Korea. The country closed its borders entirely five years ago during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

That may be about to change.

For the first time in half a decade, the avowedly communist enclave is preparing to welcome tourist groups back into parts of the country as early as this coming December, according to China-based tour operators Koryo Tours. "We have received confirmation from our local partner that tourism to Samjiyon and potentially the rest of the country will officially resume in December 2024," the group said in a press release. Described as "the most famous region in North Korea in the winter for tourism," Samjiyon is "the most significant and sacred place" for the entire Korean peninsula, Koryo said. The agency predicts it will have a "finalized itinerary for the area and more information as well as dates and prices in the coming days and weeks."

As the infamously secretive and insular North Korea begins once again accepting foreigners into its midst, what does this mean for the region — and the world? 

'Not a full reopening'

The decision to make Samjiyon the first spot open to foreign tourism is "significant" Semafor said. The tourism-associated area has been a popular destination for Chinese visitors coming across the two countries' shared border in the past, helping North Korea generate "vital revenue amid international sanctions." 

North Korea has dubbed Samjiyon its "'model of a highly-civilized mountain city' with new apartments, hotels, a ski resort and commercial, cultural and medical facilities," Reuters said. Earlier this summer, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reprimanded a group of senior officials overseeing construction in the region for their "irresponsibility," declaring the city would become an "oasis of our people and the world people and make tourism a major driving force of regional development" while he personally inspected the project, The Korea Times said. 

This winter's planned tourism opportunity is "not a full reopening of the country back to what it was, or more than what it was," Koryo Tours' Simon Cockerell cautioned during a podcast taping at The Independent. "It's a specific opening of one, relatively obscure-up-till-now area." 

Moreover, this coming December will not be the first opportunity for tour groups to enter the country since the Covid lockdown. Last year, "small tour groups from Russia" were granted entry to North Korea "amid Kim's deepening partnership with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin," CNN said. That exchange is more "associated with the North Korean support for the Russian war effort," said Cockerell. Just this month, Russia sent North Korea more than 400 goats as part of a "wide-ranging deal covering sectors including education, agriculture and tourism," Politico said. 

'We can only have peace when this travel ban is lifted'

For as much as North Korea's impending tourism opening may seem like the sort of opportunity an adventurous traveler should jump on, do not expect to be able to hop on a flight to Pyongyang just yet. It will likely be "only Russian tourists and possibly Chinese visiting in any real numbers at first" if North Korea does not offer "direct Samjiyon flights to a neutral connection country like Mongolia," Chad O'Carroll, CEO of US-based analysis firm Korea Risk Group, said at BBC. Even if such countries do, American passport holders are banned from visiting the communist country: The U.S. State Department announced the renewal of its prohibition on travel "to, in or through the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" earlier this month. 

"We can only have peace when this travel ban is lifted," Cathi Choi, co-director of Women Cross DMZ, said at The Hill. "In addition to divided family members, everyday people in North Korea, South Korea and the United States will all suffer from these consequences." 

Allowing tourism "can only bring positives," said Cockerell. "The cure for isolation is not more isolation."

Although they "almost certainly don't know it", Western owners of "shiny new wigs and false eyelashes could owe their look to North Korean slave labour".

By purchasing these products, said The Guardian, Western customers could also be inadvertently helping Pyongyang "skirt the impact of sanctions".

'Skirting sanctions'

According to Chinese customs data, last year's exports from North Korea to China included 1,680 tonnes of false eyelashes, beards and wigs worth around $167 million.

This haul, which The Guardian said adds up to about "135 double decker buses worth", made up 60% of North Korea's declared exports to China, as trade bounced back after Covid lockdowns.

After speaking to 20 people, Reuters uncovered a lucrative arrangement in which China-based firms import semi-finished products from North Korea, which are then completed and packaged as Chinese, before being exported to markets including the West, Japan and South Korea.

Shoppers in London and Seoul "perusing hairpieces and other accoutrements" will find labels telling them the items were made in China, not North Korea, said The Guardian.

Those "made in China" labels give Kim Jong Un's Pyongyang regime a way to "skirt international sanctions", said Reuters, providing a "vital source of foreign currency".

'Labour camps'

Since 2006, the UN Security Council has "sought to stall" Kim's nuclear weapons programme through several sanctions resolutions that restrict North Korea's ability to trade products such as coal, textiles and oil.

The sanctions are supposed to be enforced by UN member states but there is no direct ban on hair products. So trading false eyelashes from North Korea does not necessarily violate international law, three experts said.

But speaking to VOA, Troy Stangarone, senior director at Korea Economic Institute, said that "any efforts" by Chinese firms to "directly or indirectly" export these goods to the United States would be a "violation of US sanctions". Nevertheless, he added, there is still a good chance that those items could end up in the US.

From Beijing's perspective, importing eyelash materials from North Korea makes sense because of the country's "low cost of labour and high-quality eyelashes", said the New York Post. North Korean workers can be paid a tenth of what Chinese equivalents receive for the same service and their products are highly rated in the sector.

Professor Mimura Mitsuhiro, from the University of Niigata Prefecture, told The Straits Times that North Korea is in "a very bad economic depression", so it desperately needs foreign currency to buy oil and staples to support its people.

But although the sales are generating significant sums, the US State Department estimates that North Korea seizes up to 90% of foreign income generated by its citizens.

So "we have to assume" that the "millions of dollars" that North Korea is making through this trade is being used for the Kim Jong Un regime", Seoul-based sanctions lawyer Shin Tong-chan told Reuters.

According to a paper by a think tank funded by the South Korean government, there are wig and fake eyelash-making departments at labour correction camps, where "mostly female prisoners perform the task without receiving any wages", said The Straits Times.

The two nations insist their trade is legal and any suggestion that it violates UN sanctions is "completely without foundation". A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing and Pyongyang "are friendly neighbours" and that "normal cooperation" between the two countries that is "lawful and compliant" should "not be exaggerated".

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an agreement Wednesday pledging some sort of mutual assistance if either country faced foreign "aggression." The pledge appears to be the strongest since the collapse of the Soviet Union ended a 1961 pact that required Moscow to step in if North Korea were attacked.

Who said what

Kim said the agreement, signed during Putin's first visit to North Korea since 2000, was the "strongest treaty ever" between Moscow and Pyongyang. Putin said the "breakthrough" pact "does not exclude the development of military-technical cooperation" — a statement analysts said could mean he will reward Kim's flow of munitions for the Ukraine invasion by helping to improve North Korea's nuclear missiles and other advanced weapons.

The scope of the agreement was unclear. South Korean analyst Cheong Seong Chang told The Associated Press it appears the two hermit states have "completely restored their Cold War-era military alliance." Moscow and Pyongyang are declaring a "de facto alliance," Hudson Institute security analyst Patrick Cronin said to The Wall Street Journal, but "there is nothing fundamentally new about this relationship today that was not true before Putin's visit."

What next?

Putin arrived in Vietnam on Thursday to bolster ties with Moscow's longtime ally and demonstrate the "diplomatic support Russia still enjoys in the region," the BBC said. 

It may evoke the darkest days of the Cold War, but Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea this week also elucidates a very contemporary – and hardening – alliance.

The Russian president touched down in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a two-day "friendly state visit" to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), his first trip to the hermit kingdom since 2000. Ahead of the trip, Putin promised to "build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia". The vow came days after the US and EU agreed at the G7 summit to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion (£39 billion) loan using interest from frozen Russian assets. 

Russia and North Korea are "actively advancing their multifaceted partnership", Putin said in an article for Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party. He thanked North Korea for its "unwavering support for Russia's special military operation in Ukraine" and declared that the two pariah states were "ready to confront the ambition of the collective West".

What did the commentators say?

This is a "rare" overseas trip for Putin since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a "key moment" for North Korea's Kim Jong Un, who has not hosted another world leader in Pyongyang – one of the world's "most politically isolated capitals" – since the Covid-19 pandemic, said CNN.

The visit is expected to "cement further the burgeoning partnership between the two powers", founded on "their shared animosity toward the West and driven by Putin's need for munitions for its war in Ukraine". 

Their "bromance" has "blossomed thanks to geopolitical shifts", said The Economist. They now have an "unbreakable relationship of comrades-in-arms", the North Korean dictator "gushed" recently in a message to his Russian counterpart.

The invasion of Ukraine, a record number of North Korean missile tests and crippling Western sanctions "have deepened both countries' international isolation", said The Guardian, which in turn, has "driven Putin and Kim together in a mutually beneficial challenge to a 'hostile' US and its allies in Europe and northeast Asia".

Putin hosted the reclusive Kim in Vladivostok in 2019 for their first summit, and at the Far East Russian spaceport Vostochny Cosmodrome for their second last year. According to both leaders they discussed "military cooperation, the war in Ukraine and Russian help for North Korea's satellite programme", said Reuters.

Now, said The Independent's world affairs editor Kim Sengupta, "Kim has a new bestie". North Korea has been "stepping in to replenish Russia's exhausted ammunition and missile stock", although Pyongyang denies it, in return for fuel, financial support and technology. Putin has "a lot to thank North Korea for".

Russia, in return, has allegedly circumnavigated sanctions to help Kim "develop his military arsenal", as well as sending "fancy horses and cars".

It is "not clear" what a new agreement might involve, said The Times Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. But it is "unlikely to be a full mutual defence treaty" like that which existed between North Korea and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The "quid pro quo" at the summit could be "another round of advanced military technology transfers to the Kim regime in areas like missiles, spy satellites, and submarines", geopolitical analysts at risk consultancy Teneo told CNBC.

Western officials will watch the two-day visit "closely for signs that the partnership has advanced", said the news site. The deepening relationship is "increasingly hazardous for the West". 

Indeed, it is the "greatest threat to US national security since the Korean War", said Victor Cha, Korea chair of the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank. The relationship also "undermines the security" of Europe and Asia.

What next?

It is increasingly common among Western nations "to view the various conflicts around the world as part of one big narrative", said Adam Taylor in The Washington Post: one where China, Russia, Iran (and its regional proxies) and North Korea are in direct opposition to the West. 

But unlike the Cold War, in which "ideology at least nominally bound the Communist bloc against the West", this alliance is "better understood as a 'marriage of convenience'" – and desperation. 

Since Putin's last visit 24 years, ago the "geopolitical climate has changed beyond recognition", said The Guardian, "driven by a more hardline Putin and a younger Kim determined to turn his country into a genuine nuclear power".

Amid "front-burner issues" like wars in Ukraine and Gaza, said Cha, the West "relegates this problem to the back burner at its own peril".

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Pyongyang on Tuesday for a two-day visit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Putin is making his first trip to North Korea since 2000 as "Moscow is hungry for munitions" to use against Ukraine, The Washington Post said. Putin hosted Kim in far-eastern Russia last September.

Who said what

Putin said in an op-ed in North Korean state media Monday that Moscow and Pyongyang will develop trade and security systems "not controlled by the West" and thanked North Korea for "firmly supporting" his war in Ukraine.

The U.S. and South Korea have repeatedly said that support includes "providing Russia with artillery, missiles and other military equipment," possibly in return for "key military technologies and aid," The Associated Press said. North Korea and Russia deny trading arms.

What next?

"We're not concerned about the trip," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said, just the "deepening relationship between these two countries." The Ukraine war has drawn Moscow and Pyongyang closer together, but "there is too much mutual distrust between the two countries" for a lasting alliance, Andrei Lankov, an expert on Russia–North Korea relations, told the Post.

Dairy devils

Thousands of people headed to Gloucestershire for the annual cheese-rolling races on Monday. The event, which is known to have taken place since at least 1826, sees competitors hurl themselves down Cooper's Hill, near Gloucester, to chase a wheel of cheese, with the first to grab it named the winner. 

This year the course was particularly slippery due to recent wet weather, said The Associated Press – and local rugby club members assembled at the bottom of the course to catch tumbling participants.

Caught in the act

A defendant who was appearing virtually in court over a driving while disqualified charge shocked a Michigan judge by dialling in from behind the wheel earlier this month. 

Judge Cedric Simpson was "visibly and verbally confused" when Corey Harris joined the hearing via a Zoom call, said People, as he explained that he was pulling in and parking at the time. 

Simpson confirmed with Harris's lawyers both the charges and the fact that their client had been driving while attending the hearing. "I don't even know why he would do that," Simpson said.

Stink bombs

The South Korean military warned people to stay indoors this week after North Korea dumped about 260 balloons carrying bags of rubbish on eight of its neighbour's nine provinces. 

Pictures shared on social media show ripped bags filled with soil, batteries and toilet paper, and South Korean news agency Yonhap said some of the bags appeared to contain faeces. 

The news comes days after North Korea had warned it would respond to the "frequent scattering of leaflets and other rubbish" at border areas between the two countries.

Britain faces "the most dangerous" years since the end of the Cold War, with an "axis of authoritarian states" colluding against the West, Rishi Sunak has warned.

The UK and its allies must belatedly acknowledge the growing collusion among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Rishi Sunak said during a speech yesterday. Echoing that warning, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told The Times that this axis is "determined to end Western values", which would mean "an end of human rights and the rule of law".

MPs cautioned last month that the UK and other Western governments needed to devise a strategy to deal with this increasingly "coordinated and assertive axis", said the i news site – or World War Three would be "inevitable".

What are the Crink nations?

The acronym Crink (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea), first coined by the Strategic News Service in 2017, has become widely used over the past year.

It was described last October in the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual summit for international government and military officials, as "a new alignment of nations where global democracies' strategic challenges now originate".

China's threat towards Taiwan and its aggression in the South China Sea, Russia's war on Ukraine, and Israel's war in the Middle East (part of its decades-long conflict with Iran and its regional proxies) are separate conflicts with differing agendas. 

But in Washington, it is "increasingly common" to view them as part of "one big narrative", said Adam Taylor in The Washington Post. The Crink nations differ starkly in ideology; the coalition is better understood as a "marriage of convenience" – and desperation. 

How are China, Russia and Iran working together?

The four provide weaponry and oil for each other to "evade sanctions imposed by the West", said the i news site. Experts warn they are working "more closely together" in the background of conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa.

Iran has been playing an "important role" in Russia's war, said Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic. Iranian drones "fly every night at Ukrainian cities", to reveal air defences and "pave the way" for Russian missiles.

In return, Russia reinforced Iran's defences against Israeli strikes with Russian weapons, said Taylor. This is part of a "strategic alliance" forged by Russia's invasion: a "mutually beneficial relationship" between two pariah states. 

China, the most significant Crink nation, has also provided "a trade lifeline for Russia" since its invasion sparked western sanctions. 

This week President Xi Jinping will welcome Vladimir Putin in China for the Russian president's second high-profile visit in less than a year, "the latest sign of their growing alignment", said CNN.

China also maintains close ties with Iran, providing it with support that has similarly diminished the impact of sanctions. The deepening relationship is driven by "mutual interests", said The Diplomat: China's "insatiable energy needs and Iran's quest for economic and diplomatic support". But it is underpinned by "a shared narrative of resistance against perceived Western hegemony".

At the heart of this geopolitical maelstrom lies China's "increasingly assertive global posture". Its deepening relationship with Iran and Russia can be understood through the lens of its "burgeoning superpower rivalry" with the US.

What is North Korea's role? 

North Korea, perhaps the most unpredictable of the Crink nations, is taking advantage of the fragmenting international order to ramp up pressure on the US and South Korea.

Alongside its military development over the past few years, North Korea has been "chumming up to Russia and remaining on the right side of China", said The Times's Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow has flourished. North Korea has provided Russia with much-needed ammunition and war materials in exchange for the "advanced technology" that Pyongyang covets, said Taylor.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia last autumn, his first foreign trip since 2019, and pledged closer military cooperation with Putin. 

North Korean weapons were also used by Hamas in the 7 October attacks on Israel, according to the Israeli and South Korean military. North Korea denies this, but has sold anti-tank rocket launchers to Hamas in the past. 

What is the Crink end goal? 

The target of the Crink coalition is not the overthrow of a "rules-based international order", said Cohen, but rather of the "American-led world order" of the past 75 years. To achieve their goals, the major Crink players are "increasingly willing to use open violence" and to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. 

Crucially, three out of four Crink nations are nuclear-armed, and Iran is "not far off", said Taylor. 

Ultimately, said Cohen, "they are united by a growing belief that their moment is coming, when a divided and indecisive West, richer but flabbier, will not fight".

World Health Organization officials have been preparing for nuclear catastrophe if the US-Israeli war with Iran escalates further. “The worst-case scenario is a nuclear incident, and that’s something that worries us the most,” Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, told Politico. “As much as we prepare, there’s nothing that can prevent the harm that will come.”

“That’s an understatement”, said US news site Salon’s national affairs editor, Troy Farah. “A single nuclear device detonated in a city, whether it’s Tel Aviv, Tehran or Washington, would immediately qualify as one of the worst events of this century.”

But for all the talk of a new world war, “it’s unclear what ‘war’ even means in the 21st century”. It looks “barely recognisable, compared to historical footage or war movies of the past” and is “happening everywhere, all the time, and involves the whole globe in some way”.

When would we know the Third World War had begun?

Multiple “system-changing conflicts with multivector loads of countries involved” are a sign that the next world war has indeed already started, UK security analyst Fiona Hill told The Guardian last year – if only we would recognise it.

The reality is that most people won’t know they are in a world war until fighting is well under way – or so history teaches us. The Second World War was “simply ‘the War’ until the late 1940s” in Britain, according to History.com, although US president Franklin D. Roosevelt “publicly declared it” as such when America entered the conflict in 1941.

Although the conflict in the Middle East, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and rising Chinese threats against Taiwan have intensified fears, the truth is that another world war will “only come into existence when people subjectively agree that it has”, said Gavriel Rosenfeld in The Washington Post.

In the end, we may not really know the Third World War has happened until it enters “the history books as a real event in retrospect”.

Are there signs that the Third World War is on the way?

“The question of how a third world war might erupt haunts us today more than at any time since the end of the last world war,” said author Richard Overy in The Telegraph.

The world is perhaps in as tense a position as it has been in nearly a century and countries are more readily equipped with stockpiles of highly destructive weapons than they were before the previous wars.

The “major powers” holding nuclear weapons make the “situation far more perilous”, Dr David Wearing, lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex, told Sky News. This is not because one side is more likely to make a “premeditated decision to spark the apocalypse” but that, if one side “misinterprets” the action of the other, a “nuclear exchange begins, despite the fact that no one was looking for one”.

This is a view also held by citizens across Europe and America. A YouGov poll published last year found around half of people on both sides of the Atlantic believe another global conflict is likely to occur in the next five to 10 years.

The vast majority of those polled expect any future global conflict would involve the use of nuclear weapons. This would lead to a higher casualty count than in previous world wars, with a sizeable minority thinking it would lead to the deaths of most people on the planet.

How would the Third World War be fought?

Even with their potential to escalate, the wars we are seeing today in Ukraine and Iran are “quite different to what happened in the 1940s with its thousand bomber raids and millions fighting on the eastern front”, said Mark Urban in The Sunday Times. “Critically, no country in the world – with the possible exception of China – could sustain the huge expenditure of precision weapons that we are now seeing for any substantial period of time.”

Whether it’s Nato vs. Russia over Ukraine or the US vs. China over Taiwan, any conflict between the “great powers” is ever “rarely settled in a neat, tidy fashion”, said Brian Kerg at the New Atlanticist.

Wars between world superpowers are usually “long, gruelling slogs of attrition”, which then “tend to expand horizontally, ensnaring other regions in their wake”. That is possibly the clearest sign that the Third World War is under way.

Many defence experts believe “the first shots of the next world war will almost certainly be fired in space (with simultaneous volleys being exchanged in cyberspace, which increasingly overlaps with the space domain)”, said Andreas Kluth on Bloomberg. “The controversy is about what form an attack would take.”

This could presage the use of nuclear arms, which present the risk of conflicts being over in a rapid flash of mass destruction. The “tearing up” of treaties that capped the spread of nuclear arms means more countries than ever are now in a position to build a nuclear arsenal: a sign that the “old nuclear order is dead”, said Richard Spencer in The Times, and the “only thing preventing catastrophe is, once again, mutually assured destruction”.

That could mean nuclear arms are more likely to be used as “tactical weapons”, rather than the all-out bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Smaller nuclear weapons could be “fired from artillery or tanks, or attached to short-range missiles”.

The scenario of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Iran building a nuclear bomb and using it on Israel, or China deploying them against Taiwan are all “possible” if still not “probable”, said Overy.

“Predicting – more accurately, imagining – the wars of the future can produce dangerous fantasies that promote anxiety over future security. It is likely that even the most plausible prognosis will be wrong.”

Looking further ahead, Albert Einstein once said that although he didn’t know “which weapons World War Three will be fought” with, “World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones”, said Forbes.

Thousands of North Koreans working illegally in China have reportedly rioted to demand years of unpaid wages alleged to have been spent on funding Pyongyang's war machine.

About 2,500 North Korean labourers were owed a total of $10 million, Cho Han-bum, a research fellow at the Korean Institute for National Unification think tank, told NK News. Workers in 15 Pyongyang-operated factories in northeastern China are said to have "erupted" into riots after discovering that their wages had instead "been put towards building weapons", said BBC News. 

According to South Korea's The Korea Times, at least one North Korean government official sent to monitor the labourers was killed during the "violent protests", near the North Korean border.

China denies the existence of the "closely guarded" factories, said the BBC's Seoul correspondent Jean Mackenzie, as employing North Korean workers abroad is prohibited by the UN. But South Korean intelligence told the broadcaster that there had been "multiple incidents" resulting from "poor working conditions" – sparking concern for the "tens of thousands of North Koreans working overseas, earning money for the cash-starved regime".

Where are North Korean migrants working?

For more than 30 years, North Korea has been sending workers abroad to support its sanctions-hit economy. They have "toiled in logging camps in Russia, factories and restaurants in China and farms and shipyards in Eastern Europe", said The New York Times. Workers' passports are "confiscated for fear that they may flee", and they leave behind families as "hostages". These workers are a "crucial source of cash" for the regime as it pours scarce resources into its "growing nuclear arsenal". 

An estimated 100,000 North Koreans are now working overseas, mostly in textile factories and construction sites in China. Most of their earnings are "transferred directly to the state", said the BBC's Mackenzie: an estimated $740 million (£586 million) between 2017 and 2023. These jobs are "highly competitive", paying as much as 10 times more than jobs in North Korea. 

But female workers, speaking on conditions of anonymity, describe being "held in compounds, sometimes behind barbed wire", and threatened with "severe punishment" if they try to escape, said The New Yorker. Many "described enduring sexual assault". Several said they were "beaten by the managers sent by North Korea to watch them". "It was like a prison for me," one woman told the magazine. 

Despite China's denials, "their presence is an open secret", said the magazine, with many companies relying on the "vast" programme of "forced labour". Since 2012, North Korea has also sent citizens to Poland, Qatar, Uruguay, Mali – and neighbouring Russia. 

The port city of Vladivostok, near the border, is "one of the main footholds in the world" for North Korean migrant workers, said The Washington Post. These "in-demand" labourers are cheap, but with "a reputation for quality of work".

In 2017, a UN Security Council resolution banned any country from hosting North Korean workers. But the order to send them home took effect only in December 2019 – a month before the Covid-19 pandemic "shuttered the borders" of the hermit kingdom, leaving tens of thousands stranded abroad. 

What's the latest?

Factory managers typically hold on to wages, minus the government's cut, until the workers' terms overseas end. Since North Korea relaxed its strict border controls last year, some workers have been "pushing to return home to recoup their money", said Mackenzie. But Pyongyang "seems reluctant to bring them home".

Meanwhile, new groups of North Korean workers "are being dispatched overseas", said Julie Turner, the US State Department's special envoy on human rights in North Korea. This month, about 300 presumed North Korean workers arrived in Russia by train, reported Yonhap News of South Korea, "amid deepening cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow". 

The US believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has "stepped up cooperation with Russia through the transfer of arms", said Time, to help Vladimir Putin in the war on Ukraine. Last year, the White House said that Moscow and Pyongyang had discussed a deal in which North Korea would provide weapons in exchange for food. 

Living conditions for North Koreans "remain dire", said Newsweek. Kim admitted to his party this month that the economy was in a "terrible situation".

Peter Ward, a North Korean economy expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, told the BBC that if the "entirely plausible" reports of riots were true, it would be proof that North Korea is "really struggling for money, to the point where it is now literally stealing from its workers".

Kim Jong Un is rattling cages again.

The North Korean leader "could take some form of lethal military action against South Korea" in the near future, The New York Times reported, after engaging in a "pattern of provocations" and abandoning a long-held policy of trying to engage the United States diplomatically. Is a full-blown war imminent? Maybe not, but Kim "could carry out strikes in a way that he thinks would avoid rapid escalation."

Among the provocations: North Korea this week test-fired a new cruise missile — potentially capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads — with several launches aimed toward the Yellow Sea. That came after Pyongyang ordered the destruction of the Arch of Reunification, a symbol of hopes for peace on the Korean peninsula. Newsweek reported that North Korea even released a series of propaganda posters with alarming slogans: "Let us destroy the U.S. imperialists and the clan of the Republic of Korea without mercy!"

Most importantly, The Associated Press reported, Kim earlier this month announced he had abandoned "the existential goal of reconciling with rival South Korea." That was a move that came as a shock, but was also the "inevitable culmination of years of building tension." And that has raised concerns. "Is Kim Jong Un about to take North Korea to war?" asked NBC News. It might seem like old news: "Threats and angry rhetoric" are an old family tradition for Kim. But some observers say his latest rhetoric goes beyond the usual posturing.

What did the commentators say? 

"We believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war," Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried Hecker wrote at 38 North, a website that tracks developments on the peninsula. One reason is the failure of diplomacy. Kim met with then-President Donald Trump in 2019 — an unprecedented summit between the two sides — in hopes of achieving what his predecessors never could: Normalization with the United States. "When that failed, it was a traumatic loss of face for Kim." And that makes the situation unstable. "Pyongyang could be planning to move in ways that completely defy our calculations."

"There's another, more plausible explanation for the despot's behavior," Josh Rogin argued at The Washington Post. Kim's "real priority" is to build his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who has been buying and using North Korean weaponry in the war against Ukraine. Raising tensions in Asia lets Kim "justify his use of North Korea's money and industry for its weapons business rather than feeding its people."

Harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang might actually be a way to get diplomatic attention, John Feffer suggested at Responsible Statecraft. This means Kim's provocations might be "perversely, a determination to restart peace talks with newly attentive adversaries." But some analysts believed the same thing about Putin as he threatened war against Ukraine in the waning months of 2021. The lesson? "Beware wishful thinking."

What next?

Whether or not war develops, Voice of America reported, Kim's belligerence — along with his growing ties with Russia — is proving "disruptive to Beijing's efforts to improve its relationship with Washington." And it complicates an already tender picture in the Pacific. "North Korea making trouble for the U.S. is in China's interest," said one expert, "as long as it does not get out of control and risk war that China does not want — at least not until China is ready." 

In the meantime, officials in Washington and Seoul are downplaying the possibility of conflict, Reuters reported. War would be bad for North Korea, too. Count Sydney Seiler, a former U.S. intelligence officer, among the skeptics. "This," he said, "is not a country that is going to a war footing."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared that he will no longer pursue any form of reunification with his country's "principal enemy" South Korea.

The new policy towards the South was announced by Kim at a party meeting in December, and was formally ratified after a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly earlier this week. Kim also ordered revisions to North Korea's constitution, along with changes to propaganda guidelines intended to "instil in his people the view" that the South is the "most hostile state", said The New York Times. Monuments of unification will also be torn down.

The abandonment of any peaceful reunification between the two countries, which have been separated since the Korean War ended in 1953, has heightened tensions in the region and shows "how far relations have fallen" in the last five years, said The Independent.

What has North Korea done?

Kim insisted that the North does "not want war" with the South, but added that he has "no intention of avoiding it". The abandonment of reunification comes after "a string of recent bellicose statements" and a flurry of military activity in the region, said CNN.

Animosity has been growing since 2019, when Kim's nuclear diplomacy summit with then-president Donald Trump in Vietnam "imploded", said The Independent. That "highly public setback" led to an "accelerated, and unprecedented" expansion of North Korea's nuclear arsenal, as well as a ramping-up of rhetoric and threats against South Korea and the US.

As recently as this month, North Korea has reportedly been testing hypersonic missiles as part of its "five-year plan to boost military power", said Reuters. Hypersonic missiles are a particular concern because they are "difficult to detect and intercept", and China, Russia and the US are leading the way in testing them. Reports suggest the North has also been testing hypersonic missiles since 2021, contributing to the growing anxiety across the border.

How has South Korea responded?

South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol said his country "will not be cowed" by North Korean threats and vowed to "punish them multiple times as hard" in response to any acts of aggression. Yoon added that Kim's comments were a "political act aimed at dividing the South", and insisted his government would "further boost efforts" to stop the North from accessing materials and funds for its nuclear programme, said Reuters.

South Korea has already "turned to slapping sanctions on Pyongyang independently" as it faces "gridlock" in the United Nations. It has also carried out new military drills in conjunction with the US and Japan in response to the North Korean threats.

The South is eager to respond quickly and decisively given the North's growing military relationship with Russia. The government views it as a "serious threat to international stability", with President Vladimir Putin meeting North Korea's Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow for talks this week.

What are the geopolitical implications?

North Korea's move to rebuke the South is one of its clearest signs yet that it wants to establish its own, greater, footing on the world stage. The North "no longer sees Seoul as a useful middleman to extract concessions" from the US, said The Independent, and Kim is trying to "break out of diplomatic isolation" by playing off the "deepening US tensions with Moscow and Beijing".

Kim's "efforts to carve out a more assertive presence in global affairs" have seen him deepening his country's relationship with Russia in particular, which has been importing munitions and arms from North Korea to aid its war effort in Ukraine. A "sustained partnership" between them could make a "continued battlefield reality" in Ukraine and create a "troubling scenario" for the West, said Business Insider.

The West isn't alone in closely monitoring the deepening cooperation between North Korea and Russia. China has "long enjoyed" and "kept guarded" its influence over Pyongyang, and President Xi Jinping could look to increase "public diplomacy and economic assistance" to maintain that sway, even if Beijing has disapproved of the instability created by missile testing by North Korea.

Interest from Russia and China leaves a "perfect opportunity" for Kim, concluded Business Insider, and he now may "find himself able to play his cards as he chooses".

As Kim Jong Un marks what is believed to be his 40th birthday, the North Korean leader can reflect on over a decade in power in which he has consolidated his regime at home and won important allies abroad through a leadership style best described as ruthless pragmatism.

When he assumed the title of Supreme Leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, some observers speculated that "a 27-year-old with no leadership experience would have to share power with guardians or be guided by regents", said Foreign Policy. Or that the Swiss-educated ruler "would implement economic and political reforms that would change the direction of the secretive authoritarian state".

More than a decade later, neither scenario has come to pass. Instead "he's purged his internal opponents, he's built a formidable nuclear weapons programme, he has tightened his control over society and Russia and China's growing enmity with the US is playing right into his hands", Peter Ward, a fellow at the University of Vienna's European Centre for North Korean Studies, told the Financial Times (FT). Against all the odds, the regime is "much more secure than when Kim came to power in 2011".

A 'ruthless openness' at home

"To the rest of the world, he is almost a figure of ridicule," said The Telegraph. Yet, since 2011 Kim's "ruthless leadership qualities" have established "his unchallenged authority through a series of bloody purges", including the execution of his uncle and mentor and the public assassination of his half brother, The New York Times reported.

While such acts against perceived rivals are nothing new in North Korea, one feature of Kim's leadership style that sets him apart from his predecessors is "his openness, including about his ruthlessness", said Foreign Policy.

He successfully navigated his country through the pandemic, using it as the pretext to unleash a crackdown on "words, acts, hairstyle and attire of young people" and a fresh ban on unsanctioned videos, broadcasts and speaking in a "South Korean" style. Owning a radio risks years in prison, and access to the open internet is blocked, allowing only a heavily censored state intranet.

A sometimes capricious but rational "third-generation CEO", Kim is a man prepared to be brutal domestically, said Andrei Lankov, professor of history at Kookmin University in Seoul, while also building a nuclear weapons deterrent, to protect himself and his family from foreign invasion.

"His goal is very simple – to die a natural death in his palace, decades later. He wants to stay in power. He understands… if he loses power, very soon he will probably lose his life and everyone who he loves," Lankov said. "He is protecting his life, not lifestyle."

A 'pragmatic, rather than ideological, approach' abroad

Kim has adopted a "pragmatic, rather than ideological, approach", said Foreign Policy – especially when it comes to international relations. Here he has shown a preference for leader-to-leader diplomacy and an "ability to adjust to changing geopolitical realities and balance aggression with compromise", reported The Times.

"Contrary to common perception," said The Japan Times, "Kim is anything but a madman bent on nuclear war." He has "steeled himself over the years, playing a calculated, long-term strategy aimed at securing his rule", said the paper, and "building up his country's military in response to what he views as threats to his regime".

Looking back over his 13 years in power, the millennial dictator has "every reason to feel content", said the paper. He survived Donald Trump, the sanctions and the pandemic, said Lankov. "Who in his position would not feel triumphant?"

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Mariana Vieira, Julia O'Driscoll and Leaf Arbuthnot

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

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In this week's episode, we discuss:

Korean space race

South Korea has successfully conducted a flight of a solid-fuel rocket carrying a satellite over the sea near Jeju island, amid a growing space race with neighbouring North Korea. Is Korean rivalry spilling over into space? 

Porn-scanning

Porn websites can use AI face-scanning technology to prevent children and teenagers from accessing their content, in new rules proposed by Ofcom. How would this new technology work? Does it pose a threat to user privacy? And are there alternative, less intrusive security measures that could be put in place?

Job hogs

The rise of remote working has led to another trend: so-called "overemployment". Away from the prying eyes of managers in the office, some workers are taking on more than one full-time job at a time. The financial benefits are clear, but is it sustainable? And should employers be worried?

A senior Hamas official has claimed that North Korea could attack the US over the war in Gaza amid speculation that Pyongyang is supplying the terrorist organisation with weapons. 

"The leader of North Korea is, perhaps, the only one in the world capable of striking the United States," Ali Baraka said, during an interview with Lebanese YouTube channel Spot Shot, according to reports from the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute. "The day may come when North Korea intervenes because it is, after all, part of [our] alliance."

Hamas allegedly used North Korean weapons in its attacks on Israel, "a fact later confirmed by the Israeli military", said Radio Free Asia (RFA). South Korea's military has said that, based on photos and videos of the 7 October massacre, Hamas appeared to be using various North Korean weapons. Pyongyang denies the allegations. 

"We are closely watching the situation in the Middle East," said South Korea's foreign minister Park Jin this week. The crisis "can be relevant to the security situation on the Korean peninsula". If the alleged connection between Hamas and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is confirmed, the North "should be condemned accordingly". 

What did the commentators say?

Steering North Korea through extreme isolation to counter Covid while "defying tough international sanctions", supreme leader Kim Jong Un has "emerged into the warm embrace of Moscow and Beijing", said Christian Davies, Seoul bureau chief for the Financial Times, "amid intensifying geopolitical tensions in the region".

Kim visited Russia in September, his first foreign trip since 2019, meeting Putin in Siberia and inspecting military factories and missile systems. The visit "consummated a relationship that has flourished in the wake of the Russian president's full-scale invasion of Ukraine", said Davies, "illustrating how a fragmenting international order has benefited a country under sanctions from nearly a dozen UN security council resolutions since its first nuclear test in 2006".

Pyongyang is now using the conflict in Gaza to condemn the US, David Maxwell, from the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, told RFA. From North Korea's perspective, it is "part of its normal blackmail diplomacy".

Meanwhile, military cooperation between Kim and Putin is "growing and dangerous", said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his South Korean counterpart Park Jin after a meeting in Seoul this week.

Blinken also met South Korea's national security adviser, Cho Tae-yong, and condemned "provocative actions" by North Korea such as sending munitions and other supplies to Russia, according to VOA.

North Korea and Russia have denied any arms deals, though Reuters notes that their leaders pledged closer military cooperation when they met in September. 

South Korea's intelligence agency believes that the North has "already dispatched military advisers and more than a million artillery shells to Russia", according to The Times's Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry. The National Intelligence Service told South Korean MPs that Pyongyang is "mobilising extra workers in its munitions factories and has increased production to meet Russian demand".

Kim also ordered his officials to support Palestinians, reported The Wall Street Journal last week, and North Korea has sold anti-tank rocket launchers to Hamas in the past. There is "a possibility Pyongyang will attempt to export more weapons amid the war in Gaza".

But North Korea attacking the US over the war in Gaza is "very unlikely", experts told RFA. "I don't take these comments very seriously because Kim Jong Un is not going to risk his own neck to help Hamas," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Kim's "modus operandi is to intimidate adversaries by cultivating a reputation for unpredictability and belligerence", said The Diplomat. In practice, his government "appears rather risk-averse". 

What next?

The US, Japan and South Korea have recently established "a high-level consultative body designed to counter North Korea's cyber activities", to prevent attacks "used to fund North Korea's weapons development", said Infosecurity magazine.

While Pyongyang has "little interest" in Hamas' agenda, "it also has few inhibitions about helping enemies of its adversaries should there be something in it for the Kim regime", Patrick M. Cronin, from the Hudson Institute, told RFA.

"America and our allies need to be vigilant about possible technology transfer, about opportunistic provocations in multiple regions, and about ensuring our allies know they have our full support," he said. But those countries "also need to find diplomatic opportunities to weaken the natural seams between the members of an axis of evil before it coalesces further".

 
The South Korean defence ministry has confirmed that the bulletproof train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has now entered Russia and is moving towards the city of Vladivostok.

There, Kim will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time since 2019. They are expected to discuss relations between the two nations and a potential arms deal.

Kim is a "reclusive leader" who is "famously paranoid about his security, rarely stepping beyond the sealed borders of his regime", said The Telegraph. When he does choose to venture overseas, he is more likely than not to be found in an armoured green train that has served the leader of North Korea for decades.

How is the train constructed?

Only glimpses of the train have been seen over the years, with a picture put together through "intelligence reports" and "rare state news media footage", The New York Times reported. On board, security appears to be prized above all else. 

It is thought there are "at least 90 high-security carriages", all bulletproof, resulting in them being "thousands of pounds heavier than average", the newspaper added.

For this reason, the heavy train "moves at a glacial pace", said NPR, at an estimated "28 miles per hour on tracks in North Korea". 

The train is also complete with "bulletproof windows and reinforced walls and floors" to offer the ultimate protection against explosives, Al Jazeera added. It has been nicknamed the "Moving Fortress" for its immense level of protection, equipped with "attack weapons and a helicopter for escape in case of emergency". 

 What is life like on board? 

Its "drab green" exterior may not conjure up thoughts of luxury, but Kim's train has "all the comforts of home", The New York Times said.

The most recent footage of the interior of the train dates back to the time of former leader Kim Jong Il. It features "glossy white interiors with long tables for briefings" as well as rooms with "red leather armchairs", the newspaper said. 

This train, alongside others at the North Korean leader's disposal, is also thought to be complete with "reception halls, conference rooms and high-tech communication facilities", Al Jazeera stated, citing South Korean media reports.

The leaders have attempted to counteract the length of their journeys by making sure they travel in style – with fine dining at the top of their list of priorities.

Aboard the train a "barbecue is on hand, along with Bordeaux and Beaujolais", the New York Post said, with "cases of live lobsters and other delicacies" shipped in. A Russian official, Konstantin Pulikovsky, suggested in a 2002 account that "chefs are on call" to create dishes from across the world on demand.

Pulikovsky also noted that "'beautiful lady conductors' frequently serenaded the elder Kim in Korean and Russian" as a form of entertainment. 

Kim Jong Un does not appear to differ too much from his father in his desires for travel. However, he "reportedly prefers Swiss cheese, Cristal Champagne and Hennessy cognac", The New York Times added.

 What is the significance of the train in North Korea?

The opulence of the North Korean train and its extensive facilities reflects the supreme status of its leader, but also his fear.

Kim Jong Il, who frequently used the train for trips across North Korea and overseas, reportedly stated that he would "never travel by air due to concerns about being shot out of the sky", The Washington Post said. Local media reports later suggested he died on the train of a heart attack in 2011. 

While his son Kim Jong Un has used air travel, the train continues to be a convenient mode of transport, perhaps safer due to the "ageing nature" of North Korea's aircraft, the newspaper added.

The train is also a symbol of the nation, having been "at the centre of state propaganda" around the Kim family's travel for decades, Reuters reported. It frequently features on state television as the leader conducts his affairs.

But Kim is not the only leader with this mode of transport. Putin also has his own secret armoured train, "a luxurious gym and spa on wheels", according to CNN.

Earlier this week, the world woke up to an unsettling piece of news: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is reportedly planning a trip outside of his nation's airtight borders to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will discuss with him a munitions deal that might replenish Moscow's stockpile of weapons for the war in Ukraine. At the moment, the tête-à-tête is expected to take place sometime next week in the Russian city of Vladivostok, "which was the site of the two leaders' first and only meeting in April 2019," per The Wall Street Journal.

By U.S. officials' estimation, that Russia would solicit help from North Korea — an impoverished, isolated country with virtually zero allies — can only be interpreted as a sign of desperation. "I think it says a lot that Russia is having to turn to a country like North Korea to seek to bolster its defense capacity in a war that [it expected] would be over in a week," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a White House briefing on Tuesday. Putin still "has a vast military capability available to him," spokesperson John Kirby told NPR last week, but "the war is taking a toll on his defense industrial base. … And that's why he's reaching out to countries like Iran for drones and North Korea for artillery ammunition."

That said, this supposed one-on-one and resulting alliance, the seeds of which have been planted and allegedly tended to for months, might not be as simple in significance as it appears at first blush. Indeed, both countries (and exiled world leaders) could stand to gain more than just munitions in agreeing to help the other out.

Where Russia benefits

As of now, it doesn't look like Russia has enlisted any North Koreans in its efforts in Ukraine, USA Today reported, per former National Security Adviser Anthony Ruggiero. But it is likely the Kremlin will in fact use conscripted Korean workers, who have previously assisted with Russian civilian work projects, in rebuilding efforts if and when the conflict ends, or to help with current labor shortages. "I think that's another area that Russia will probably be interested in," Ruggiero said. "And, of course, North Korea will be happy to do it. They're already making hundreds of millions of dollars on this overseas labor front." (The Pyongyang government kept a majority of wages earned by workers in past arrangements with Moscow.)

Moreover, by working together, both parties might serve as an even bigger thorn in the Biden administration's side and make a powerful statement about geopolitics in the East. "This is the narrative of Putin and Kim cooperating to try to make the security environment more difficult for Biden in Ukraine and in the Indo-Pacific," Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the Journal.

Where North Korea benefits

Kim Jong Un will gain three main things from working with Putin, said CNN's Political and National Security Analyst David Sanger. For one, "a large power is now dependent on him. That hasn't happened in a while." Kim will also gain "the possibility of access to more oil," as well as assistance with the country's ballistic missile program, seeing as those weapons have a lot in common with those designed in Russia. "North Korea needs technological help from Russia," Sung Ki-young, an analyst at the Institute for National Security Strategy, told The New York Times. "North Korea's five major weapons projects are all based on original Russian technology."

Kim is additionally seeking food aid for North Korea, which continues to be plagued by devastating shortages. Saddling up to Putin "serves a short-term practical need" in the form of mitigating said crisis "while accomplishing one of North Korea's long-term objectives — undermining Washington's policy agenda on the Korean peninsula and in Asia writ large," Daniel R. DePetris wrote for Newsweek. Indeed, "North Korea desperately wants commodities such as food, oil, fertiliser and other goods," Daniel Salisbury, a visiting research fellow at King's College London, surmised in The Conversation.

Ultimately, "Kim is becoming more paranoid than normal over the last four or five years," added Carl Schuster, former director of the U.S. Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, per CNN. "And so for him this alliance achieves, makes him look less isolated, provides a psychological boost for him and his inner circle."

The sale of North Korean weapons to Russia is likely to be high on the agenda when the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, travels to Moscow later this month to meet Vladimir Putin.

Last week, Washington said arms negotiations between the countries were “actively advancing”. Now CBS News reports that the two leaders will discuss military support for Russia’s war effort, raising concerns about the effect such a deal could have on the war and the wider geopolitical map.

What did the papers say?

In June, Kim vowed to “hold hands” with Putin and said the Russians had North Korea’s “full support and solidarity” for their “all-out struggle” in Ukraine. Then last week, the White House claimed that Putin and Kim had exchanged letters discussing a possible arms deal, but news of a planned meeting between them “goes far beyond the previous warning”, said The New York Times (NYT).

Moscow is keen to secure weapons to replace its own “depleted stocks”, said The Guardian. With the Russian military “quickly using up its munitions”, Putin is expected to “build on recent high-level diplomatic exchanges… to secure North Korean artillery shells and antitank missiles”, the paper added.

Pyongyang delivered infantry rockets and missiles to Russia for use by Wagner forces last year, and a new agreement could see Russia receive “multiple types of munitions from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]”, said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, as well as “raw materials that would assist Russia’s defense industrial base”.

Kim knows that Moscow is “desperate” for munitions and the price that he will ask for them will be “eye-wateringly high”, John Everard, who served as UK ambassador to North Korea between 2006 and 2008, told the BBC. But Everard also said North Korea’s stockpiles of weapons are in “very poor condition”, so the influence they could have on the war may be limited.

Indeed, noted the NYT, when North Korea shipped munitions to Russia through the Middle East and North Africa, “few if any” North Korean weapons actually “made it to the front lines in Ukraine”.

Nevertheless, the “strengthening of the Russia-North Korea alliance comes at an opportune time for two countries with very few allies and a shared adversary in the United States”, Jean H. Lee, a recent senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told the NYT, as it’s the “resurrection of a traditional alliance that serves the strategic interests of both Putin and Kim”.

The White House has tried to “deter” countries like China and North Korea from providing arms to Russia’s military, said Al Jazeera, as it considers Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine an attack on the country’s sovereignty. Earlier this month, the US government imposed sanctions on three entities it accused of being tied to arms deals between North Korea and Russia.

So there is “undoubtedly concern in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul about what both Russia and North Korea could get out of a military cooperation deal”, said The Telegraph. But Putin, “bogged down in his war with Ukraine”, will certainly be keen to secure arms from Pyongyang, it added.

What next?

In a “rare foray from his country”, Kim would travel from Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, probably by armoured train, to Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of Russia, said the NYT. If he and Putin agree an arms deal, there could be escalatory consequences: Kirby has warned the US would take action, including imposing sanctions, if North Korea did supply Russia with weapons.

However, said The Telegraph, “there remains the possibility that Kim’s trip may never take place”, because “the reclusive leader is famously paranoid about his security, rarely stepping beyond the sealed borders of his regime”. Everard agreed, saying the sudden flurry of publicity around the possible trip is a “strong reason why the visit is now unlikely to take place”.

But there are reports that North Korea could take part in joint naval drills with Russia and China, said The Guardian. “Why not, these are our neighbours,” said Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu when asked about the exercises, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency. “There’s an old Russian saying: you don’t choose your neighbours and it’s better to live with your neighbours in peace and harmony.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is preparing to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin, probably this month, to discuss selling Russia artillery shells and antitank weapons to use in Ukraine, The New York Times reported Monday, citing U.S. and allied officials. Kim and Putin will likely meet in Vladivostok, just north of Russia's narrow land border with North Korea on Russia's Pacific Coast, when Russia hosts the Eastern Economic Forum Sept. 10 to 14.

Whether or not she meeting happens, asking North Korea for weapons "has to be horrifically embarrassing for Russian leadership, for the Kremlin," said CNN national security analyst Steve Hall, a former CIA chief of Russia operations. "It would be like the United States turning to Uruguay and saying, 'Hey, can you help us out on this war?'"

Arms negotiations have been "actively advancing" since Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visiting Pyongyang in July and a North Korean delegation visited Russia in August, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Monday evening. Kim "expects these discussions to continue, to include leader-level diplomatic engagement in Russia."

The U.S. has warned for months that North Korea is preparing to sell munitions to Russia and did so so late last year, providing infantry rockets and missiles used by Wagner mercenary forces in Ukraine, While House national security spokesperson John Kirby said last week.

The U.S. intelligence pointing to an upcoming meeting between Putin and Kim has not been declassified, but several major news organizations published similar reports from U.S. officials.

That publicity is a "strong reason why the visit is now unlikely to take place," John Everard, a former British ambassador to Pyongyang, told BBC News. "Kim Jong Un is completely paranoid about his personal security. He goes to great lengths to keep his movements secret and if it's known that he's planning to go to Vladivostok to meet President Putin, he's likely just to cancel the whole thing."

An American citizen crossed into North Korea on Tuesday and was taken into custody by the country's forces, international officials said.

The United Nations Command, which operates the Joint Security Area demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, released a statement saying the man was on a tour of the area and "crossed, without authorization, the Military Demarcation Line into [North Korea]." The UN Command added that it was "working with our [North Korean] counterparts to resolve this incident."

American officials told CBS News that the man in question was a U.S. soldier, Private 2nd Class Travis King, who was reportedly being escorted back to the United States from South Korea for disciplinary reasons. After going through airport security, King allegedly returned and managed to join a border tour group before crossing into North Korea willingly, officials told CBS.

Tours of the Joint Security Area are commonplace, and "tourists can visit the area from South Korea while unarmed soldiers trail closely behind," The New York Times noted, so it is unclear how King was able to cross the border. While both North and South Korean soldiers on each side of the Joint Security Area are unarmed, neither are allowed to cross into the other's territory.

King becomes the first known American to be taken captive in North Korea since Bruce Byron Lowrance​ illegally entered the country from China in 2018, and ended up being detained for a month. The most high-profile American captive of North Korea was likely Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in Pyongyang in 2016 and accused of stealing a propaganda poster. He was held in North Korea for 17 months before being flown back to the United States in a coma, where he died days later.

Tuesday's incident occurred as relations between the U.S. and North Korea continue to sour.

North Korea has fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) towards Japan after warning of counteraction for alleged US reconnaissance activities in the region.

The missile was launched from capital Pyongyang today at 9.59am local time and travelled for 74 minutes to an altitude of 6,000km (3,725 miles) and range of 1,000km (620 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan, according to Japanese defence officials. The test marks “the longest ever flight time for a North Korean missile”, said The Asahi Shimbun paper.

The launch took place as top US General Mark Milley concluded a “rare trilateral meeting” with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Hawaii, Reuters reported. Washington is “pressing the uneasy neighbours to work more closely to better counter rising threats” from Pyongyang and China.

North Korea warned on Monday of potential “shocking” repercussions after accusing the US of violating its air space at least eight times.

“In case of repeated illegal intrusion, the US forces will experience a very critical flight,” Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement published by the hermit state’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Since 2017, North Korea has conducted “a slew of ICBM tests” in an apparent bid “to flex its military muscles with weapons capable of striking major US cities”, The Independent said.

North Korea’s long-range ballistic missiles are believed to be capable of travelling further than 5,500km (3,400 miles) and delivering nuclear warheads.

Pyongyang has also test-fired a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, which is “quicker and more mobile” than the liquid-propelled versions, said The Washington Post, “making it more difficult for satellites to spot launch preparations”.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told The Independent that the latest launch might be an attempt by Pyongyang “to disrupt what it perceives as diplomatic coordination against it, in this case, South Korea and Japan’s leaders meeting during the Nato summit” in Lithuania and the Asean Regional Forum in Indonesia.

The world’s second-largest tobacco company has agreed to pay $635m (£510m) in fines plus interest after a subsidiary admitted violating sanctions by selling cigarettes to North Korea.

The US had imposed “severe sanctions” on North Korea in recent decades over its nuclear and ballistic missile activities, said the BBC. “Almost all Western multinationals cut ties with the pariah state – now led by Kim Jong Un, himself a chain smoker – by the late 2000s,” said the Financial Times (FT).

In 2007, British American Tobacco (BAT) sold its shares in a joint enterprise with the state-owned North Korean Tobacco Company to a third-party company, and claimed to have exited the North Korean market. But according to the US Justice Department, “in reality, BAT continued to do business” there through its subsidiary BAT Marketing Singapore.

A long-running US investigation found that in the following decade, the Singapore-based subsidiary earned about $418m through the sale of tobacco products in North Korea.

Brian E. Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said BAT “partnered” with the hermit kingdom to “establish and operate a cigarette manufacturing business and relied on financial facilitators linked to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction proliferation network in the process of enriching itself”.

In effect, said Quartz, the company was “accused of funding North Korea’s nuclear programme”.

The settlement is a “victory” for the Joe Biden administration “during a period of rising tensions with North Korea”, said The New York Times. Biden has “taken a tougher stance on corporate misconduct,” said the FT, “after critics accused former president Donald Trump’s White House of excessive leniency”.

BAT chief executive Jack Bowles said “we deeply regret the misconduct arising from historical business activities” that “fell short of the highest standards rightly expected of us”.

North Korean state media claimed Saturday that at least 800,000 people had volunteered to fight in a hypothetical war against the United States.

The country's official state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that the large turnout was "a demonstration of the unshakeable will of the younger generation to mercilessly wipe out the war maniacs making last-ditch efforts to eliminate our precious socialist country." The report added that the volunteers would help "achieve the great cause of national reunification without fail and a clear manifestation of their ardent patriotism."

The validity of North Korea's claims, as with most things that come out of the hermit state, is unclear. However, NK News, an American-run media watchdog that monitors events in North Korea, reported that "photos released with Saturday's report showed young people waiting in line to sign documents at state-organized rallies held Friday at theaters and construction sites."

All men are required to serve at least ten years in the military as part of North Korea's mandatory conscription laws. It is unclear if any of this compulsatory service was included in the country's 800,000-strong figure.

The Rodong Sinmun report comes just two days after North Korea fired yet another ICBM into the sea off the Korean peninsula. The country's test launches have been ramping up in recent months as tensions between North Korea and the American-South Korean alliance in the region continue to escalate.

The U.S. and South Korea "began 11 days of joint drills, dubbed 'Freedom Shield 23,' [this past] Monday, held on a scale not seen since 2017 to counter the North's growing threats," Reuters reported.

North Korea's latest launch also occurred just hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol flew to Japan for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to reiterate their strong diplomatic ties.

Given her shocking and highly-publicized entrance into public society, many now believe Kim Ju Ae, Kim Jong Un's daughter, is being primed to eventually succeed her father as leader of North Korea. Here's everything you need to know:

What do we know about Kim Ju Ae?

Given the sheltered nature of her upbringing, not much is confirmed — but we're pretty sure she's named Kim Ju Ae, and we're pretty sure she will soon turn 11 … at least according to retired NBA star Dennis Rodman, who allegedly held Kim's daughter during a 2013 visit to North Korea, The Washington Post reports. "I held their baby Ju-ae and spoke with Ms Ri [Sol-Ju, Kim's wife] as well. He's a good dad and has a beautiful family," Rodman told The Guardian at the time. South Korean intelligence has since separately backed up the girl's name and age.

Ju Ae is also believed to be one of three children, second to "an older brother, born in 2010, and a younger sibling born in 2017, gender unknown," the Post writes.

Why do people think Ju Ae is being primed to succeed Kim?

The girl has notably attended multiple high-profile events in recent months, starting with an intercontinental ballistic missile launch in November. Immediately, the world took note — Kim had never before shown one of his children in public, let alone at a rocket launch. Not long after, Ju Ae was seen again taking photos with missile scientists and officials, before eventually accompanying her father to both a military banquet and a military parade in early February. The nation also recently debuted eight new commemorative stamps, five of which feature the "beloved" young girl, as state media calls her.

Why show her off?

In bringing Ju Ae to military parades and missile launches, Kim Jong Un is likely attempting to paint himself as a father working to protect his nation, rather than a stalwart autocrat basking in his gluttonous appetite for weapons, said Wall Street Journal reporter Dasl Yoon. Indeed, not only does Ju Ae's presence "soften the image of the military, it also portrays Kim Jong Un as a loving father." And it's support Kim may very well need — analysts believe that in touting Ju Ae, the government is hoping to inspire confidence among the public, especially after it carried out a record number of missile launches despite ongoing public health issues and a sagging economy.

"[T]hese types of big military parades are meant as a message to us in the outside world, also to the North Korean people, so clearly showing us and showing their people that they want to convey an image of strength," Jean Lee, a North Korea expert at the Wilson Center, told NPR. "And they want to be associated with these missiles, massive missiles, and nuclear weapons. And that indicates their strength, the Kim family's strength in taking the country forward. But it does hint to us that it's going to be a rough ride in the year ahead."

Why might Ju Ae have been chosen to succeed Kim?

Not only does North Korean state media describes Ju Ae as "the most beloved" child, but she also appears to have a close relationship with her father, should their body language at public events be any indication, the Post notes. Though she has made only five public appearances, the young girl has been photographed holding her father's hand or affectionately grabbing his face. In fact, according to Ryu Hyun-woo, who defected from his post as North Korean ambassador to Kuwait in 2019, "Kim Jong Un's exceptional love for his daughter has long been famous among Pyongyang officials," he told the Post.

Is there a chance Kim Ju Ae does not succeed her father?

South Korea, for one, is skeptical of any setup. "There are views that (her appearances) are aimed at talking about a hereditary power transition," South Korea Unification Minister Kwon Youngse said during a mid-February parliamentary committee meeting, referring to Ju Ae. "But considering Kim Jong Un's age and the fact that North Korea has a much more patriarchal nature than ours, there are also lots of questions about whether North Korea having a woman (prepared to) inherit power now is indeed right." More than likely, Ju Ae's turn in the public is meant to galvanize support for Kim Jong Un's family and prepare for an eventual transfer of power, to whomever that may be, Kwon continued.

Duyeon Kim, a senior analyst at the Center for a New American Security in Washington seemed to agree, telling The Associated Press that it's "too soon" to assume Ju Ae will takeover because "the son has always succeeded the throne in North Korea." "We don't yet know if Kim Jong Un is willing to break tradition regarding the gender of his successor or if she will play a key role to support whoever Kim appoints," he said.

Even so, Seong-Chang Cheong, a senior analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute, nonetheless suspects Ju Ae has been "internally appointed" as her father's successor, citing the way Kim struggled with how his father handled his appointment years ago. "If the outside world had known early on that Kim Jong Un had been 'internally appointed' as the successor to Kim Jong Il at the age of eight, foreign experts would not have underestimated Kim Jong Un's grip on power and made groundless speculation," Seong-Chang has said, per CBS News. "Kim Jong Un seems to have judged that it would do more good than harm to informally appoint his daughter Kim Ju Ae as the successor and make it public about her at her early age."

Well, if not her, who?

If not one of his children, analysts believe Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister, likely has the best shot at succession, since she too comes from the "Mount Paektu bloodline" and carries a "direct lineage to the country's founder Kim Il Sung," writes the Journal. Not to mention most of Kim's other family members are either too old, too uninterested in politics, exiled, or dead. But of course, Yo Jong is a woman, which could prove an obstacle if and when the time comes.

Regardless, will Kim Jong Un, 39, be stepping aside any time soon?

Don't count on it. Both his father and grandfather "ruled until their deaths and it's likely that Kim Jong Un is going to do the same," said the Journal's Yoon.

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Sorcha Bradley, Jamie Timson and Arion McNicoll.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

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In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Kim Jong Un’s daughter

Is the future female in North Korea? Since the country’s foundation in 1948, the secretive authoritarian state has been ruled by three – all-male – generations of the Kim family. But North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has recently appeared at several official military events with his young daughter by his side. It has prompted speculation from Western media that Kim Ju Ae, thought to be around ten years old, is being primed to take over one day. But is all the speculation just a distraction from deeper issues in the country?

Algorithms in court

This week saw two cases at the US Supreme Court that could irreparably change the internet as we know it. They concern Section 230, US legislation that removes a website’s liability for potentially harmful posts created by other people. Now though victims of ISIS claim that the social media platforms and their advanced algorithms aren't doing enough to protect vulnerable people. But should Facebook, Twitter and Google be liable? And if regulation is the answer, who decides what that looks like and how it happens?

Disquiet on the German front

The standout success at the Baftas this week was All Quiet On The Western Front, a film also tipped for Oscars glory. But German critics have been increasingly vocal in their dislike for the adaptation. Their objections are two-fold: that it is historically inaccurate and that it diverges too far from Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. Are they right to call for a more faithful treatment of either the reality of the First World War or the fictional source material? Or, after a century of war and peace, should the film be judged afresh on its own merits.

North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7bn of cryptocurrency last year, according to a New York-based data firm.

The figure is four times as much as the country’s previous record for cryptocurrency theft – $429m in 2021 – and constituted 44% of the $3.8bn stolen in 2022, which Chainalysis called “the biggest year ever for crypto hacking”.

With many countries having imposed heavy sanctions on the Pyongyang regime, North Korea is turning to crypto theft to fund its nuclear arsenal. “Despite being unable to feed its people”, it has “found innovative ways to fund its missiles programme”, said The Economist.

The hackers “typically launder crypto” through “mixers”, which “blend cryptocurrencies from various users to obscure the origins of the funds”, Chainalysis told the BBC. Other analysts have said that North Korea launders stolen crypto through brokers in China and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Crypto mixers are software that “allows users to obfuscate the sources and destinations of cryptocurrency holdings” and are “used by hackers in attempts to exchange crypto into fiat currency”, said Bloomberg.

“Last month, the FBI claimed that North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group was responsible for a $100m crypto heist on a blockchain network called Horizon bridge last year,” said the BBC.

CNN reported that Pyongyang-backed hackers have conducted ransomware attacks on healthcare providers and other key sectors in the US and South Korea and used the takings to fund further cyberattacks on government agencies in the two nations.

Last summer, an investigation by the broadcaster found at least one cryptocurrency entrepreneur who unwittingly paid a North Korean tech worker tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2019, PCMag reported that North Korean hackers “have been blamed for using email-based phishing attacks to trick employees at cryptocurrency exchanges” to download malware to their computers. Security experts “also suspect the country’s hackers were behind several heists on the Swift banking network back in 2016”, the tech site added.

Marriage may help men live longer, research has found. Lifelong bachelors are twice as likely to die from heart failure as men who get married, according to a study of 6,800 American adults. Men who had never married were 2.2 times more likely to die within five years of a diagnosis than those who had “tied the knot”, said The Times, while for women there was no link between marital status and their risk of death from heart failure. Experts believe this is because women are better at looking after themselves.

Korea’s ‘DMZ zone’ becomes haven for wildlife

The demilitarised zone between North and South Korea has become a “haven for wildlife”, said CNN. Newly-released Google street view images show more than 6,100 species thriving in the 160-mile zone, ranging from reptiles and birds to plants. Google said that of Korea’s 267 endangered species, 38% live in the DMZ, because it has “built up a new ecosystem not seen around the cities and has become a sanctuary for wildlife”.

Welsh farmers break their own sunflower record

A Welsh family broke their own Guinness World Record when they harvested a sunflower head that weighed 14.21 pounds. Kevin Fortey, a farmer, who grew the colossus with help of his relatives, said he was “shocked” by the weight of “the monster flower”. The new sunflower weighed 2.71 pounds more than the Fortey family’s previous record-breaking sunflower head, which was harvested in 2021, noted UPI.

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The United States held a series of joint military exercises with South Korea and Japan on Sunday. The drills come just one day after North Korea fired an ICBM off the Korean Peninsula during a test launch.

The exercise involved F-35A stealth fighters and F-15K jets from South Korea, together with F-16 American fighters, escorting a U.S. strategic bomber.

"The training this time demonstrated the South Korea-U.S. combined defense capabilities and posture featuring the alliance's overwhelming forces," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement to the Yonhap News Agency, adding that the countries showed off "the timely and immediate deployment of the U.S.' extended deterrence assets to the Korean Peninsula."

In a separate exercise, Japan flew F-15s over the Sea of Japan along with American B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters. In a statement obtained by Reuters, the Japanese Defense Ministry said the drill "reaffirms the strong will between Japan and the United States to respond to any situation...and further strengthens the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-U.S. Alliance."

The exercises followed the confirmed launch of an ICBM by North Korea on Saturday. The missile was fired from the nation's capital of Pyongyang and landed in Japanese waters. Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile was believed to have a range of around 8,700 miles, per The Washington Post, meaning "the entire United States would be within its range."

North Korean officials had also threatened the United States with further action if the joint exercises were conducted.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said via the state-run Korean Central News Agency that the United States "is deceiving the world" and should "think carefully for your prospective safety."

Kim Jong Un has been appearing at official military events with his young daughter by his side, prompting suggestions that Kim Ju Ae – thought to be only nine or ten years old – is being groomed to become North Korea’s next leader.

Little has so far been revealed in North Korea about the leader’s children. The first time Kim Ju Ae made a public appearance was November 2022, when she joined her father at the test launch of a Hwasong-17 missile, said The Guardian. “She has since been seen at a meeting with military scientists and at a ballistic missile inspection,” the paper added.

Last week marked the fifth time that Kim Ju Ae accompanied her father to an event, and this occasion was seen as particularly significant. It was the country’s “biggest display yet of long-range missiles”, according to The Guardian, a parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, North Korea’s military force.

The leader’s daughter was seen cheering alongside her father as the missiles passed in the parade, and was seated between her parents at the preceding military banquet.

What do we know about Kim Ju Ae?

The international press first learnt of Ju Ae’s name via Dennis Rodman, the controversial former US basketball player who has been a confidant of the North Korean leader, said The Spectator. Rodman leaked the name, saying he had held the baby on a visit. The timelines match up with the child being roughly nine or ten years old.

“Western observers believe Kim Jong Un has three children and that Ju Ae is his middle child, though this can’t be verified by anyone outside North Korea,” said CNN.

Why this child is being singled out is impossible to say with the information available. However, there is precedent for selecting a future leader at a young age. Kim Jong Il – Kim Jong Un’s father – apparently did the same thing, and also did not select his eldest child.

“It is known that Kim Jong Il told his aides that Kim Jong Un would be his successor while performing a song called ‘Footsteps’ to praise Kim Jong Un on his 8th birthday,” Cheong Seong-chang,​ a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, told CNN. However, he added that this was a private announcement and one the outside world had not been aware of at the time.

Could her appearances mean anything else?

It might be too soon to assume this young girl has been selected to run a dangerous nuclear power.

“Some analysts believe her presence may be a ploy to cultivate Kim’s image as a family man,” said The Daily Telegraph.

It could also be a way to “redirect the world’s attention back to Pyongyang’s military after audience fatigue set in following a year of record missile testing”, Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general, told CNN.

“I think the North Koreans have either stumbled upon or have figured out that this is one way of getting international attention. And so with all the interest that is accumulating, they’re enjoying themselves,” he said.

The events selected for Kim Ju Ae’s attendance are also significant, focusing heavily on military strength. At the anniversary banquet last week the leader’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, was even spotted wearing a pendant in the shape of North Korea’s largest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Telegraph said.

“By ostentatiously including his wife and daughter, Kim wants observers at home and abroad to see his family dynasty and the North Korean military as irrevocably linked,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told CNN.

How is Kim Ju Ae’s presence understood in North Korea?

One of the clearest signs that Kim Jong Un’s daughter is being groomed for power is the way she has been referred to in the state-owned media.

While the media still does not reveal her name, she has begun being referred to as his most “beloved” and “respected” daughter, terms usually reserved for those with very special status, said CNN.

In addition to this, the South China Morning Post has reported that multiple unnamed sources in North Korea told Radio Free Asia that the North’s authorities are forcing people named Ju Ae to change their name. This is “part of the regime’s effort to idolate the young girl”, said the Hong Kong-based paper.