Tag: North Korea

It will be interesting see if anything appearance wise changes with North Korea’s long time border building at Panmunjom:

North Korea has installed screens around its building inside the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom to block it from public view, apparently for ongoing renovation work, military sources said Monday.

The screens covering the Panmungak facility, located on the northern side of the Joint Security Area (JSA), were erected in April in what appeared to be part of renovation efforts, military sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is going to put further strain on Ukraine to sustain their own manpower requirements in this war:

Russia is preparing to bring in an additional 30,000 North Korean troops to its war against Ukraine, with Pyongyang also planning to send more missile launchers to Moscow to support the war effort, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy made the remarks in an X posting summarizing his nightly video address, saying that Moscow has been preparing since last month to deploy the troops to a border region in the southwest. 

“Russia wants to receive another 30,000 troops from North Korea. Since June, preparations have been under way in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them,” Zelenskyy said in the posting.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

N. Korea FM in Moscow

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui (R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 19, 2026, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on July 21. (Yonhap)

If you are an American who has been dreaming of planning a holiday to North Korea, you will have to wait at least another year:

The United States will extend its ban on its citizens’ travel to North Korea for another year, a State Department notice showed Tuesday, citing “serious” risks associated with travel to the reclusive state.

The department posted the notice on the Federal Register on Monday, announcing the decision on the extension, which will make the restriction valid from Sept. 1 this year to Aug. 31 next year, as the current measure is set to expire on Aug. 31.

Under the measure, all U.S. passports are to be declared invalid for travel to, in or through the North unless specially validated for such travel.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

N. Korea-China-Russia children’s camp

North Korean, Chinese and Russian children take part in a ceremony at the Songdowon International Children’s Camp in the North’s eastern coastal city of Wonsan on July 19, 2026, to mark their entry into the camp as part of deepening their friendship, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

The money the Kim regime has made selling tungsten has made up 1/3 of its exports to China this year:

North Korea earned a windfall from soaring tungsten prices, largely thanks to China’s tighter export controls on the mineral in the first half of this year, but the gains were too small to offset a sharp slide in its currency and rising inflation, a report showed.

Between January and May, North Korea’s exports to China rose to $287 million, up 68 percent on-year from about $171 million. Tungsten ore accounted for $88 million, or nearly one-third of the total, according to a report released last week by the US-based monitoring website 38 North.

According to the report, North Korea’s tungsten exports by value showed an almost tenfold jump year-on-year. The mineral also overtook wigs and false hair to become the country’s largest export to China.

The increase, however, was driven mostly by higher prices rather than greater shipments.

Tungsten export volume rose only about 15 percent, while the average unit value surged from around $8 to nearly $70 per kilogram. The report estimated that higher prices accounted for about 98 percent of the increase in export earnings.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I just don’t understand why people like President Lee continue to push this fairy tale that North Korea can be denuclearized. I have yet to hear one good argument on how this can be done:

South Korea seeks phased denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as it also seeks to normalize ties with North Korea, President Lee Jae Myung has said ahead of his state visit to Mongolia, which he called a “trusted partner” in such efforts.

In an interview with Mongolia’s state-run Montsame news agency released Thursday, the South Korean president highlighted Mongolia’s potential role in bridging the divided Koreas.

“I hope that Mongolia … will contribute even more to peace and stability, not only on the Korean Peninsula but across Northeast Asia as a whole.” the president said. “I believe that the power to create peace comes not from military force, but from mutual trust and dialogue.”

“Mongolia has maintained balanced relations not only with China and Russia, but with other key countries of the region … I believe this diplomatic capacity of Mongolia is more important now than at any time before,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is likely being done not for deterrence reasons, but as leverage during any future negotiations:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country was “equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons,” state media reported Wednesday, as he also unveiled plans to build 10,000-ton warships.

The remarks came at the commissioning of the Choe Hyon — one of two 5,000-ton class warships the nuclear-armed state launched last year — in the port city of Nampo on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.