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Photographs showing Kim Jong-un proudly watching as a North Korean missile was launched from an underwater submarine were manipulated by state propagandists, experts claimed on Tuesday. German aerospace experts said photos of the launch were "strongly modified", including reflections of the missile exhaust flame in the water which did not line up with the missile itself. “Considering the track record of North Korean deceptions, it seems sensible to assume that any North Korean SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] capability is still a very long time in the future, if it will ever surface,” Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Schmucker Technologie,...

North Korea said Wednesday that it has the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons, a key step toward building nuclear missiles. Analysts and U.S. officials have said previously that they suspected Kim Jong Un's regime was working toward accomplishing the technical feat, which is needed to fit a nuclear device on the tip of a ballistic missile. But on Wednesday, the official U.S. response was skepticism. "Our assessment of North Korea's nuclear capabilities has not changed," National Security Council spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement. "We do not think that they have that capacity." "However, they are working on developing...

North Korea claimed Wednesday that it has manufactured nuclear warheads small enough to fit on the head of a missile, an announcement that is likely to ratchet up tensions in east Asia, particularly with South Korea. According to Yonhap News, a spokesman for North Korea’s National Defense Commission said that the development of the alleged weapons was part of an initiative to boost Pyongyang’s self-defense capability. “It is long since the DPRK’s nuclear striking means have entered the stage of producing smaller nukes and diversifying them,” the spokesman said, using the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s...

When guests at a North Korea Freedom Week dinner in Northern Virginia learned the Korean-American pastor at our table led a Maryland church, they immediately asked about the situation in Baltimore. It was May 1, and National Guard troops had been deployed to the city three days earlier to help quell the unrest sparked by the death of a man in police custody. The pastor let out a deep sigh before responding. A few members of his congregation had lost everything. After working diligently for years building small businesses in a new country, they watched their efforts literally go up...

Gloria Steinem is among 30 women activists marching from Beijing through the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea in a call for peace next Sunday. The event marks the International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. The 81-year-old activist told Reuters that “it seems to me that the past of no contact has not worked,” invoking former President Ronald Reagan’s call to tear down the Berlin Wall. “We are saying: ‘Take down this isolation,’” she said, according to the report, which also notes that the organizers will meet with North Korean women and tour a maternity hospital, a women’s...

North Korea played those negotiating its denuclearization for fools, much as Iran has been doing more recently with Obama. It must not have been difficult to do. To continue the process with Iran, and to repeat it with North Korea, makes no sense.Speaking in the People's Republic of China on May 16th, Secretary Kerry offered North Korea a nuke deal -- Kerry explained that an Iran deal could help in showing North Korea how “your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing --...

North Korean defense minister Hyon Yong Chol made a mistake: he fell asleep at an official event at which Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un was present. Kim, keen on sending a strong message amid rumors that his grip on absolute power may be slipping, reportedly decided that the appropriate punishment for napping during a rally is execution by anti-aircraft gun. If true, this would mark the latest in a series of “purges” which seem to lend some credence to the notion that Kim’s family name is no longer sufficient when it comes to securing absolute power and universal admiration both from...

South Korea's spy agency told the country's lawmakers Wednesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un executed his defense chief for falling asleep during a meeting and talking back to the young leader. Lawmaker Shin Kyoung-min says that officials from the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary committee that People's Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol was killed by anti-aircraft gunfire with hundreds watching at a shooting range at Pyongyang's Kang Kon Military Academy in late April. Shin was one of the lawmakers who attended the briefing. The office of another lawmaker, Lee Cheol Woo, released similar information about...

North Korea's Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol has been executed for showing disloyalty to leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea's spy agency has told parliament. MPs were told Mr Hyon was killed on 30 April by anti-aircraft fire in front of an audience of hundreds, the Yonhap news agency reports. It said Mr Hyon had fallen asleep during an event attended by Kim Jong-un and had not carried out instructions. The news comes weeks after the reported execution of 15 senior officials.

N. Korea has executed its defence chief on treason charges, Seoul's National Intelligence Service was quoted as telling lawmakers, in the latest of a series of high-level purges since Kim Jong Un took power after his father's death in 2011. Hyon Yong Chol, who heads the isolated country's military, was purged and then executed by firing squad with an antiaircraft gun, watched by hundreds of people, South Korean media reported on Wednesday, citing the NIS's comments to a parliamentary panel. Hyon, who spoke at a security conference in Moscow in April, was said to have shown disrespect to Kim by...

For 17 years, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez served as bodyguard to Fidel Castro. But when he became disillusioned with the Cuban dictator’s hypocrisy and tried to retire in 1994, Castro had him thrown in prison. Sanchez made 10 attempts to escape the island, finally making it to the US in 2008. Now he reveals all in his new book, “The Double Life of Fidel Castro.” In this excerpt, Sanchez exposes “El Jefe’s” privileged life. Modal Trigger To Cubans, Fidel Castro presents himself as a man of the people, claiming to make only 900 pesos a month (about $38) and owning no...

Apparently only communists were invited After 17 years as a personal bodyguard of Fidel Castro, Juan Rienaldo Sanchez recently claimed in a new book that the Cuban dictator was a major trafficker of illegal drugs into the US for years- and profited handsomely from it. Sound plenty believable to me, North Korea exports meth for hard currency- and El Jefe was close with Columbia's coke-producing communist rebels/terrorists FARC. Other interesting revelations would be that Fidel kept his immediate family a secret -had more kids out of wedlock- and was kind of a lazy slob that 'always slept until 10 or...

For 17 years, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez served as bodyguard to Fidel Castro. But when he became disillusioned with the Cuban dictator’s hypocrisy and tried to retire in 1994, Castro had him thrown in prison. Sanchez made 10 attempts to escape the island, finally making it to the US in 2008. Now he reveals all in his new book, “The Double Life of Fidel Castro.” In this excerpt, Sanchez exposes “El Jefe’s” privileged life. To Cubans, Fidel Castro presents himself as a man of the people, claiming to make only 900 pesos a month (about $38) and owning no property other...

Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, 66, makes explosive claims in a new tell-all book Says Castro directed cocaine trafficking operations 'like a real godfather' Adds Cuban dictator presided over the trials of two government officials He then 'made other officials watch a video of one of men's executions' Sanchez was eventually imprisoned and tortured in Cuba in 1994 after he attempted to retire over concerns about Castro's 'corrupt' practices Castro, now 88, was previously Prime Minister and President of country

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Saturday it has successfully test-fired a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine in what would be the latest display of the country's advancing military capability. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally attended the test launching of what he described as a "world-level strategic weapon," the official Korean Central News Agency said. The report did not reveal the exact timing and location of the launch. Kim praised the test launch as an "eye-opening success" and declared that the North Korea now has a weapon capable of "striking and wiping out in...

Perplexity in spirit comes when you question My ability to proceed in your life and it is then total surrender is not only Warranted but served for truly as your Judge and Advocate I "Declare" The Truth for your future for the past is just that. So be as Lot not his wife and take My hand into Zion for only as you believe You "Are" and I "AM" ! Habakkuk 2:2-3 Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at...

Attire for women in North Korea is getting flashier thanks to First Lady Ri Sol Ju’s knack for bold and stylish clothing, Daily NK has learned. Ri’s noticeable presence in the public eye has presumably been reason behind the state’s decidedly relaxed attitude toward rapidly shifting fashion trends among women, previously stringently regulated for their reflection of “capitalist trends.” Party-published Rodong Sinmun reported on April 14th that leader Kim Jong Eun was accompanied by the First Lady to the Mangyondae Prize Sports Games at Kim Il Sung Stadium, where, unlike last year, she was spotted wearing a dark green jacket...

North Korean diplomats on Thursday stormed out of a UN conference on human rights after lashing out at the United States for inviting three defectors to speak at the event. Pyongyang envoy Ri Song Chol interrupted the conference when he tried to deliver a statement following the poignant testimony of Joseph Kim who fled North Korea as an orphaned, homeless and hungry teenager. US Ambassador Samantha Power ordered UN staff to turn off the North Korean diplomat’s microphone and security guards were dispatched to the conference room at UN headquarters. The three diplomats then stood up and left the room...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority, South Korea's spy agency told a closed-door parliament meeting on Wednesday. A vice minister for forestry was one of the officials executed for complaining about a state policy, a member of parliament's intelligence committee, Shin Kyung-min, quoted an unnamed National Intelligence Service official as saying. "Excuses or reasoning doesn't work for Kim Jong Un, and his style of rule is to push through everything, and if there's any objection, he takes that as a challenge to authority and comes...

Kim Jong-Un has climbed the highest mountain in North Korea, state-run media claims.