Free Republic

North Koreans are fighting starvation as the Hermit Kingdom continues its isolation from the rest of the world. Three residents of the totalitarian state secretly communicated with the BBC for months, detailing the horrors of watching their neighbors starve to death as they struggle to survive what may prove to be an even worse hunger crisis than North Korea’s famine in the 1990s, which killed three million people. “At first, I was afraid of dying from Covid,” one construction worker told the broadcaster, “but then I began to worry about starving to death.” Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic...

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister could be the Hermit Kingdom’s most brutal leader if she succeeds him, experts told The Post on Monday. Kim Yo Jong, 32, appeared poised to take the reins of power amid a claim that her older brother has been in a coma for months and his recent public appearances have been staged. “I haven’t seen any evidence, any indication of how she might rule, but my speculation — given the reputation and history of the family — is that she would rule with an iron fist,” retired US Army Col. David Maxwell said.

A North Korean cargo vessel used to transport coal was seized in violation of international sanctions against the rogue regime, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday, just hours after the hermit kingdom fired two suspected short-range missiles. The 17,061-ton vessel, called the Wise Honest, is one of North Korea’s largest bulk carriers used to illicitly ship coal from North Korea and deliver heavy machinery to the Hermit Kingdom, officials said. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said this is the first time a North Korean cargo ship was seized for violating international sanctions. “This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” Assistant...

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<p>TOKYO -- President Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by the North Korean government. But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, one of the rare foreigners to have spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il is a fun-loving guy. Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.</p>

Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator, is one of the most mysterious leaders in the world, but a Russian general who rode with him on a train for a month was given a bizarre insight into his peculiar, pampered life. Mark Franchetti reports As the world focuses on America's attempts to topple Saddam Hussein, a unique profile has just emerged of the reclusive dictator at the other extreme of President Bush's "axis of evil", Kim Jong-il of North Korea. One of the most powerful men in Russia, Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former general who is President Putin's pro-consul in the east...