TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korea continues to maintain a covert biological weapons program in violation of international treaties, according to a newly released U.S. government report. Biological weapons use pathogens such as bacteria or viruses to sicken or kill. Their invisible nature and devastating potential make them one of the most insidious forms of weaponry. “The United States assesses that the DPRK has a dedicated, national-level offensive [biological weapons] program,” the State Department said in its 2025 report on global compliance with arms control and disarmament agreements. The Democratic People’s…
Tag: Korea
North Korean troops may enter Ukraine soon, Kyiv warns
TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korean forces deployed in Russia’s Kursk region may soon be sent into annexed regions of Ukraine that remain fiercely contested by Russian and Ukrainian forces, a senior Ukrainian official said. As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia, according to Ukraine and the United States, to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Russia’s Kursk region in an August counter offensive. Neither North Korea nor Russia have acknowledged their presence. “Russia plans to use the DPRK soldiers for war on the territory of Ukraine,”…
Choe Ryong Hae’s power network threatens Kim Jong Un’s grip in North Korea: report
TAIPEI, Taiwan – A growing unofficial power network led by North Korea’s parliamentary chief Choe Ryong Hae is reshaping the country’s political hierarchy, potentially becoming a destabilizing force within leader Kim Jong Un’s regime, according to a new South Korean analysis. Choe, one of North Korea’s most influential officials, is a close ally of the Kim family. He gained major influence after becoming director of the Organisation and Guidance Department, or OGD, in 2017, effectively acting as the regime’s second-in-command with a wide-reaching informal power network. Since then, Choe’s inner…
North Korean hospitals are posting price lists
Some North Korean hospitals are posting prices for treatment and medicine in a break from past practice that suggests authorities are abandoning the goal of providing free health care, sources in the country have told Radio Free Asia. The communist country’s Public Health Act stipulates that the state provides complete and comprehensive free care. While the reality has long been different, with patients paying for medicines and other expenses out of pocket, now prices are being openly displayed, according to two sources in two different provinces. “Recently, hospitals in the…