Author: Martyn Williams

  • Pyongyang’s cooking website finally appears

    A North Korean cooking website has appeared on the Internet more than two years after it was first reported to have launched. The website of the Korean Association of Cooks offers hundreds of recipes in addition to an introduction to restaurants in North Korea and details of the cooking association. State media first reported on its…

  • Hackathon aims to harness Silicon Valley smarts on North Korea

    Hackathon aims to harness Silicon Valley smarts on North Korea

    A “hackathon” planned for August aims to harness the technical prowess of Silicon Valley in coming up with new ways to get information safely into North Korea. “Hack North Korea” will take place in San Francisco and has been organized by The Human Rights Foundation, a New York-based group that earlier this year helped sent USB thumb…

  • US, others complain to ICAO over North Korean missile launches

    US, others complain to ICAO over North Korean missile launches

    The United States and several other nations have written to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over North Korea’s failure to notify it of missile launches. Over the past couple of weeks, short and medium-range missile have been fired by North Korea into the sea to the east of the country on a handful of occasions. Each launch took place without a standard…

  • Impact studies to begin on additional US interceptor sites

    Impact studies to begin on additional US interceptor sites

    A U.S. interceptor missile system designed to deter and defend against missiles from North Korea and other nations will take a step forward this week when the U.S. Missile Defense Agency kicks off work on environmental impact statements on four proposed sites. On Wednesday, the MDA is expected to publish a notice informing residents in nearby neighborhoods of…

  • “Where is the BBC?”

    “Where is the BBC?”

    The question of a BBC Korean-language service was back in the U.K. parliament last week when the House of Lords heard a motion to “take note of the role the BBC World Service and the British Council in promoting British values and interests worldwide.” While the speeches in the House of Lords weren’t focused on Korea,…

  • Taedonggang TV Factory

    Taedonggang TV Factory

    The current issue of Foreign Trade has a profile of Taedonggang TV factory, which sits on the outskirts of Pyongyang and makes a number of TV sets carrying several North Korean brand names, according to the magazine. “The factory has several workshops for magnetic substances, metal processing, plating of printed circuit, moulding and coiling and…

  • North Korea “is still a threat to all of us,” says Hagel

    North Korea “is still a threat to all of us,” says Hagel

    Japanese Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sure are getting along well. The two met with reporters at The Pentagon on Friday afternoon as part of Onodera’s current visit to the U.S. and spent the first five minutes of their 25-minute briefing talking about Onodera’s trip to Hagel’s home state of Nebraska and…

  • Immerse yourself in Pyongyang in these two pictures

    Immerse yourself in Pyongyang in these two pictures

    Singaporean photographer Aram Pan, who previously provided several stunning panorama shots and a GoPro video of Pyongyang, has posted his latest two photographs and they’re big. The images are wide-angle panorama shots with lots of detail. The first appears to have been taken from the top of the Tower of the Juche Idea, looking west towards…

  • Kerry pushes China on DPRK sanctions

    Kerry pushes China on DPRK sanctions

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry took the opportunity of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to push the Chinese government to do a little more to enforce sanctions against North Korea. Speaking at a joint news conference after the meeting, Kerry said they discussed “the importance of enforcing UN Security Council resolutions that…

  • More than just Sherlock Holmes – the UK and the DPRK

    More than just Sherlock Holmes – the UK and the DPRK

    When the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office released details of its North Korean program spending recently, some eyes were immediately drawn to the £287.33 the government paid for rights to show the BBC’s Sherlock at the Pyongyang Film Festival in 2012. Never mind that it had been reported at the time, it got all the attention.…