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Rocket launch edition of Rodong Sinmun
Seldom do North Korean’s see such a colorful 3-page spread in the daily Rodong Sinmun newspaper as they woke up to on Monday. The front page carries a picture of Kim Jong Un signing the launch order for the satellite on February 6 — something that wouldn’t be reported by North Korean media until after…
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BBC confirms plans to launch North Korea radio service
The BBC World Service plans to launch a radio service for listeners in North Korea thanks to extra funding received from the British government. The money, some £85 million (US$128 million) per year, represents the single biggest increase in the World Service budget ever committed by any government and is being given as part of Britain’s national…
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Voice of Korea schedule through spring 2016
Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international shortwave broadcasting station, adjusted its transmission schedule on October 25 for the winter 2015 and spring 2016 seasons. The broadcasts follow the same basic line-up each day. :00 Opening signal, station identification: “This is Voice of Korea” :01 National Anthem :03 Song of General Kim Il Sung :06 Song…
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AFP to open Pyongyang bureau
French news agency Agence France Presse plans to open a bureau in Pyongyang, the company’s chairman said this week in Seoul. “We expect to be able to do so in the next few months. It’s something that is on the good tracks,” Emmanuel Hoog told the CEO of South Korean news agency Yonhap during a…
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BBC proposes news for North Korea, but it’s far from decided
The BBC has proposed launching a daily news service for North Korea, but the broadcast could be years from starting, if it starts at all. Plans for the service were included in a report published on Monday by the BBC that outline its proposals for the next decade. Among the, additional efforts by the BBC World Service…
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Pyongyang Time is here and there are already changes
North Korea’s new time zone, Pyongyang Time, went into effect early Friday and changes are already being seen. The new time zone shifts time in North Korea so it’s half an hour later than the time in Seoul and Tokyo and half an hour close to Beijing. It was announced last week and was introduced on August 15…
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Introducing The North Korea Book Store
It sure seems like 2015 is the year of the North Korea book. There have already been a number of high profile autobiographies by defectors and journalists and specialists continue to turn out books that look at the country, its leader and its future. So, to bring all these books together into one place and…
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Rodong Sinmun website gets a facelift
The design of the website of North Korea’s main daily newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, was refreshed on Monday. The new site has fewer pictures on the front page and leads with a list of stories. And being North Korean, features detailing the work of Kim Jong Un receive top billing.The site’s most useful feature, the…
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End of an era as Tokyo’s Korea Book Center closes
Tokyo’s best source of North Korean books is no more. The Korea Book Center has shuttered its website a month after its physical store was closed. The store in the Hakusan neighborhood was operated by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, better known locally as “Chosen Soren,” and provided a place to pick up…
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KCTV’s slow move to high-definition, what’s taking so long?
There was a little bit of excitement among North Korea watchers, myself included, earlier this year when the state TV broadcaster, Korean Central Television, took its first step towards high-definition broadcasting. It was signaled by a switch in satellite transmission formats that increased the available screen resolution by more than five times, from just over 414,000 pixels…
