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First Post
a day ago
- Politics
- First Post
Radio silence: Trump's fund cuts gift Kim Jong-un a tighter grip on North Korea's ‘mind apartheid'
As US-funded broadcasts are slashed, millions of North Koreans are left more isolated than ever cut off from the outside world and solely at the mercy of the regime's propaganda read more In the world's hermit kingdom, the rulers appear anything but hermits — the face allegations of relentlessly hounding their hapless citizens in a, what many describe as, barbaric fashion, crushing human rights as a hippopotamus crushes a watermelon: with brute force and no second thought. While the rest of the world thrives fighting for greater and unrestricted access to information, those in North Korea are understood to live under an apartheid of the mind, cut off from realities of the world, deliberately by a regime that distorts or blocks information to suit its grip on power. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For many in North Korea, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia stood as rare lifelines — vital sources of uncensored news for the bold few willing to risk everything to tune in. But that's now a thing of the past. In a Maga move, US President Donald Trump — who once claimed he 'developed a very good relationship' with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — pulled the plug from these radio services. A switch in DC, silence in Pyongyang When the US Senate passed a funding cut earlier this month, it effectively ended decades of American support for independent media channels that had managed to pierce North Korea's ironclad information barrier. The decision prompted widespread alarm as it became obvious that this move could plunge North Korea's 26 million citizens into even deeper informational darkness, a report in South China Morning Post said. Broadcasts from the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia — two long-standing American-backed radio channels — had served as vital channels, providing North Koreans with unfiltered insights into global affairs, human rights and life beyond their tightly controlled borders. The radio programmes reportedly saw their broadcasts reduced by as much as 80 per cent after an executive order issued by Trump in March called for the dismantling of their parent agency, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Hing Kong-based newspaper reported. Silence after the signal North Korea experts, including Human Rights Watch's Teppei Kasai, expressed concern that this informational blackout would hinder international awareness of North Korea's worsening human rights situation. According to Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, the timing could not have been better for Pyongyang's censors. In his analysis for 38 North, he observed that North Korean propagandists had been battling the flow of foreign broadcasts for decades. Suddenly, with no effort on their part, the playing field had tilted decisively in their favour, the South China Morning Post reported. From unity to discord The blow to North Korea-focussed media and human rights efforts didn't occur in a vacuum. For nearly two decades, the North Korean Human Rights Act had anchored America's engagement with the country on a bipartisan basis. Passed in 2004 and renewed in subsequent years, the legislation ensured funding for radio broadcasts, satellite analysis and human rights documentation. These efforts informed everything from US sanctions policy to United Nations reports on crimes against humanity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD However, that act quietly expired in 2022. Though funding had temporarily continued through the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), recent cuts proposed by the Trump administration aim to all but eliminate DRL's global funding. Human rights advocates have warned that this move will not only gut existing projects but destroy the infrastructure and institutional expertise necessary to rebuild them later, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch Lina Yoon wrote in Foreign Policy in Focus. Real-world consequences The stakes go far beyond theoretical policy losses. Civil society organisations once supported by the act are now struggling to survive. Groups like the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, which had previously traced illicit financial networks tied to North Korea's cyber theft operations, are at risk of shuttering. The DailyNK, a Seoul-based newsroom that reports using sources inside North Korea, may soon fall silent. Similarly, the Transitional Justice Working Group, known for its geocoding of execution and burial sites using scapee testimony and satellite imagery, may no longer be able to continue its work, Lina wrote. She feared that cutting off these data sources would severely compromise the US government's ability to make informed policy decisions. A regional reversal Compounding the problem, the recently elected South Korean administration under President Lee Jae-myung has reportedly taken a softer stance toward Pyongyang. In addition to ending government-led broadcasts into the North, Seoul has banned activists from launching balloons containing leaflets, rice, medicine and cash across the demilitarised zone. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Human rights observers noted that while this strategy may aim for diplomatic rapprochement, it simultaneously weakens the already scarce flow of outside information into North Korea. Williams from the Stimson Centre told South China Morning Post that the reduced broadcasts would leave North Koreans even more cut off from both local and global events. In a deteriorating security climate, such isolation could come at a high price, not only for North Koreans but for neighbouring countries and allies relying on accurate, timely intelligence. Why the world should pay attention The broader message from policy analysts and human rights organisations is clear: supporting independent media in North Korea is not charity — it's strategy, said Lina. And yet, the Trump administration's broad-stroke cuts threaten to erase years of painstaking progress. Organisations holding DRL grants, including the Unification Media Group and the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, may soon have no funds left to continue. Radio Free Asia has already ceased its Korean-language broadcasts, a move that could embolden Pyongyang's censors and silence dissident voices before they ever reach the airwaves. A future in the dark? Unless the US Congress takes urgent action to renew the North Korean Human Rights Act and protect funding for programmes that monitor and expose the regime's abuses, the world could lose its last windows into the country. As one expert put it, North Korea thrives in the dark. And with Washington now dimming the light, the shadows are growing longer.
LeMonde
2 days ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
North Korea rejects outreach by South Korea's new president
The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un rebuffed overtures by South Korea's new liberal government, saying Monday, July 28, that North Korea has no interest in talks with South Korea, no matter what proposal its rival offers. Kim Yo-jong's comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the US anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end. "We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with" South Korea, Kim Yo-jong said in a statement carried by state media. It's North Korea's first official statement on the government of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, which took office in early June. In an effort to improve badly frayed ties with North Korea, Lee's government has halted anti-Pyongyang frontline loudspeaker broadcasts, taken steps to ban activists from flying balloons with propaganda leaflets across the border and repatriated North Koreans who were drifted south in wooden boats months earlier. 'Sincere efforts' Kim Yo-jong called such steps "sincere efforts" by Lee's government to develop ties. But she said the Lee government won't be much different from its predecessors, citing what it calls "their blind trust" to the military alliance with the US and attempt to "stand in confrontation" with North Korea. She mentioned the upcoming summertime South Korea-US military drills, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal. North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the US since leader Kim Jong-un's high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals. North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the US and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs. Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his personal ties with Kim Jong-un and expressed intent to resume diplomacy with him. But North Korea hasn't publicly responded to Trump's overture. In early 2024, Kim Jong-un ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an "invariable principal enemy." That caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors' long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North's terms. Many experts say Kim likely aims to guard against South Korean cultural influence and bolster his family's dynastic rule. Others say Kim wants legal room to use his nuclear weapons against South Korea by making it a foreign enemy state, not a partner for potential unification which shares a sense of national homogeneity.
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Korea Herald
NK leader's sister says not interested in any proposal from Seoul, won't sit down for dialogue
North Korea is not interested in any policy or proposal from South Korea and will not sit down with Seoul for talks, the powerful sister of state leader Kim Jong-un said Monday. Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's central committee, made the remarks in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought to resume dialogue with Pyongyang to ease military tension and improve inter-Korean ties. It marks the North's first official statement on the Lee administration, which took office last month. "Looking at around the past 50 days since Lee Jae Myung took office ... (he) is no different from his predecessor in blindly adhering to the South Korea-US alliance and pursuing confrontation with us," Kim said. No matter how hard the Lee government tries to draw North Korea's attention, the North's stance toward the South will not change, she said. "I make it clear once again that we are not interested in any policy or proposal put forward by Seoul, and there will be no chance of us sitting down with South Korea for any discussions," she noted. Kim pointed to a proposal in South Korea to normalize its unification ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs, saying the ministry should be dissolved because the two Koreas are separate countries, and accused Seoul of being "possessed" by the specter of "unification by absorption." She also dismissed Seoul's recent suspension of spy agency-operated radio and television broadcasts targeting North Korea as something that "does not deserve any appreciation." "There would be no greater misunderstanding if South Korea expected to overturn the consequences of its own making with a few sentimental words now, after having declared (North Korea) its main enemy and pursued extreme confrontation in the last," Kim noted. She also referred to proposals in South Korea to invite Kim Jong-un to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju in October, calling them a "ridiculous delusion." (Yonhap)
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
North Korea will be ‘honourable victors' in anti-US battles, leader Kim says
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the country would achieve victory in 'anti-imperialist, anti-US' battles, as Pyongyang marked the 72nd anniversary of the Korean war armistice, state media reported on Sunday. At his recent visit to a war museum, Kim 'affirmed that our state and its people would surely achieve the great cause of building a rich country with a strong army and become honourable victors in the anti-imperialist, anti-US showdown,' the KCNA state news agency said. North Korea signed an armistice agreement with the United States and China on July 27, 1953, ending the fighting in the three-year war. US generals signed the agreement representing the United Nations forces that backed South Korea. North Korea calls July 27 'Victory Day' even though the armistice drew a border dividing the Korean peninsula roughly equally in area and restoring balance after the two sides had made major advances back and forth during the war. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (centre) pays respect to fallen soldiers at the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs' Cemetery in Pyongyang in a photo released on Sunday. Photo: KCNA/Reuters
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Business
- Perth Now
Russia restarts flights to North Korean capital
Russia is set to launch direct passenger flights from Moscow to North Korea's capital Pyongyang as the two former communist bloc allies move to improve ties. The start of regular flights between the capitals for the first time since the mid-1990s, according to Russian aviation blogs, follows the resumption of a Moscow-Pyongyang passenger rail service, a 10-day journey, in June. The first flight will leave Russia's Sheremetyevo airport at 7pm on Sunday (2am AEST on Monday) according to the airport's timetable. The eight-hour flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-200ER with a capacity of 440 passengers, Russia's RIA state news agency said. It said tickets started at 44,700 roubles ($A860), and the first flight quickly sold out. Russia's civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia has granted Nordwind Airlines permission to operate flights between Moscow and Pyongyang twice a week. The transport ministry said in a statement that for now, flights would operate once a month, "to help build stable demand". The only direct air route between Russia and North Korea has been flights by North Korean carrier Air Koryo to Vladivostok in Russia's far east three times a week. Ukraine and its Western allies have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with artillery and ballistic missiles. Moscow and Pyongyang deny the allegations. Pyongyang has deployed more than 10,000 troops and arms to Russia to back Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in July his country was ready to "unconditionally support" Moscow's efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.
