N. Korean Refugees Dazed by Capitalist Life

As economic conditions worsen, more flee to South Korea

(AP) - The number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea has surged in recent years because of economic suffering in the North, with more than 10,000 defections over the past three years, South Korea's Unification Ministry said today. About as many North Koreans have defected to the South since the end of 2007 as the number who had fled over the entire previous period since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice: The overall total stands now at 20,050. More»

Plane went down in Chinese corn field

(NEWSER) - This much seems clear: A North Korean fighter jet crashed into a corn field in China. (See the Wall Street Journal for photos.) Beyond that lies a ton of speculation, but the wires generally agree on this storyline: It was a lone pilot who tried to defect from Kim Jong Il's land of paradise, and he was probably trying to fly over China to Russia (which has no repatriation policy with the North). He was killed in the crash, though there are squishy reports of a second pilot who bailed, notes the BBC . More»

(NEWSER) - When President Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meet today, they will discuss a host of security and economic issues, but Paul Wolfowitz hopes they take some time out for a purely humanitarian concern: North Korea’s refugees. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have fled to China, but “China makes life extraordinarily difficult for refugees,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal. More»

And regime's nuke ready for testing, maybe tomorrow

(NEWSER) - Thirty North Korean officials who took part in talks with South Korea were either executed or died in "staged traffic accidents" for failing to improve relations, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's annual report found that another 200 were arrested in January as the regime transferred power from Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang typically rounds up officials who fail to satisfy the regime, even when they're only carrying out orders, the Telegraph reports. More»

Flights not in danger, South Korean officials say

(NEWSER) - Commercial flights into and out of South Korea found their GPS signals mysteriously jammed this weekend, officials revealed today, and they weren't shy about casting suspicion on their neighbors to the north. More than 250 flights were affected, though officials say none were in danger because they automatically switched to other navigation systems. North Korea has been linked to such GPS attacks in the past, MSNBC reports. More»