SEOUL, South Korea — For North Korea watchers, the news is mysterious and the motives unknown. On October 26, an 85-year-old Korean War veteran from Palo Alto, California, became the second American detained in the past year in the world’s most reclusive state.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 21, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Next month will be a big one for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, as his nation hosts various conspicuous, cultish festivities. On Dec. 12, North Korean state media will probably memorialize its satellite launch one year ago, an early boost to Kim Jong Un’s prestige.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 20, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Some melons are so pricey that even thieves target them. In Japan and, to a lesser extent, South Korea, fruit fuels a lucrative boutique business. Shops sell only the best hand-picked “designer fruits”— free from blemishes and spoil.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 16, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is the butt of many jokes. Its military parades, for one, offer an eclectic mix of the clownish and terrifying. With blocks of goose-stepping soldiers in Soviet-style uniforms, tanks in formation, and a pudgy young dictator looking on, the scene is fitting for a cheesy 1960s propaganda broadcast — or even the next Austin Powers movie.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 10, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — In American and South Korean tabloids, the wife of the North Korean dictator has achieved an unusual degree of celebrity.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 30, 2013
DAEGU, South Korea — For the past three years, the US has gone full force into its much-headlined fracking revolution, capitalizing on technological innovations to tap into enormous newly-exploitable reserves of oil and natural gas.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 25, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — For more than 60 years, North and South Korea have been divided along the demilitarized zone, or the DMZ. Barriers — political, legal and physical — often prevent South Koreans from communicating directly with their northern brethren.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 19, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — In 2009, American minister Robert Park crossed into North Korea to protest what he called a “genocide” in the country’s six prison camps. Of course, the regime detained and later released him, making him one of six Americans held in North Korea in recent years.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 16, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Ever since his arrest in North Korea 11 months ago, the world has feared the fate of Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 11, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — For foreign investors, North Korea has long been akin to a dark, forbidden outpost in a distant galaxy.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 10, 2013
What to read next:
Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.