South Korean media are reporting that Korean and US intelligence satellites have spotted North Korea moving what appears to be medium-range ballistic missiles to its east coast. Meanwhile, the regime said on Thursday that it has the “final approval” to launch “merciless” military assaults against the US, including the use of nuclear weapons.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 4, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea – More bluster today: the wire services are reporting that North Korea, for now, isn’t allowing South Korean businesspeople to enter the Kaesong industrial zone. That’s the special administrative area north of the border where several hundred South Korean managers supervise some 50,000 North Korean laborers, who make garments and handbags.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 3, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has said it plans to reopen its nuclear facilities — a move that would likely serve to further unnerve the country’s foes in the region and Washington.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 2, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Koreans call it “pigeon torture.” After the authorities accused Jung Gwang Il of espionage, they locked him in a tiny underground cell at the Yodok concentration camp in central North Korea. It’s officially known as “kwanliso,” or “penal labor camp,” No. 15.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 29, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has severed its last remaining military hotline to South Korea, citing the escalating tensions on the peninsula as its reason and causing yet more international worry over the possibility of a violent confrontation between the two states.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 27, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — From both sides of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, has gotten a baptism by fire since she took office on Feb. 25.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 16, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Last week, the administration of the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, fired a spokesman after a Korean American intern called the police on him.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 15, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a live artillery drill at the same spot from which the North launched its deadly 2010 attack on a South Korean island, fueling tensions on the Korean Peninsula, The Washington Times reported Thursday, citing state media.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 14, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — If North Korea decides to back up its words with action, what could it really do? Most experts agree a full-blown war or a nuclear attack on the peninsula is off the cards. But the two Koreas have dialed up the rhetoric over the past week, raising fears that Pyongyang could launch a quick but containable provocation against the South in the coming months.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 13, 2013
PAJU, South Korea — Lee Eunsook’s artwork glows in the quiet border village of Imjingak as the sun sets over the DMZ, the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. A line of neon-threaded pillars in front of the village’s barbed-wire fence, her installation lists the names of a handful of families separated during the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 12, 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.