INCHEON, South Korea — Standing in front of a cluttered, rowdy classroom of about a hundred adolescents, North Korean defector Kim Su-ryeon, 25, kicks off her presentation with a pop quiz. “How many defectors have escaped to South Korea?” she asks the chattering...

SEOUL, South Korea — “So you think you can discuss military issues without even having served?” Conservative lawmaker Han Gi-ho hurled that question at conscientious objector Lim Tae-hoon in a parliamentary hearing. “You didn't even go!” Lim is accustomed to such...

SEOUL, South Korea — “It’s not fair!” complained a South Korean sex industry aficionado, a former “consultant” for a large call girl website. “The tax men are hurting business! Cracking down on company cards!” The consultant, a 32-year-old, chiseled and rakish figure...

UIJEONGBU, South Korea — Growing up in hardship in this once-poor Cold War outpost, the young Kim Kyeong-sun decades ago met a job recruiter who promised her housing and a paycheck to support her family. Her real job? A sex worker for American GIs. In a former...

SEOUL, South Korea — By North Korean standards, Yeonmi Park, 20, grew up in affluence, the daughter of a party loyalist who traded in gold and silver with Chinese customers. Accustomed to privilege and security, in the mid-1990s her family suddenly found themselves...

SEOUL, South Korea — Every year an untold number of dogs, raised in cramped and inhumane commercial breeding grounds known as “puppy mills,” make their way from South Korea and elsewhere into your local kennel for re-sale at premium prices, a GlobalPost investigation...

SEOUL, South Korea — For more than a year, the world has watched the bold economic experiment known as Abenomics, once exalted as the saving grace for two decades of economic torpor in Japan. An elderly workforce, rigid economy, soaring national debt, and youth...

SEOUL, South Korea — It’ll smack you in the face the instant you walk into any decent Korean restaurant: the pungent smell of kimchi — the piquant pickled cabbage whose bold tanginess is increasingly exalted by Western foodies. For newbies, kimchi is a masochistic...

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea have been divided for more than six decades, but on Monday Pope Francis moved his followers with a final prayer during Mass: It's time to find a path to peace on the Korean peninsula, and to reject the "mindset of...

SEOUL, South Korea — The muscular and imposing Antonio Inoki stands among Japan’s most revered former wrestlers, a WWE hall of famer who has settled into retirement as a member of the Japanese parliament. The athlete, 71, has a colorful reputation in his homeland. He...