In North Korea, being part of the leadership’s family by no means excludes you from danger. The uncle of current leader Kim Jong-un, Lee Kang, decided to come out of the woodwork Wednesday. He admitted that his family defected to the U.S. out of fear that he would become victimized during a political power struggle leading up to the death of former leader Kim Jong-il.

Mysterious "ghost ships" have been washing up on the western shores of Japan, prompting speculation about North Korean defectors and purges.

Nearly a dozen wooden boats carrying decomposing bodies have been found in the waters off the coast of Japan over the past two months. Inside the 11 vessels were at least 25 bodies, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. Two bodies were headless, and one boat contained six skulls, Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported, citing the Japanese Coast Guard. The poor condition of the remains suggested that the boats had been adrift for some time, the paper said.

North Korea has executed three women for circulating a South Korean television drama, UPI reported Wednesday, citing a source. The three women were pronounced guilty for making copies of the show. The women resided near Hyesan University of the Arts in the northern Ryanggang Province and were detained by police officials for recording the South Korean drama, which is based on a true story of a North Korean dancer who defected to the South...

It was a fair question, but the last I expected from a North Korean. Mr. Gang, I’ll call him, is a wealthy, middle-aged businessman from Pyongyang. We met outside the North a few weeks ago, waiting for the same flight. I was on my way to visit North Korea with a group tour, and Mr. Gang was headed home. He was glad to meet me, he said. I was the first American he’d ever spoken to, and the first Westerner he had ever met who spoke Korean. He shook my hand and...

When former Google employee Will Scott had the chance to visit the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, he also purchased a copy of North Korea's "Red Star 3" operating system before returning to America. Little was publicly known about Red Star 3. North Korea used to use Windows, but it has since created Red Star 3, which is designed to look a lot like Apple's Mac OS X operating system.

With his extreme crew cut, chubby cheeks and a penchant for black button-up shirts and shiny brogues, Kim Jong-un is one of the world’s most recognisable dictators – and one of the most memed and mocked. Now professional Kim impersonators are cropping up at football games, college campuses and even political protests and rallies.

The number of North Korean workers enslaved abroad is growing, and many are forced to work as long as 20 hours a day while the regime embezzles hundreds of millions of dollars from their pay. Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said the growing exploitation of North Korean workers by the regime in Pyongyang "reflects the really tight financial and economic situation in the North," CNN reported.

Nearly 400 mostly elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily militarised border into North Korea on Tuesday (Oct 20) for a rare, emotional meeting with relatives they have either never met or last saw more than six decades ago. A fleet of buses led by four black sedans flying Red Cross flags carried the family members from a resort in the port city of Sokcho to the frontier that has divided the peninsula - and its people - since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Forced to witness public executions and beaten for 15 days after his first escape attempt, a former North Korean soldier who dramatically defected to the South talks exclusively to Sky News about the horrors of life under Kim Jong-Un – and how he dreams of one day being reunited with his family. We meet at an agreed time in a nondescript suburb of Seoul. Wearing a neat cap, ‎and periodically checking his phone, the man is polite, but clearly anxious.

Kim Yo-jong was in charge of overseeing his personal protection, however her position is now up for grabs.

Jang Jong Hwa lost both her parents during the great famine in the 1990s. Now she's raising seven other orphans, all in the name of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

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North Korea is blocking wireless signals along the China border, preventing mobile phones operating on Chinese memory chips from receiving calls. A source located at the China-North Korea border, speaking to Yonhap on the condition of anonymity, said Pyongyang has stepped up its restrictions on cellphone reception along its 808-mile border with China. Signals from Chinese cellphone towers increasingly...

North Korea is getting pressure from its one and only ally, China, to tone down its latest blustery rhetoric and not to conduct a planned space launch or possible nuclear test. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking at an academic forum on the future of North Korea talks, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We call on all sides to adopt a responsible attitude toward the peninsula as well as the region of northeast Asia...

North Korea said on Tuesday that it was improving its nuclear arsenal in both “quality and quantity,” reaffirming that the country’s main nuclear complex, including its only disclosed uranium-enrichment plant, was in full operation. North Korean scientists and engineers have made innovations “to guarantee the reliability of the nuclear deterrent in every way by steadily improving the levels of nuclear weapons with various missions in quality and quantity,” the state-run Korean Central News...

An eight-day surfing expedition to North Korea will kick off in September, but what kind of experience will it really be?

In North Korea, men serve in the military for 10 years and women for seven. The special unit working as Kim Jong-un’s personal bodyguards serve for 13. Military service is compulsory in the DPRK and most people enlist after high school. Those who are accepted into universities do their military service after they graduate.

North Korea slammed the United Nations for its plans to discuss Pyongyang's human rights record, but lawmakers in Seoul are moving forward with a comprehensive North Korea human rights bill. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said on KCNA on Thursday, "Hostile powers are planning to have a go at criticizing [North Korea] during the 30th regular session of the Human Rights Council...

'Macktruck' attack network sends in the 'Hangman'