North Korea’s participation in these Olympics runs the risk of rewarding bad behavior and handing Mr. Kim a diplomatic victory that he will brandish as proof that his strategy was right. Still, we have to start somewhere after so many years of tension.
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Getty Images: Skiers at North Korea's Masikryong ski resort
Photos and video by Jean H. Lee from North Korea's Masikryong ski resort in Kangwon, Province, taken in January 2014. South Korean skiers are slated to train in North Korea as part of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.
Read MoreKEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Romance, humor, tension — everyone loves a good sitcom, even North Koreans. But in North Korea, TV dramas are more than mere entertainment. They play a crucial political role by serving as a key messenger of party and government policy. They aim to shape social and cultural mores in North Korean society. And in the Kim Jong-un era, they act as an advertisement for the “good life” promised to the political elite.
Read MoreProspect: Kim Jong-un has realised there’s a benefit to behaving badly →
The North Korean leader has realised bad behaviour gets attention. If Trump wants to push back against Pyongyang's weapons program, he needs to stop giving it to him
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Photo by Carl De Keyzer/Magnum
The New Republic: Land of the Hermit King, October 2017 →
Meticulously choreographed military parades. Strident news announcements on state television. Missile tests presided over by a grinning Kim Jong Un. Propaganda from North Korea comes to us fully formed and almost alluring in its opacity: a finished product that has been carefully constructed to convey an idealized image of strength and unity.
Carl De Keyzer, a photographer based in Belgium, offers a different and more intimate view: a glimpse of the process of indoctrination within North Korea.
Read MoreNew York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants →
If President Trump thinks that his threats last week of “fire and fury” and weapons “locked and loaded” have North Koreans quaking in their boots, he should think again. If anything, the Mao-suit-clad cadres in Pyongyang are probably gleeful that the president of the United States has played straight into their propaganda.
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Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family →
While Kim Jong Un stares down his enemies abroad, it's easy to forget that he's also fighting a battle from within his own borders: to survive at all costs. Like any autocratic leader, he's under constant pressure to maintain order and allegiance. But his youth and inexperience make staying in power that much more of a challenge, which in turn requires absolute control. Opposition must be eliminated. No one is safe, not even his own family.
Read MoreWilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended →
We in the United States often call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War.” My high school history textbook in Minnesota devoted barely a paragraph to it, and growing up as the child of Korean immigrants, I knew almost nothing about a war my own parents survived as children. But the war is very much alive and present in North Korea, and the standoff with the United States figures prominently in their propaganda, identity, and policy.
Read MoreNew York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue →
After the 14th-century Korean ruler Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, chose the youngest of his eight sons to succeed him, a spurned son killed the heir apparent and at least one of his other half brothers and eventually rose to the throne. Today, rumors of royal fratricide are again swirling, this time around the court of Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea.
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CNN: Pyeongchang and the South Korea ski culture →
South Korea is mountainous but doesn't have the stunning, jagged peaks of the Alps or volcanoes blanketed in 15 meters of snow like Hokkaido. It doesn't have the rollicking, raucous mid-mountain huts of Austria where skiers pass around bottles of schnapps, or log-cabin lodges with crackling fires where skiers sip glasses of vin chaud or gluehwein. What South Korea lacks in tradition it makes up for in efficiency: small, modern resorts with fast lifts and good snowmaking. And the region does have a ski culture all its own: soju, BBQ and plenty of time soaking in spas known asjjimjilbang.
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