Nuclear security scholars Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris published a study of the worldwide deployment of nuclear weapons on August 27th in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, their first such survey since 2009.

As they stress throughout their paper, tracking the number and location of the world's nuclear warheads is an inherently uncertain endeavor. Nuclear-armed powers don't tend to reveal information about other countries' programs, and some governments, like Israel, maintain a strictly-enforced code of opacity regarding anything nuke-related. Little is really known about North Korea's program, and command and control over the nuclear stock in Pakistan is still a matter of anxious speculation.

All of these limitations make Kristensen and Norris's paper perhaps the most authoritative open-source assessment of where the world's most destructive weapons are held, as well as who holds them. The authors estimate that "approximately 16,300 nuclear weapons [are] located at some 97 sites in 14 countries." Not to worry, though: they say that only "4,000 are operationally available," although "some 1,800 are on high alert and ready for use on short notice."

Their work reveals that the nuclear powers take different approaches to how their organize and manage their programs. And it shows that while the number of nuclear weapons is declining, the threat that they pose isn't exactly in eclipse.

Here are some of the more interesting findings in their survey.

The number of nuclear weapons has plunged in the last five years. Kristensen and Norris counted approximately 23,330 nuclear warheads in their 2009 study. That number is down by nearly 7,000 this time around, partly thanks to the strategic arms reduction agreement that entered into force between the U.S. and Russia in early 2011. The two nuclear-armed giants account for nearly the entire global drop in warheads since 2009.

The former Cold War foes still hold an arsenal capable of destroying the world several times over, and the U.S.-Russian diplomatic "reset" that the arms reduction treaty epitomized is now over.

But it at least had the tangible result of ridding the world of nearly a third of its existing nuclear weapons.

Israel's nuclear arsenal may be smaller than is widely assumed. Israel's nuclear stockpile is typically estimated at between 75 and 200 bombs— no one outside of the country's elite leadership knows for sure, since Israel has never declared its arsenal or conducted a confirmed nuclear test.

In 2009, Kristensen and Norris concluded that Israel had between 80 and 100 bombs. This time, they say that Israel has between 80 and 85 nukes, spread across five facilities.

Different countries have different approaches to stockpile management, and it's a reflection of their particular situation and needs. For example, Israel stores its medium-range ballistic missiles in Sdot Micha; warheads are researched and developed at Soreq and possibly stored at Tel Nof and Nevatim, where they can be attached to F-16 fighter jets. Dimona, in the middle of Israel's Negev desert, is the country's main production facility for warheads and fissile materials.

It's possible to drive from Dimona, the southernmost of these facilities, to Soreq, the northernmost, in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Israel's nuclear infrastructure is geographically concentrated — built so that warheads can be discretely transported and stored, and deployed in a crisis as quickly as possible.

Soreq and Sdot Micha are in a mountainous region between Israel's two most populous cities; Dimona and Nevatim are in an inhospitable desert. Israel's facilities are in a few of the most defensible places in the country — places that would not be among the first to fall if Israel were faced with a crisis that threatened the state's existence.

In contrast, Pakistan, which has "a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal of 100 to 120 warheads and an increasing portfolio of delivery systems," spreads out its nuclear infrastructure throughout the country.

In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton told Congress that Pakistan “adopted a policy of dispersing their nuclear weapons and facilities;” Kristensen and Morris say that Pakistan's nuclear assets are in Islamabad, Karachi, and possibly a series of underground facilities, some of which might be in the country's mountainous north.

Pakistan is a sometimes-unstable country with a major presence of Islamist extremists and a history of problematic civilian-military relations. It makes sense that the people who manage its nukes would want to prevent the entire arsenal from falling under enemy control at once — or would want to prevent any single official from being able to control the entire stockpile for purposes of political blackmail.

No one really knows what's up with North Korea. "Although North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, we are not aware of credible public information that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear weapons capability, much less where those weapons would be stored," Kristensen and Morris write.

In other words, North Korea has been able to smash bits of weapons-grade uranium together — but that doesn't mean they have a bomb they can use. Whether they can pull off a nuclear explosion using a practicable or deliverable warhead is far from clear.

Russia has vastly reduced its number of nuclear facilities — but still has more than the U.S. Russia had "100 sites in the late-1990s, 250 sites in the mid-1990s, and 500 sites in 1991." Today, it's down to 40.

This could be because of the gradual reduction in the size of its nuclear arsenal, and the pullback of nuclear material from the former Soviet republics after the Union's breakup in the early 1990s — a major post-Cold War priority for the U.S. and Europe.

It's not necessarily a positive development, though: Kristensen and Morris note that Russia hasn't really clarified which of its weapons are "tactical" and which it considers "strategic"— in other words, which weapons are specific to battlefield weapons systems, and which are city-busters that could be attached to ballistic missiles or long-range bombers. It's actually an important distinction for arms control and international legal purposes, and Russia is far from transparent about what category a lot of its weapons fall in to.

It's harder for outsiders to monitor a more spread-out nuclear infrastructure, especially in the largest country on earth. And Russia's policy of dispersal also raises concerns about stockpile control and security. It's another instance of Russia trying to mask the nature, extent, and location of its nuclear infrastructure from the rest of the world.

In comparison, the U.S. has only 18 nuclear facilities spread across 12 U.S. states and five countries, despite having a comparable number of warheads to Russia.

Read the entire report here

SEE ALSO: This map shows where all 17,000 of the world's nukes are

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SEOUL (Reuters) - A senior North Korean banking official who managed money for leader Kim Jong Un has defected in Russia and was seeking asylum in a third country, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday, citing an unidentified source.

Yun Tae Hyong, a senior representative of North Korea's Korea Daesong Bank, disappeared in Nakhodka, Russia, last week with $5 million, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported.

The Daesong Bank is suspected by the U.S. government of being under the control of the North Korean government's Office 39, which is widely believed to finance illicit activities and was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010.

The newspaper said North Korea had asked Russian authorities for cooperation in efforts to capture Yun.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, told Reuters it had no knowledge of the matter.

In 2005, $25 million of North Korea's cash was frozen at Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, which the U.S. Treasury said North Korea used for illicit activities.

That case stands as practically the only public success in seizing funds from the isolated country that is now led by Kim, who is in his 30s and is the third of the Kim dynasty to rule.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel)

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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Former NFL player Bob "The Beast" Sapp and a group of brawny pro wrestlers led by a Japanese politician took their oddball attempt at sports diplomacy to the streets of Pyongyang on Friday, staging a tug-of-war and arm wrestling competition with local children before a large and somewhat bewildered crowd of spectators.

Sapp, who briefly played lineman for the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears before hitting it big in the ring in Japan, is in North Korea with about 20 other pro wrestlers for an exhibition this weekend. The show will be the first sports event featuring celebrity foreigners since former NBA star Dennis Rodman played a basketball game for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's birthday in January.

The event is the brainchild of Japanese lawmaker Kanji "Antonio" Inoki, himself a former pro wrestler, and comes amid a slight thawing of relations between Japan and North Korea. Tokyo recently eased some unilateral sanctions on the North to allow more exchanges, but continues to enforce UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs.

Sapp, who has made a lucrative career playing the villain in the ring, growled and snarled at the kids before letting them beat him. He also handed out cookies with his likeness on them.

Later, the wrestlers — from France, Brazil, China and Japan — pulled a bus and paired off with the children for a tug-of-war.

Sin Kuk Hua, a 13-year-old middle school student who was among the spectators, said she had never seen an American before and wasn't sure exactly what to think.

"I thought we could beat him," she said. "It was fun."

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From 1969 to 1997, the North Korean leadership purchased expensive full-page ad space in the most prominent western newspapers, Benjamin R. Young reports for NK News. 

The ads, which cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000, were placed in high-profile publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian.

Although the exact number of ads Pyongyang placed is unknown, it is estimated that North Korea paid for at least 100 of them.

North Korea began buying the ads in Western newspapers in the late 1960s in an effort to promote Kim Il Sung and Juche, the state-promoted political philosophy in the North that emphasizes self-reliance and a strong military.

Ultimately, and likely to no one's surprise except for possibly North Korea's, the ads were a complete waste, and failed to sway public opinion. 

As Young notes: 

[E]ven supporters of North Korea criticized their international propaganda campaign. Sean Garland of the Irish Republican Army visited North Korea in 1983 and told his Korean comrades that putting full-page ads expressing Kim Il Sung’s ideas into the Irish Times of “was a waste of money because nobody f—ing read them.” In many of the ads, the North Koreans were promoting the published works of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, but as one Boston Globe reader wrote in a 1969 letter to the editor, “To date, sales have been few. Most people in the Western world have never heard of Kim, or awaited anything from him except trouble.”

In many cases, the failure of the North Korean propaganda came from Pyongyang's apparent ignorance of the papers' readerships. One ad, placed in a Middle Eastern newspaper, bore the headline "Kim Il Sung Is A Divine Man."

The ad was not well received by the newspaper's Muslim readership. 

The ads were more likely propaganda for the North Korean population than for western readers. North Korean media would report on the ads, claiming that they were articles and editorials written by westerners in praise of the north.

The model was developed to convince the average North Korean that the Kims were treated as major international statesmen — and not as pariahs they actually were. 

By the late 1990s, this project of placing propaganda in western media was abandoned.

But even today, North Korea still funds Juche study groups across the world in an attempt to win over sympathizers and raise the status of the North Korean regime. 

SEE ALSO: North Korea moved some of its most advanced weaponry to the Chinese border in a sign of rising tensions

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South Korea said Thursday it would create a joint military unit with the United States, as a report suggested the contingent would target North Korea's weapons of mass destruction if a full-scale conflict broke out.

The mechanized unit led by a U.S. major general will be set up in the first half of next year, the South's defense ministry said, as part of elaborate preparations for any future war between the two Koreas.

"It will be the first combined field combat unit to carry out wartime operations," a defense ministry spokesman said without elaborating on its mission.

He declined to confirm a Yonhap news agency report that its remit would include eliminating weapons of mass destruction in the nuclear-armed North if war breaks out.

The ministry said the contingent would have a joint office of U.S. and South Korean staff in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, where the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division guards a strategically important area as a deterrent to an invasion by North Korea.

In the event of an all-out conflict, a mechanized South Korean brigade would join forces with the U.S. division, which is armed with helicopters and other advanced weapons, it said.

"This would be a symbol of a strengthened military alliance between the allies," a military official said.

Because the Korean conflict ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still technically at war.

Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the South under a bilateral military accord.

If fresh hostilities broke out, the U.S. commander in South Korea would assume control of the South's 640,000 troops.

A transfer of command in a wartime setting was set for 2015, which would allow South Korea control of its own troops, but Seoul wants a postponement citing the increased threat from North Korea's nuclear and missile development.

In June, North Korea announced the successful test of new high-precision, tactical guided missiles, and in the following months the North conducted a series of missile and rocket tests.

South Korea and the United States held an annual military drill in August despite condemnation by North Korea, which had threatened a "merciless" retaliatory strike.

The drill simulated the response to a nuclear attack threat for the first time, according to the South's defense ministry, using a strategy of "tailored" deterrence developed last year in the course of joint defense talks.

South Korea is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and in wartime American soldiers in the South would be reinforced by military contingents from the continental United States and its presence in East Asia.

U.N. resolutions bar Pyongyang from conducting any launches using ballistic missile technology. But the North has defended its missile launches as a legitimate exercise in self-defense.

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The U.N. nuclear watchdog said it has seen releases of steam and water indicating that North Korea may be operating a reactor, in the latest update on a plant that experts say could make plutonium for atomic bombs.

North Korea announced in April of last year that it would revive its aged five-megawatt research reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, saying it was seeking a deterrent capacity.

The isolated and poverty-stricken state defends its nuclear program as a "treasured sword" to counter what it sees as U.S.-led hostility.

In an annual report posted on it website, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said North Korea's nuclear program "remains a matter of serious concern".

The U.N. agency said it continued to monitor developments at Yongbyon through satellite imagery.

"Since late August 2013, the Agency has observed, through analysis of satellite imagery, steam discharges and the outflow of cooling water at the 5 MW(e) reactor, signatures which are consistent with the reactor’s operation," the IAEA said.

"However, since the agency has had no access to the 5 MW(e) reactor since April 2009, it cannot confirm the operational status of the reactor," it said. North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in 2009 and the agency has had no inspectors in the country since then.

The Yongbyon reactor has been technically out of operation for years. North Korea destroyed its cooling tower in 2008 as a confidence-building step in talks with South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

When North Korea said it planned to revive it, experts said it would probably take about half a year to get it up and running, if it had not suffered significant damage from neglect.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued an assessment in January saying that North Korea had expanded its uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon and restarted the reactor there previously used for plutonium production.

The U.S. State Department called the moves "a significant step in the wrong direction" and contrary to North Korea's international commitments.

"These activities signal Pyongyang’s clear lack of a genuine commitment to denuclearization," it said in a statement on Thursday. 

Developing Nuclear Capabilities?

The U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said last month that commercial satellite imagery from late June showed that the reactor was active.

"North Korea has apparently made a decision to renovate the aged 5 MW (e) reactor to make plutonium for nuclear weapons for many more years," it said. "However, without more data, such as regular steam production, it is hard to determine the operational status of the reactor and thus to estimate the amount of plutonium produced by the reactor."

While North Korea has long boasted of making strides in acquiring a "nuclear deterrent", there had been general scepticism that it could master the step of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile.

But there has been a shift in thinking since it conducted a nuclear test in February last year - its third since 2006 - and some experts have said it may be closer than previously thought to putting a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Yongbyon is also the site of other nuclear facilities and the IAEA said in its report that it had "observed ongoing renovation and new construction activities at various locations within" the complex.

"Although the purpose of such activities cannot be determined through satellite imagery alone, they appear to be broadly consistent with (North Korea's) statements that it is further developing its nuclear capabilities," it said.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington, editing by Larry King and Andrew Hay)

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Aram Pan has always been intrigued by North Korea. Everything he saw in the media relating to the country, though, revolved around its leaders, military might, and confidentiality. Pan wondered what he would see if he simply asked nicely to look around. He found out the answer was more than he ever expected.

Pan, who is from Singapore, makes 360-degree panoramas for various clients, including real estate brokers, hotels, and retail stores. Utilizing fairly simple technology and setup (just a DSLR digital camera and a tripod), he creates high resolution, immersive panoramas that allow viewers to virtually explore a space.

Pan wanted to create these in the DPRK, so after submitting a proposal to the government, he was "given unrestricted freedom to photograph just about anything except military personnel, vehicles, and infrastructure," he told Business Insider. His resulting panoramas and photographs, featured at DPRK360, give a totally fresh look into life in North Korea. 

Pan would often ask his appointed tour guides about a certain aspect of everyday life in North Korea and, many times, the guides would lead him directly to it. For example, Pan asked if he could "swim with the locals." His guides took him to a local water park and spa, the Mansu Water Park (be sure to click the links to fully explore Pan's panoramas).

Similarly, Pan wanted to see where people got their hair cut. His tour guides took him to the hair salon at Changgwangwon Health Complex, which has been in existence since 1980.

Pan says going to North Korea for the first time was like "entering an alternative universe.""Suddenly, there are no advertisements or billboards, no internet, and nobody is rushing around at double speed," he told Business Insider. There are certainly no billboards at the Mansudae Grand Monument, which features massive bronze statues of former Presidents Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

Another thing that surprised Pan was a large trade fair in Pyongyang he attended. "I did not expect to see the sheer amount of businesses entering North Korea and how so much foreign currency was moving about," he says.

Other interesting places Pan visited included the Meari Shooting Range, which allows participants to bring the fowl they shoot at the range to an adjacent restaurant where it can then be cooked for them.

He also checked out the Rungna Dolphinarium, North Korea's equivalent to Sea World.

He even got to visit the newly renovated Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, a place with a strict "no photography policy." The museum documents the history of the Korean wars, from the perspective of North Korea, of course.

Pan tells us this project was an attempt to demystify North Korea. However, Pan says after months of travel all over the country, he didn't see any work camps or starvation, which left him with more questions than answers. In fact, many aspects, such as this beach near Wonsan, seemed almost normal.

Pan hopes the North Korean government will start to trust him more and show him even further behind the curtain, like in the Grand People's Study House, seen below. Pan says that the North Korean government is actually very connected to the outside world, adding that "Yes, they will most definitely be reading this article, too."

Be sure to visit Pan's website to see tons more pictures, videos, and 360-panoramas, and check back often; Pan is planning on going back to North Korea this week. 

(All GIFS courtesy of Aram Pan/DPRK360)

SEE ALSO: The Korean DMZ Is A Surprisingly Popular Spot For Tourists

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North Korea appears to be developing a new weapons system capable of launching submarine-based ballistic missiles, the South's defence ministry said Monday.

"Based on recent US and South Korean intelligence, we have detected signs of North Korea developing a vertical missile launch tube for submarines," a ministry official told AFP.

Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told a regular press briefing Monday that the North's 3,000-ton Golf-class submarine could be modified to fire medium-range ballistic missiles.

"However, there is no confirmed information yet that a North Korean submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles is in operation," Kim stressed.

North Korea's small submarine fleet is comprised of largely obsolete Soviet-era and modified Chinese vessels.

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said in June that North Korea appeared to have acquired a sea-based copy of a Russian cruise missile.

Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis of the US think-tank said the missile would mark "a new and potentially destabilizing addition" to North Korea's military arsenal.

He identified the weapon as a copy of the Russian-produced KH-35 -- a sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile developed during the 1980s and 90s.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's military has recovered the wreckage of unmanned aircraft, believed to be a North Korean drone, in waters off an island near a disputed maritime border, an official said on Monday.

The aircraft's light blue wreckage was found 6 kilometers (3.75 miles) west of Baengnyeong island, and bore similarities to drones that had been found earlier this year, that investigators concluded were launched by North Korea.

It had a wingspan of 80 centimeters and was about a meter long, but unlike the earlier drones found it did not have a camera on board, a military official said.

South Korean and U.S. officials jointly examined three drones recovered earlier this year from different locations near the border, and concluded they had been used by North Korea to spy on South Korean installations.

The Korean peninsular is regarded as one of the riskiest global flashpoints, with the two countries locked in a tense standoff along a Demilitarized Zone established at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Back in March, one drone was discovered following a three-hour exchange of artillery fire between North and South Korea in waters near the disputed maritime border.

In the same month, another drone was recovered after it had flown over the South Korean presidential complex in Seoul. Aerial pictures were found in its on-board camera. North Korea accused U.S. and South Korean authorities of fabricating the results of their examinations of the drone.

South Korea's military was criticized for failing to spot or stop the unidentified aircraft that had entered its airspace and flown over the capital.

Adding to criticism, the military announced in May that it had found a suspected North Korean drone, but it later turned out to be the door of a portable toilet.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

SEE ALSO: North Korea Could Easily Target South Korea's Largest Airport

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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean marines arrested an American man late on Tuesday who had been swimming in a river that flows towards North Korea and said he had been trying to go to the North to meet its leader, Korean media reported.

South Korean marines guarding the Han river, which flows into an estuary and meets the North's Imjin river, found the man lying on the river bank, apparently suffering from exhaustion, the South's Yonhap news agency said, citing a South Korean government official.

The man, who is believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s, told South Korean authorities he wanted to get to North Korea to meet its leader, Kim Jong Un, Yonhap said.

The two Koreas are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. Their border is one of the most heavily militarised in the world and unauthorized bids to cross it can spark clashes.

South Korea's defense ministry could not immediately confirm details of the report but an official said an American man was picked up by the military late on Tuesday and was being questioned.

The U.S. embassy in Seoul said it had been in contact with South Korean authorities about the report.

"We do not have any additional information to share at this time. We have been in touch with the appropriate South Korean authorities regarding the reports," embassy spokeswoman Nida Emmons said by email.

The incident comes after a young American man, Matthew Miller, was detained in the North after entering as a tourist in April. He was sentenced to six years of hard labor on Sunday for committing "hostile acts" towards the North Korean state.

There have been no cases of Americans entering North Korea from the South without legal authorization in recent years.

A South Korean man was shot and killed by South Korean soldiers in September while he was apparently trying to enter the North by floating across a border river.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Jack Kim and Robert Birsel)

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — One shouted about God's love as he crossed a frozen river, clutching a Bible. Another swam, drunk and naked. Several US soldiers dashed around land mines.

Time and again, Americans over the years have slipped illegally into poor, deeply suspicious, fervently anti-American North Korea, even as it has become increasingly easy to enter legally as a tourist.

It's incomprehensible to many, especially since tens of thousands of desperate North Koreans have crossed in the opposite direction, at great risk.

On Tuesday night, a US citizen apparently tried to swim across a river separating the Koreas, eager to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, local media reported. And on Sunday, a young American who entered as a tourist but then tore up his visa was sentenced to six years of hard labor on charges he illegally entered the country to commit espionage.

Sneaking into autocratic, cloistered North Korea has proven a strange and powerful temptation for some Americans.

Sometimes the spur is deep religious conviction. Sometimes it's discontent with America and a belief that things will be different in a country that can seem like its polar opposite. Quite often, analysts say, it's mental or personal problems — or simply a case of a person acting upon a very, very bad idea.

Whatever their reasons, Americans detained in North Korea, including three currently in custody, are major complications for Washington, which must decide whether to let a US citizen languish or to provide Pyongyang with a propaganda victory by sending a senior US envoy to negotiate a release.

America's Cold War Defectors

In the Cold War, a handful of US soldiers, some of whom knew little about life in the North, fled across the Demilitarized Zone and later appeared in North Korean propaganda films.

Charles Robert Jenkins, of North Carolina, deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965. He was allowed to leave North Korea for Japan in 2004.

Other defector soldiers had problems in their military units or issues with family at home. One was reportedly lured north by a female North Korean agent.

In the decades after the war, some Americans harbored "glamorous notions of North Korea as a socialist paradise," said John Delury, an Asia expert at Yonsei University in Seoul. "But that's just not part of the mix any more. Even in the furthest fringes of American online culture, you don't find that notion."

Mental health issues have often played a part, Delury said.

"It's seen as a forbidden country ... a place that's perceived in the American mind as being locked down," Delury said. "To cross the border, in some ways, could be alluring" to people looking to break social rules.

Evan C. Hunziker had reportedly been drinking with a friend in 1996 when he decided to swim naked across the Yalu River between China and the North. Hunziker, who was released after about three months, had drug, alcohol and legal problems. He was later found dead in Washington state in what was ruled a suicide.

The Last Frontier For Spreading Christianity

Religion has provided a powerful impulse for some to cross.

North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion, but outside analysts and defectors describe the country as militantly anti-religious. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean imprisonment or execution, defectors have said.

"It is one of the last frontiers to spread the Christian faith, so there are people who would take unimaginable risks" to evangelize there, Delury said.

A Bible in his hand, American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea on Christmas Day 2009 to draw attention to human rights abuses and to call for the resignation of then-leader Kim Jong Il. Park, who was deported from the country in February 2010, has said he was tortured by interrogators.

In 2010, ex-President Jimmy Carter visited North Korea to win the release of imprisoned American Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing illegally into the North from China.

It was unclear what led Gomes, who had been teaching English in South Korea, to cross. But he may have been emulating Park, said Jo Sung-rae, a South Korean human rights advocate who met with Gomes. Gomes attended rallies in Seoul calling for Park's release before he was arrested.

Park later said he didn't want others to repeat his actions. "I don't want others to do this. I just hoped that this could galvanize people to action. Because this is a society that needs change now," he told The Washington Post in February 2011.

For North Korea, getting a senior US official or an ex-president to visit is a huge propaganda coup. It allows Pyongyang to plaster its newspapers and TV screens with scenes meant to show its powerful leaders welcoming humbled American dignitaries, said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in South Korea.

Washington has repeatedly offered to send its envoy for North Korean human rights to discuss the currently detained Americans, but Pyongyang has so far balked.

"The North Koreans are in no hurry," Lankov said. "It's a sellers' market. They say, 'This is our price: a senior visit and some concessions. These are our goods, these Americans. If you don't want to pay, that's your problem. We can wait.'"

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AP writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this story.

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SEE ALSO: North Korea is trying to add 'a new and potentially destabilizing addition' to its military arsenal

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SEOUL (Reuters) - An American recently sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean court pretended to have secret U.S. information and was deliberately arrested in a bid to become famous and meet U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae in a North Korean prison, state media said on Saturday.

Matthew Miller, 25, of Bakersfield, California, had prepared his story in advance and written in a notebook that he was seeking refuge after failing in an attempt to collect information about theU.S. government, state media said.

"He perpetrated the above-said acts in the hope of becoming a 'world famous guy' and the 'second Snowden' through intentional hooliganism," KCNA said, referring to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by the United States for leaking secrets of its surveillance programs.

"This is an intolerable insult and mockery of the DPRK and he therefore, deserved punishment," KCNA said, using the North's official DPRK acronym.

Miller was arrested when he tore up the tourist visa he used to enter the isolated country in April, state media said at the time. He was sentenced to six years hard labor by a North Korean courtlast Sunday.

"The results of the investigation made it clear that he did so not because of a simple lack of understanding and psychopathology, but deliberately perpetrated such criminal acts for the purpose of directly going to prison," state media said.

Miller's case was exacerbated by the fact his actions followed "reckless remarks" by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that described reclusive North Korea as a "country of evil," state media said.

Kerry in February criticized North Korea as an "evil place" following the publication of an extensive human rights report by United Nations investigators who said North Korean security officials should be tried for crimes related to the systematic starvation, torture and imprisonment of North Koreans. 

DELIBERATELY SOUGHT ARREST

State media said Miller had deliberately sought his arrest so he could investigate North Korean prison and human rights conditions, and meet with and negotiate the release of U.S. missionary Bae, who is serving a hard labor sentence after being convicted of crimes against the state last year.

Unlike the two other Americans held in Pyongyang, relatively little is known about Miller and his family has not spoken publicly about him.

Reuters reported this week that he spent months in South Korea pretending to be an Englishman named "Preston Somerset" and invested time and money hiring artists to help create his own anime adaption of Alice in Wonderland, the Lewis Carroll fantasy with which he seemed fascinated, according to acquaintances.

He did not seem to have close friends, a regular job or means of support during the months he spent in Seoul over a period of at least two years, they said. He gave no inkling of any interest in nuclear-capable and unpredictable North Korea.

He is one of three U.S. citizens now being held by North Korea. A third American, Jeffrey Fowle, was arrested for leaving a Bible in the toilet of a sailor's club in the port city of Chongjin and is currently awaiting trial.

The United States has said Pyongyang is using its citizens as "pawns" to win a high-level visit from Washington, which has repeatedly offered to send special envoy for North Korean Human Rights Robert King to negotiate the release of Miller, Bae and Fowle.

North Korea has so far rejected those offers.

(Reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Tony Munroe and Lisa Shumaker)

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The failure of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, to appear in public for nearly three weeks has triggered renewed speculation over his health and the stability of his regime.

South Korea and governments around the region will be watching carefully to see whether Mr Kim takes part in a specially convened session of the North's rubber-stamp parliament today - and, if he does attend, they will be scrutinising his gait for clues as to his health.

"There have been lots of reports that Kim is not in good health, supported by video footage of him walking with a noticeable limp at an event in July and again earlier this month," Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University and an authority on North Korean affairs, told The Telegraph.

"It was clear that he could not walk fast or in a straight line," he added.

Images released by North Korean state media have suggested that Mr Kim's weight has ballooned since he came to power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011. That has been put down to the stress of his position combined with a love of fine food - including, according to some reports, a fondness for cheese that he developed while studying in Switzerland.

"Another reason why Kim may be reluctant to appear in public is the ongoing power struggle inside the North Korean military, which means that the situation in Pyongyang is still unstable," Professor Shigemura said. "Or, there is the possibility that there has been some sort of accident."

There were reports early last year that Mr Kim was the target of an assassination attempt by disgruntled army officers. In the following months, there were a number of purges of senior members of the regime as Mr Kim attempted to consolidate his grip on power.

Mr Kim has not been seen in public since attending a concert on September 3 with his wife, Ri Sol-ju. In previous months, state media have played to the young dictator's desire to be in the spotlight, reporting on "field guidance" trips to factories, farms and military units dozens of times every month.

Kim Jong-il's sudden death was put down to high blood pressure and diabetes, apparently linked to his appreciation of expensive French brandy and fine cuisine.

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The life of a North Korean defector is one of extreme contrasts. Born in a country with one of the world’s strictest regimes, escaping often means discovering new freedoms and adapting to new cultures, while coping with the absence of family and friends left behind.

That has been the experience of 24-year-old Park Young-jin, a North Korean defector who managed to flee his home country on a bicycle last year.

Now an IT student, Park joined a choir for young defectors soon after his arrival in the South, which was recently flown to the US to perform with one of K-pop’s biggest stars at Harvard University, as part of a campaign championing reunification between South and North Korea.

Leaving North Korea

Like many defectors, Park does not disclose much detail about exactly how he left North Korea’s borders for fear of harming others’ chances. He does, however, tell of the 12-day solo bike ride that took him through China to the border with Mongolia, as he attempted to avoid detection by Chinese authorities.

It was not the first time he had tried to escape. “One time I was sent back to North Korea through a broker so I couldn’t trust anybody any longer. So when I came out to China again I got a map and a compass and a bicycle, I just went”, he explained.

“I prepared a little mini tent, a change of clothes, a little of the money I earned,” park said, describing the items he took with him from the North. “I didn’t know how long it was going to take so I couldn’t bring food”. He said he also had a smartphone to help guide him, but struggled with navigation off major roads.

For Park, the early stages felt like an adventure – he was “young and free”. But as he got closer to Mongolia and felt the temperature drop he realised “it wasn’t going to be that much fun”. He says he got by charging his phone battery intermittently at service stations and eating noodles. Once at his destination, Park was able to travel to South Korea, arriving around a year ago ready to start a new life.

A new life

For many defectors the journey is just the start. Taking part in a Guardian reader Q&A earlier this month budding defector-turned-rapper Kang Chun-hyok explained some of the major hurdles people must overcome to adjust. Mistrust and alienation are common, and it takes time to learn simple day-to-day tasks like riding the bus or using a washing machine.

Arriving just over a year ago Park says he doesn’t yet have a clear vision of what he wants to do. He is exploring his options – this is his “try time,” he says. He has a made friends through the choir and considers some of the older members role models.

It’s estimated that 25,000 defectors have made the journey to South Korea in the past 20 years. On arrival they go through social orientation provided by the Ministry of Unification, designed “to give North Korean refugees the basic knowledge necessary to function as citizens of democratic South Korea”, covering everything from healthcare to education. It was here that a social worker referred Park to the With-U choir project.

Reunification

Reunification has become central to the South Korean president’s time in office. It was dubbed the “jackpot” project by Professor Emeritus Shin Chang-mi, who told DailyNK the project can only be successful if it focuses on political negotiations and winning the hearts and minds of the North Korean people. He also believes that integrating defectors in to South Korean society is an “an immense help” to the process.

Lee Dae-young, a professor at Chung-ang University has recently argued that as the reunification mission gathers speeds, a focus on arts and cultural projects is vital to narrow the inherent gaps between the two societies. Projects like the 55-member With-U choir help to do this, whilst also promoting the South’s reunification agenda on the global stage – a kind of soft diplomacy.

With-U became involved with the South’s campaign, launched last month, to raise awareness about the plight of defectors and to advocate for a united Korea. It’s fronted by Lee Seung-chul, a renowned K-pop singer. Together they have recorded an official campaign song called The Day, and Lee helped to fund the trip to Harvard in partnership with music corporations from the South.

Park laughs when he is asked about working with Lee. He had initially thought that he would just be writing a song for them, not that they would perform together. “When I was in China I loved his songs, I was his fan, it’s just such a great privilege to do this together,” he explains.

As for coming to the US, it was his first legal trip with a passport. He describes it as “an enlarging journey for me, through this journey I walk away with things that are going to help my future”.

For Lee – who has admitted he hadn’t paid much attention to defectors before this project – the campaign is not about politics or territory, but about human interaction.

“One voice to another, if you can listen to this song, and grasp the gravity of the plight of the North Koreans, then you can... feel the urge to put an end to this,” said Lee. He has high hopes for the project, and says he believes “this is the start of the end to this devastation.” Next he’d like to collaborate with a global artist on the campaign – even contacting Bono, though he is yet to hear from his team.

The most important objective for Park is that the world should perceive North and South Koreans as the “same people” merely split by the “government situation”. He believes the world currently sees North Korea as a nation of “very strange people”, but insists “we’re not, we are the same as South Koreans”.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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It might be a country known for its rejection of outside influences, but North Korea finally looks to be catching up with the rest of the world in terms of fashion.

Pyongyang, the socialist country's capital, now sees many women walking its streets in high-heeled shoes and wearing figure-hugging clothes. They also sport contemporary east Asian hairstyles and carry smart handbags.

Men too have started to wear more flattering clothes; clothes such as tight shirts with sharper, harder collars. Skinny trousers, however, are not yet fashionable there.

Ten years ago, Pyongyang residents walked around in loose-fitting, utilitarian outfits like the "Jumper" - a khaki, military-style zip-fronted top and trouser suit that was favoured by North Korea's previous leader, Kim Jong Il.

The country's current leader, King Jong-un tends to favour dark military-style suits.

Kim Su Jong, a Pyongyang citizen, said: "nowadays it's clear that clothes have become very bright. In the past the colours were a little dark."

Clothes, shoes, and accessories and now more easily available with most imported from China.

Despite the evolving fashion, jeans are still unpopular in North Korea.

"We don't have to like jeans", Kim Su Jong added. "Why should I wear that kind of jeans, it looks ugly, we have our own style."

SEE ALSO: Here's Why So Many Americans Try To Sneak Into North Korea

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North Korea has tested three nuclear devices, but alarm over the program has been tampered by the hermetic country's apparent failure to miniaturize an atomic bomb to a size at which it would be practical as a weapon. Even if Pyongyang has proven nuclear capabilities, there's little direct evidence that they've managed to build a device small enough to fit in a warhead or even a plane-delivered bomb — one they could actually use in a war, or as a deterrent.

Experts and observers seize on even the smallest evidence of that North Korea is making progress towards the logical next-step in its nuclear development. And North Korea's latest nuclear-related boasting seemed especially notable:

#DPRK says its ultra-precision and miniaturized nuclear deterrent ready to strike any time from any place at bases of US "bastards."

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) September 27, 2014

The announcement, which according to Herman came through official North Korean regime radio on September 27th, hasn't been verified, but it raises the prospect of a nuclear breakthrough for a country with aggressive posturing on the international scene. 

Over Twitter, Jeffrey Lewis added his two cents on what North Korea had up its sleeve: "Nuclear-armed SS-21s."

Nuclear-armed SS-21s. @W7VOA: #DPRK says its ultra-precision and miniaturized nuclear deterrent ready to strike ... US "bastards."

— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) September 27, 2014

The SS-21 or Scarab is a Soviet-era short-range ballistic missile that still populates the arsenals of the USSR's ex-republics and allies, like Armenia, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia itself. A missile database curated by the George C. Marshall and Claremont Institutes puts the SS-21's range at 70 kilometers — and adds that it's capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

To determine how seriously a given threat from North Korea should be taken, Herman told Business Insider "you've got to determine which group in particular it's being attributed to in North Korea." Pyongyang governs through a deeply opaque authoritarian system, and it isn't always clear who's making decisions, or why.

In this case, Herman said, the latest nuclear claim came from the country's National Defense Commission. "But even within the National Defense Commission there are different levels. This one was a level or two up from the lower-rung organizations, but it was not something near the very top," he told Business Insider. "I would call it a mid-level threat."

Notably, the passage that he tweeted from was omitted from the English-language transcript of the broadcast. "Obviously, that paragraph was intended primarily for domestic consumption," Herman explained.

Regardless, some foreign press had already latched on to North Korea's purported advances in building a potential nuclear delivery system. The online edition of Indian daily Business Standard reported on September 23rd that North Korea was testing a variant on the SS-21 (elsewhere called the KN-02), and that US and South Korean experts agreed it's "only a matter of time" before North Korea achieves miniaturization — a prerequisite for making deliverable nuclear weapons.

A report along with photos from North Korea's state media show the country testing what appears to be a KN-02 in mid-August, "on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Korea." Note below how closely the missile launched during the August test lines up with the missile's profile.

Janes.com cited South Korean press reports that the KN-02 reached 220 kilometers in range, before speculating that the weapon could be planned for use aboard submarines. This would give North Korea a so-called second-strike capability — if its bases were wiped out in a first nuclear exchange, it could still fire from one of its 70 submarines instead of from land.

North Korea counts few friends in the region and the world. The prospect of a nuclear missile with a 220-kilometer range isn't going to change that. North Korea hasn't been able to blackmail a single country into a total reversal of relations, and miniaturized nuclear weapons probably isn't going to shift the balance. It could even deepen Pyongyang's isolation more than its three past nuclear tests have.

But South Korea's capital, Seoul, is only 60 kilometers from the demilitarized zone that separates it from the north. And the two countries are technically still at war, as the Korean War of the 1950s ended with an armistice rather than a treaty. North Korea could be building in order to increase its deterrence over the South — with the Korean Peninsula's military balance, or even the regime's survival, in mind.

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North Korea’s nuclear program seems to be fundamentally non-negotiable for Pyongyang. Former South Korean national security advisory Chun Yung-woo is convinced that the North Korean regime would prefer to collapse with its nuclear weapons than to try and survive without them.

The South Korean military estimates that North Korea has fired over 110 projectiles since January 2014 — including eight Scud missiles and seven ultra-precision high-performance tactical rockets, to name a few.

North Korea justifies its production of nuclear weapons because of the US's posture in the region. During his recent speech to the UN General Assembly last week, North Korean foreign minister Ri Su Yong said, “The hostile policy, nuclear threat, and stifling strategy pursued by the United States for more than half a century inevitably resulted in the decision of nuclear weapons state of the DPRK (sic).”

To add fuel to the fire, this summer a propaganda video of North Korea launching a cruise missile identical to Russia’s Kh-35 was released. North Koreans likely bought the missile from Russia, in violation of UN sanctions against North Korea, or from a third party.

It seems as though the era of cruise missile ubiquity is upon us.

With North Korea’s well-oiled propaganda machine, recent uptick in missile launches, and its new acquisition of the Kh-35 cruise missile, it is time to revisit our passive political strategy toward the not-so-hermit country.

North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is dangerous — but its small, albeit certainly bigger than Iran’s currently non-existent arsenal. A move away from strategic patience and towards strategic engagement would better advance US national security interests as well as bring the world that much closer to pulling back the tide of nuclear proliferation.  

As nuclear expert Jeffery Lewis said in a recent article, “North Korea is an egregious violator of human rights armed with nuclear weapons — but since we are not willing to use force to fix that little inconvenience, we have to talk to them.”

Sarah Tully is a research intern at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. She has her master's degree in Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asian Security Studies from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

SEE ALSO: North Korea claims it's making alarming progress towards building a usable nuclear weapon

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The man seen as North Korea's No. 2 and other senior officials plan to travel to the South on Saturday for the close of the Asian Games sporting event, South Korean officials said, a rare visit by Pyongyang's inner circle that will include a meeting with Seoul's top official for North Korean affairs.

After months of tensions, including an unusual number of missile and rocket test firings, expectations for any breakthrough will be low, but even the visit itself is significant. It will be a rare opportunity for high-level officials from the bitter rivals to hold face-to-face talks.

The North Koreans will be led by Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer at the Korean People's Army and considered by many outside analysts to be the country's second most important official after leader Kim Jong Un.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the North Koreans would meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters Saturday that the North Korean officials plan to hold talks with South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae before flying back to the North later Saturday. It wasn't clear what they would talk about.

The other North Korean officials, Lim said, are Choe Ryong Hae and Kim Yong Gon, secretaries to the ruling Workers' Party.

Besides the North Korean test firings of rockets and missiles, both sides have leveled harsh criticism at each other, with North Korean state media calling the South Korean president a prostitute.

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While the hottest gadget across much of the world is undoubtedly the iPhone 6, in North Korea the only smartphone you can get legally is the government-approved "Pyongyang Touch."

The North Korean government first released the "Arirang" smartphone in 2013, which appeared to run a modified version of Google’s Android operating system. The updated Pyongyang Touch now comes in a range of colors and is reminiscent of the iPhone 3. 

Internet access is banned in the country, which instead uses a government-controlled intranet. North Korea's 3G network only came online in 2013. While iPhones are also blocked under international sanctions, it's highly doubtful the government would allow them in any case.

Touring one of the Arirang “manufacturing plants” last year, leader Kim Jong Un apparently praised workers for “creative ingenuity and patriotic enthusiasm.” 

“How nice to see hand phones being successfully produced with indigenous technology,” a government service reported him as saying.

As is common for North Korean leaders, Kim Jong Un imparted his wisdom and advice. According to the BBC, he advised factory workers to “select and produce shapes and colors that users like.”

Kim Jong Un reportedly said the “hand phone” would be convenient for users because of its touch screen and the “high pixels” of its camera function.

Despite Kim Jong Un's reported visit to an iPhone factory, one Japanese blog reported the phone is likely a Chinese imported "Uniscope" phone. 

It’s also unclear whether devices have made it into the hands of every-day North Koreans, or just elites.

In any case, the Arirang and Pyongyang Touch are luxuries in the country. The UN reports that North Korea keeps many citizens in horrific forced labor camps and is one of the world’s worst human rights offenders. 

SEE ALSO: 17 Mind-Blowing Facts About North Korea

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SEOUL (Reuters) - A senior North Korean official on a rare visit to South Korea has denied reports that the country's young leader Kim Jong Un is ill, saying there is "no problem at all," a South Korean minister said on Sunday.

Speculation that Kim's unusually long absence from public view may be due to ill health was fueled by a North Korean TV report that he was suffering from "discomfort," which was regarded as an implicit acknowledgement that he was sick.

Kim, 31, who is frequently the centerpiece of the isolated country's propaganda, has not been photographed by state media since appearing at a concert alongside his wife on Sept. 3.

"I said to Secretary Kim Yang Gon while in a car there was a report that (Kim Jong Un) was in 'discomfort' and asked him how was his health, and Secretary Kim said there was no problem at all," South Korea's Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told KBS television on Sunday.

Kim Yang Gon is a senior official of the North's ruling Workers' Party and a long time aide close to the North's leaders who was part of a high-level delegation that made a surprise visit to the South on Saturday.

Ryoo is South Korea's main policymaker on inter-Korean affairs and was host to Kim, Hwang Pyong So, a top military aide and confidant to Kim Jong Un who headed the delegation, and Choe Ryong Hae, another close adviser to the leader.

North and South Korea agreed on Saturday to resume reconciliation talks after Pyongyang sent its most senior delegation ever to its neighbor at just 24 hours' notice.

Kim Jong Un had been seen walking with a limp since an event with key officials in July and in a pre-recorded documentary broadcast by state media in late September appeared to have difficulty walking.

Kim has rapidly gained weight since coming to power after his father died of a heart attack in 2011, photos released by state media show.

North Korea observers speculate Kim's weight and family background may have contributed to his condition.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Yang Kahyun; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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