Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
Here is another clever use of North Korea by Putin, importing a slave labor force:
North Korea has sent around 100,000 workers abroad, mostly to China and Russia, with some involved in manufacturing military drones at Russian factories in violation of U.N. sanctions, an international monitoring report showed Wednesday.
The latest report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) showed that North Korea continues to deploy workers overseas despite a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution requiring U.N. member countries to repatriate North Korean nationals earning income within their jurisdictions by the end of 2019.
You can read more at the link.
I would think the only diplomacy that China would be supportive of between the U.S. and North Korea would be one that leads to the reduction or removal of U.S. troops in South Korea. If China is signaling little to no support for Trump’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea that likely means discussions about U.S. troop reductions is not being considered:
China may not block the resumption of diplomacy between the United States and North Korea but is unlikely to play a “central” role in their reengagement, a former senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday, ahead of the upcoming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Daniel Kritenbrink, who served as assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs from 2021-25, made the comment in response to written questions from Yonhap News Agency, noting that Beijing will be “suspicious” of any significant thaw in the Washington-Pyongyang relations.
You can read more at the link.
This photo, taken Sept. 15, 2026, shows terraced rice paddies in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, as they turn a golden hue ahead of harvesting. (Yonhap)
If these workers were in fact working at this plant on tourist visas then I don’t see how they are going to win this lawsuit:
LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor Group are distancing themselves from the legal actions of workers against the U.S. government over their detention during last year’s immigration raid at the companies’ joint battery plant in Georgia.
An LG Energy Solution official told The Korea Times Wednesday that the company was not aware that employees were taking legal action until media reports emerged Tuesday night. The official added that the company would not get involved because the legal actions were based on individual decisions by the workers, and the company is not tracking who is joining the campaign.
An official at Hyundai Motor Group also said none of the company’s employees were among those detained at the time, adding that it is not involved in legal action taken individually by workers from partner companies or those dispatched to the site.
You can read more at the link.
Good luck trying to get North Korea to ever pay for this:
The inter-Korean joint liaison office in the North Korean border city of Kaesong is demolished in June 2020. (Herald DB)
A Seoul court ruled Wednesday that North Korea must pay the South Korean government more than 44.6 billion won ($32.5 million) for demolishing the inter-Korean joint liaison office in Kaesong in June 2020.
The ruling marked the South Korean government’s first victory in a damages suit filed directly against North Korea. How Seoul could enforce the judgment remains unclear, as there are currently no practical means of compelling Pyongyang to pay.
You can read more at the link.
