Why Are the Number of North Korean Defectors Decreasing?
North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is a totalitarian dictatorship with extremely limited freedoms and rights reported for its citizens.
Due to the country’s tight controls on borders and information, people that want to leave the country often have to physically escape and are known as defectors.
After Chinese vessels were "caught red handed" - in the words of President Trump - by US spy satellites, illegally selling oil to North Korea, and following this morning's news that a Hong Kong ship was seized after transferring oil to North Korea, Reuters is reporting 'two senior Western European security sources' confirm Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea.
According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, U.S. recon satellites have photographed around 30 illegal transactions involving Chinese vessels selling oil to North Korea on the West Sea in October. The images allegedly showed large Chinese and North Korean ships transacting in oil in a part of the West Sea closer to China than South Korea. The satellite pictures even showed the names of the ships.
As North Korea vociferously condemns the US and the United Nations after the Security Council passed yet another round of sanctions against the restive regime, Russia is continuing to test ICBMs in preparation for a violent conflict on the neighboring Korean Peninsula while simultaneous calling for both sides to seek mediation.
Last night, Russia’s Strategic Missile Force tested the RS-12M Topol intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at the Kapustin Yar practice range in the southern Astrakhan Region, the TASS News Agency reported Tuesday.
Authored by Anders Hagstrom via The Daily Caller,
The U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation (HSF) has worked with North Korean defectors to smuggle flash drives and other tools into their dictatorial homeland to counter the regime’s propaganda throughout 2017.
HSF director Alex Gladstein claims that his organization has successfully smuggled up to 10,000 flash drives into the country containing documentaries countering state narratives, according to The Telegraph.