North Korea

1957 Anti-American Movie From North Korea Is the Only Legal Movie Now

Judging by Sony’s decision to pull the Christmas release of The Interview and reports that it North Korea was behind the attack, it looks like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has won. Or something. We may as well get used to watching all their movies. I heard on the internet that North Korean movies…

The Hackers Won. Now What?

Earlier today, the five largest movie theater chains in the country decided that they would not, in fact, show The Interview, a movie about a large scruffy man and a dazed handsome man who assassinate North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. The retreat prompted Sony Pictures to cancel the movie’s premiere altogether. And the ramifications of that…

Report: North Korea May Be Behind Sony Pictures Hack After All (Update)

Despite the FBI saying just a few days ago that there was “no attribution to North Korea at this point,” ABC News is reporting that federal cyber-security sources “close to the investigation” have indeed confirmed that the FBI does have reason to believe that North Korea may be involved in some capacity after all. Specifically,…

Activists Want To Use Balloons To Airlift The Interview Into North Korea

Last year, an Atlantic article introduced us to an activist group run by a former North Korean who now uses balloons to airlift information and technology into into the tightly-controlled country. Now, its members want to use their balloons to tote in copies of The Interview, Sony’s beleaguered comedy about Kim Jong-un. Over the past…

North Korea: No, We Didn’t Hack Sony

Despite rumors that Sony Pictures would officially blame North Koreafor the recent hack that exposed everything from its payroll to its employees medical records to unreleased scripts, a North Korean diplomat now says his country didn’t do it. The New York-based official says it’s just “another fabrication targeting the country.” The unnamed diplomat added, “My…

After Huge Hack, Fury and Other Unreleased Sony Films Leak On the Web

Sony Pictures is having a tough Thanksgiving week. After being hacked almost week ago (by maybe North Korea?), DVD-quality downloads of Fury and other unreleased Sony films have leaked on the web, according to TorrentFreak. Although Fury, Brad Pitt’s WWII military flick released in October, is pretty much expected to be on torrent websites sooner…

North Korea’s Brand New Ballistic Sub Discontinued by Soviets in 1990

Looks like North Korea’s engineers have been hard at work brushing up on their obsolete Soviet-era technology. Because after acquiring 10 discontinued Soviet subs, everyone’s favorite little warmongering-dictatorship-that-could has finally rendered the outdated ballistic vessels seaworthy—and it only took them 21 years. According to Yonhap, a South Korean news agency, the submarines were actually first…

Get a Rare Peek at Everyday Life In North Korea From a New Timelapse

Although we have a pretty good idea of what life is like in North Korea, most of what we actually see comes from carefully controlled images released by the government. “Enter Pyongyang” is an incredibly beautiful video that was shot by a Beijing-based tour company, and it might give us the most honest look yet…

How An Architect Who Has Never Left North Korea Imagines The Future

North Korea’s architecture is truly fascinating, influenced by the need to rebuild Pyongyang in the wake of the Korean War and the nation’s relative isolation. What happens when an architect who has never been outside North Korea designs futuristic buildings to accommodate tourists visiting their country? Top Image: A Self-Sustaining Silk Cooperative, Credit: Koryo Group.…

Plan for Secret Satellite Receivers Wins Hackathon to Help North Korea

Cut off from outside communication and at the whim of a despotic political leader, the people of North Korea are in a bad place. The conditions in the country inspired the Human Rights Foundation to help North Koreans by holding a hackathon. And the winners came up with a clever plan to import satellites receivers…

North Korea’s Modern Architecture, Designs From An Alternate Universe

The North Korean capital of Pyongyang was largely razed during the Korean War and the buildings that rose up from the ashes provide some of the most striking examples of socialist architecture. And more recent architects in the cloistered nation have added grandiose—though sometimes unfinished—landmarks to its urban landscapes. https://gizmodo.com/instagram-photos-give-a-rare-look-at-life-inside-north-1551825373 The Mansudae Art Theatre, Pyongyang,…

North Korea Launched a Bizarre New Cooking Website “For Housewives”

Refusing to let little things like a lack of widespread internet/food access get in its way, everyone’s favorite warmongering-dictatorship-that-could has just launched its very own cooking website. Say hello to North Korea’s uncanny online food valley. The Korean Association of Cooks website had actually been announced several times over the past few years, but no…

How North Korean Architects Imagine the Future of Cities

Solar-powered factories, hovercraft apartments, glass towers topped with helipads: No, these are not concept drawings for EPCOT circa 1981. These are ideas for the future of North Korean cities, designed by North Korean architects in 2014. Currently on view at the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, these visions were curated by Nick Bonner,…

​​If There’s A Nuclear Arms Race In Asia, Don’t Blame North Korea

In a recent interview, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said, “It would be difficult for us to prevent a nuclear domino from occurring in this area,” were North Korea to conduct another test. But one analyst argues that if a nuclear arms race were to occur, it’s China that should be singled out for blame.…

North Korea Invented a Gatorade That’s Made From Fungus

Once again, North Korea has positioned itself at the forefront of some of the greatest state-of-the-art, trailblazing, pseudo-scientific delusions the world has ever known. This time, in the form of a fungus-based sports drink. A recent report straight out of North Korea’s Central Mushroom Research Institute of the State Academy of Sciences (North Korea’s premier…

Discover the secretive Pyongyang in this exclusive 22-minute GoPro tour

Aram Pram—a Singapore-based virtual tour photographer—says that he got special permission from the North Korean government to produce this exclusive 22-minute GoPro tour of Pyongyang. After seeing the entire thing, it kind of looks like any nondescript American city. Pram—who runs DPRK 360, a project that aims to graphically document the entire Communist country—claims the…

Why Is North Korea So Eager To Join The Effort Against Climate Change?

Whether it’s testing nuclear weapons or threatening its neighbors, North Korea isn’t known for working and playing well with the global community. Yet, the Hermit Kingdom has a sterling record of compliance as a party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. What’s going on here, Dear Leader? According to Benjamin Habib, a specialist…

Hilarious retro game lets you play as Glorious Leader! Kim Jong-un

Behold the trailer for Glorious Leader!—a game that lets you play as Kim Jong-un battling against the forces of capitalism evil on foot or your trusty unicorn. You can be the Supreme Leader of North Korea himself and a friend can play with you as Dennis Rodman. According to its developers, it will be available…

This Travel App Is the Closest You’ll Ever Get to North Korea

North Korea is a weird place. It sounds a little insensitive to put it in such stark terms, but the arrival of the new North Korea Travel app—the first of its kind—offers a unique new perspective on the isolated country. The app is exactly what it sounds like: a travel guide that “allows users to…

In this week’s landscape reads, we get to see just how screwed we are in the drought, visit a 2 billion-year-old nuclear reactor (all natural!), investigate mysterious fires in North Korea, and tour tornado shelters that look like real-life hobbit holes. Africa’s 2 Billion-Year-Old Natural Nuclear Reactor In 1972, nuclear scientists investigating uranium mines in…