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A group of just over a dozen House Republicans helped bring the chamber to a screeching halt on Wednesday in yet another stand against leadership. Thirteen GOP lawmakers joined with all voting Democrats to help defeat a resolution that would have allowed consideration of a trio of measures that were scheduled for debate this week. Votes for the rest of the day got cancelled. “The House is essentially frozen again. The GOP leadership cannot bring up any bills that are not already noticed on the suspension calendar. and conservatives just killed leadership’s ability to bring up any bills under a...

China has returned over 500 North Koreans to their home country following the Hangzhou Asian Games, according to reports, which say the repatriation involved civilians and religious figures who had been detained in China. Multiple sources in China working to rescue North Koreans told Radio Free Asia about the repatriation. These individuals were arrested in their efforts to travel from China to South Korea. According to the J.M. Missionary Union, a group involved in rescuing North Koreans, the returns happened in the Chinese cities of Tumen, Hunchun, Changbai, Dandong and Nanping. The group said Beijing and Pyongyang had an agreement....

Four Cuban internationals may have defected to the United States during the CONCAF Gold Cup, according to reports. Roberney Caballero, Carlos Denilson Morales, Neisser Sando and Jassael Herrera reportedly failed to show up for the team's flight from Miami to Houston after their 1-0 defeat against Guatemala in Florida on Wednesday. Since 1999, 55 football players from Cuba have defected to the United States in an effort to either further their careers or to improve their living standards. Cuban baseball star Ivan Prieto defected to the USA back in March, joining the likes of MLB stars Yordan Alvarez and Luis...

A top-of-the-line Russian nuclear-powered submarine has gone missing from its harbor in the Arctic along with its rumored "doomsday weapon," according to multiple reports. NATO has reportedly warned members that Russia's Belgorod submarine no longer appeared to be operating out of its White Sea base, where it has been active since July. Officials warned that Russia may plan to test Belgorod's "Poseidon" weapons system, a drone equipped with a nuclear bomb that Russia has claimed is capable of creating a "radioactive tsunami," according to Italian media. The drone can be deployed from the submarine at any time and detonated at...

The two North Korean fishermen were captured near the eastern sea border after their boat drifted into South Korean waters. They confessed to killing 16 fellow crew members and expressed a desire to defect, the South Korean government said at the time. The Moon administration said then that the men’s intentions to defect were insincere given their murder confessions—and deported them five days after taking them into custody. North Korean defectors, upon arriving in South Korea, are typically held for up to a month for a period of investigation and debriefing with Seoul’s intelligence officials. Human rights groups said the...

Havana (CNN)Cuba's state media on Sunday lashed out after nearly a dozen Cuban baseball players defected in Mexico -- believed to be one of the country's largest and most embarrassing known incidents of mass defection in years. Eleven young baseball players defected from the national team during a tournament for players under the age of 23, which began last month. The remaining Cuban players on the team are due to return to the communist-run island on Monday. A statement from Cuba's National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) slammed the missing players for "weak morals and ethics."

It may be a Ukrainian love story as complicated and dubious as the motives behind the simmering war itself: A female separatist commander and star propagandist for Russia-backed separatists defects to Kyiv to be with her Ukrainian spy lover. But she also brings word of Russian plans for a massive invasion. Moreover, she's ready to testify in The Hague to Moscow's role in alleged war crimes. Svitlana Dryuk, the notorious commander of an all-female tank crew for anti-Kyiv forces in some of the bloodiest battles of the five-year conflict, aired her allegations on Ukraine's 1+1 TV channel on March 3....

Full Title: Shadowy group protecting the son of Kim Jong-un's assassinated brother vows to rid North Korea of the 'great evil' Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) declared itself the legitimate interim government In a statement on its website on Friday it vowed to fight Kim Jong Un's regime CCD say they are protecting Kim Han Sol, the son of murdered Kim Jong Nam A shadowy group believed to be protecting the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's assassinated brother declared the formation of a 'legitimate interim government' on Friday. The Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) organisation, which offers to assist...

An unknown hacker or cyber espionage group penetrated the database of a resettlement agency for North Korean defectors and stole personal information for 997 of its clients, according to a statement from the South Korean Unification Ministry on Friday. An anonymous official from the Unification Ministry said they accomplished the heist using malware “planted through emails sent by an internal address” at the Hana Center in the South Korean city of Gumi. The official did not say if the North Korean government is suspected of carrying out the attack. The hacking attack, which occurred sometime last month, appears to be...

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. We have a very special group of people with us today. These are escapees from North Korea. There have been many of them over the last year, and there seems to be more and more. It’s a tough place to live, and people aren’t liking it. There’s great danger, great risk. Seong-ho was with us the other night at the State of the Union Address, and really made an incredible impression on me and on everybody else, both on television and in that magnificent room. And I had an opportunity to meet with...

North Koreans who defected but once lived near a nuclear testing site in the rogue nation now believe they are experiencing the dangerous effects of exposure to harmful radiation — and it's triggered severe health problems, according to a report published Sunday. "So many people died we began calling it 'ghost disease,'" Lee Jeong Hwa, who in 2010 escaped her home in Kilju County where the nuclear testing site Punggye-ri is located, told NBC News. "We thought we were dying because we were poor and we ate badly. Now we know it was the radiation." Lee isn’t the only defector...

Several wooden boats, some carrying skeletons, have mysteriously washed ashore in Japan in recent weeks. Authorities are still investigating where the so-called "ghost ships" came from, but experts say all signs point to North Korea. The Japanese coast guard on Thursday recovered one decrepit vessel drifting off the western coast of Matsumae town on the northern island of Hokkaido. Ten men found aboard the wooden ship identified themselves as North Koreans and said they were taking refuge at an island nearby due to rough weather... The Japanese coast guard has detected 59 cases so far this year of boats and...

News of a North Korean soldier’s survival after he suffered multiple gunshot wounds during his defection at the DMZ is being blasted into North Korea by way of high-decibel loudspeakers, according to South Korean media. 24-year-old Oh Chungsung made a desperate escape into South Korea last week, first in a jeep and then on foot, his comrades right on his heels. Although he was shot five or six times, he made it into the South before collapsing in a pile of leaves. He was rescued by U.S. and South Korean troops, airlifted to Ajou University Hospital, and treated by renowned...

/start my translation German Human Right Activist Vollertsen: "Ready For A Massive Defection of High Ranking N. Korean Figures" Norbert Vollertsen(age 45: a doctor), a German human right activist, who has been actively helping N. Korean escapees confirmed on 6th (of May, 2003) that 20 high ranking N. Korean figures, including a N. Korean nuclear physicist Dr. Kyoung Won-Ha, did defect and that some of them are now staying in Washington D.C., U.S.A.. However, he refused to confirm whether Dr. Kyoung Won-Ha, known as the father of N. Korean nuclear development, himself is staying in Washington D.C.. Mr. Vollertsen is...

/start my translation A N. Korean escapee, a former N. Korean missile project worker, intent on defecting to U.S. came to S. Korea in '99 ... "secured an U.S. visa, evading S. Korean gov." "N. Korea imported 90% of missile parts from Japan. (missiles) were produced in 4 different factories" A N. Korean escapee, who worked for N. Korean missile production, held a press conference on May 15, 2003, at Washington's National Press Club, announcing his intention to defect to U.S. Revealing only his last name, Lee, he remarked that he met in the morning the Representative Ed Royce(R) and...

/begin translation N. Korean Defector's Association, "Proposed Kim Jong-nam to Head the Government-in-exile...but He Opposed Third Generation Hereditary Rule" Yoo Ji-han 2017.02.21 Representatives from defector's organizations both inside and outside S. Korea proposed Kim Jong-nam to be a head of N. Korean government-in-exile, but he refused, arguing, "That is another third generation hereditary rule." In an interview with Donga-ilbo on Feb. 19(local time,) Kim Ju-il, the Secretary-general of International North Korean Defector's Association based in UK, said, "I have been in contact with Kim Jong-nam for last year and a half, asking him to head the government-in-exile." According to the...

CNN on Thursday released a group photo of the staff of a North Korean restaurant in Ningbo, China who made headlines by defecting en masse to South Korea last month. Family members of three of the workers who defected made the photo public on Wednesday, apparently under pressure from North Korean propaganda authorities. "I curse and condemn the South Korean puppet forces who allured and abducted our daughters," one of them said. "When I think of that I lie awake frightened and cannot sleep... Those South Korean puppet criminals, I want to tear them to pieces!" Intelligence authorities here declined...

Kim Jong-un’s succession to the throne (is there another more proper term for it?) of North Korea has not been greeted with universal acclaim in that country.  After executing his own uncle and conducting sweeping purges intended to solidify his control, it appears that his hold on power remains uncertain.  Now, with a very high-ranking defector reported to have fled to South Korea and numerous lower-ranking defectors fearing purges also jumping ship, the world’s only three-generation hereditary communist dynasty may be seeing its last days. Fox News reports: A high-ranking officer from North Korea's military intelligence agency fled to...

North Korea has lost contact with one of its submarines, U.S. officials tell CNN. The submarine, apparently on some sort of exercise earlier this week, was being tracked by the U.S. military when it suddenly stopped. The fate of the sub is unknown, but U.S. forces have observed North Korea's attempts to find the missing craft. U.S. officials believe the submarine experienced some sort of failure, and the U.S. military has been monitoring the subsequent search and rescue mission via spy satellites, aircraft, and ships. The incident is taking place at a time of particular high tension in the area,...

An unsettling mystery has washed up on Japan’s shores. Over the past two months, at least eight wooden boats have been found in the Sea of Japan on or near the coast, carrying a chilling cargo — the decaying bodies of 20 people, Japan’s coast guard told CNN. ll of the bodies were badly decomposed and “partially skeletonized” — two were found without heads — and one boat contained six skulls, the coast guard said. The first boat was found in October, then a series of boats in late November. Coast guard officials are now trying to unravel the riddle...