Free Republic

In a high-profile incident reported by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's attempt to launch a warship became a fiasco under the watchful eyes of Kim Jong-un. The supreme leader attended the impressive unveiling of the 5,000-tonne vessel at Cheongjin Shipyard on May 21, which quickly went awry due to an unfortunate blunder during the launch process. He lambasted the occurrence as a "serious accident that could not have happened, could not be tolerated," and branded it as a "criminal act caused by pure carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism." The North Korean leader made it abundantly clear that those...

Governor Kristi Noem (R-SD) said Monday on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that her alleged meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not removed from her book because it was “untrue.” Vargas said, “You write about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. You’ve been question several times on last couple of days because you’ve issued a retraction. You said that it shouldn’t have been in the book, this passage, that it was a mistake. Why shouldn’t that have been in the book? Is that untrue?” Noem said, “No. What I said is that when this was pointed out that...

A launch ceremony for a new North Korean naval destroyer went horribly wrong in front of 'supreme' leader Kim Jong Un, according to state media. Kim watched on in horror as the 5,000-ton ship was severely damaged after failing to launch properly. He declared the mishap a 'criminal act caused by absolute carelessness' that 'could not be tolerated'. -snip- In a statement KCNA said: 'Due to immature command and operational negligence, the parallel movement of the bogies could not be guaranteed, resulting in the launching sled in the stern detaching first and causing the ship to capsize. 'The ship's balance...

All the narratives are wearing off. Vietnam was a pointless war and we lost. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Afghanistan was a waste. And we gained nothing from any of those wars. Saudi Arabia has nuclear weapons and the 19 terrorists from 9/11 were all Saudis. Did we go to war with them? Nope. North Korea has nukes. Little rocket man hasn’t blown us all up yet but we were told he was going to. Pakistan and China have nukes as well. And big bad Russia has nuclear weapons. We were told Putin was going to...

Join us as we travel to Pyongyang, North Korea and explore one of the most secretive and isolated countries on Earth 🇰🇵

... They're masking IPs, exporting laptop farms to America so they can connect into those machines and appear to be working from the USA, and they are using AI – but there's a question during job interviews that never fails to catch them out and forces them to drop out of the recruitment process. "My favorite interview question, because we've interviewed quite a few of these folks, is something to the effect of 'How fat is Kim Jong Un?' They terminate the call instantly, because it's not worth it to say something negative about that," he told a panel session...

North Korea officially confirmed for the first time on Monday that it has deployed troops to Russia, framing it as an extension of its strategic partnership with Moscow. -snip- The commission further said that Kim Jong-un determined that the situation on the battlefield warranted the activation of Article 4 of the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty between North Korea and Russia. Based on this analysis, Kim ordered the deployment of North Korean forces and notified the Russian side accordingly, according to the statement. North Korea also noted that Kim referred to the troops dispatched to Russia as "representatives of the nation's...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday thanked North Korea for sending troops to fight alongside Russia in Moscow's war against Ukraine and vowed not to forget their sacrifices. Putin's comments came just hours after North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed troops to fight Ukrainian forces. -snip- In a statement, Putin praised North Korean troops who he said fought "shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our Motherland as their own." "The Russian people will never forget the heroism of the DPRK special forces," Putin said. "We will always honor the heroes who gave their lives...

Russia on Saturday publicly acknowledged for the first time that North Korean forces are fighting on its side against Ukraine. While reporting to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation in Kursk, southern Russia, General Valery Gerasimov praised North Korean DPRK soldiers for their efforts. Gerasimov said the troops had shown “high professionalism, fortitude, courage and heroism,” fulfilling combat tasks “shoulder to shoulder” with Russian servicemen. Following this admission, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “Russia will never forget its friends from the DPRK.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a ceremony for the launch of a “new multipurpose destroyer,” state media KCNA reported on Saturday. The 5,000-tonne warship was equipped with the “most powerful weapons” and built “within 400-odd days perfectly with our own strength and technology,” the report said, quoting Jo Chun Ryong, a secretary in the ruling Workers’ Party.

Cranes, ship parts and other construction equipment can be seen on the dock next to the massive boat — which analysts suspect is a guided-missile frigate with the capacity to launch missiles against targets on both land and sea.

Democrat US Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland meeting the imprisoned Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador... Tonight in Israel anger from some hostage families... In the Central American nation of Belize an American man killed in a small airliner after he attempted... British politics Reform UK leader Nigel Farage touting the latest... US Central Command announcing the destruction of a major fuel depot in Yemen... Four killed another seriously injured in Italy when a cable car... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is... The Emir of Qatar visiting Moscow and meeting Russian President......

Fortune 500 companies have unwittingly hired thousands of software engineers who claim to be American developers but are actually North Korean citizens using stolen or fake identities. Through legitimate employment, the IT workers are illegally funneling their salaries to Kim Jong Un’s regime to fund prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. Treasury, State Department, and FBI collectively estimate the IT workers scam has generated hundreds of millions each year since 2018. About 95% of the résumés Harrison Leggio gets in response to job postings for his crypto startup g8keep are from North Korean engineers pretending...

It all happened overnight and in a matter of minutes. Ben Zhou, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, made a series of routine transfers from his home computer. A short while later, his company called to inform him that his reserves of Ethereum, the second most-used cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, worth $1.5 billion, had vanished. By then, the ethers had already been transferred to thousands of other people’s digital wallets. Bybit had just suffered the largest theft in history. Five days later, the FBI confirmed what some analysts suspected from the outset: the attack was the work of Lazarus, a hacking...

Iran announced Wednesday that it had begun to install a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel at its Natanz facility. The announcement coincided with Wednesday’s talks between Iran and senior UN nuclear inspectors seeking to expand probes into suspected weapons-related tests. It also could add pressure to planned negotiations later this month between Iran and world powers in Kazakhstan. The official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi as saying that Iran began installing the new, more advanced centrifuges at the Natanz site in central Iran about a month ago. He said they would...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine could be placed under a “temporary administration” as part of a peace process that could include help from North Korea and other Moscow allies, according to Russian state media. Speaking to a group of servicemen in Russia’s northern port of Murmansk, Putin laid out several provisions for a peace process to end the three-year war launched by Moscow in February 2022, according to Russia’s state news agency, TASS. Among Putin’s many suggestions was a call for new elections in Ukraine and the “signing of key accords” once the country is under international administration,...

@LauraLoomer claims to have uncovered a potential Chinese espionage operation involving Alex Wong, Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor appointed on November 22, 2024, and his wife, Candice Chiu Wong. Candice C. Wong clerked for Justice Sotomayor, began as a U.S. Attorney in 2015 under the Obama regime, was nominated to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2023 by Biden, and prosecuted J6ers. Alex worked at Covington & Burling, a firm Trump stripped of security clearances on February 25, 2025, for "Weaponizing Government." Were these two involved in the Signal Chat group setup with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg?

Hal Kempfer, a noted international security expert, is getting a roomful of California public health officials and emergency responders to think about the unthinkable – a nuclear bomb exploding at the port of Long Beach, about four miles away...News out of North Korea has created a mini-bonanza for local manufacturers of nuclear fallout shelters. But more important to the vast bulk of the population, Kempfer says, is having some rudimentary knowledge of what it means to “shelter in place"...Sandy Wedgeworth, the public health emergency management coordinator, said she and her staff felt energized, not depressed, by what they learned from...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his unwavering support for Russia's war in Ukraine during a meeting with Russian security council secretary Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang, North Korea state media reported Saturday. -snip- During the meeting, Kim stated that North Korea would "invariably support Russia in the struggle for defending the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Shoigu delivered a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who extended his greetings to Kim and vowed to give "utmost attention" to implementing agreements from their previous summits. He also thanked North Korea...

Russian and North Korean state-run media say Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu arrived in Pyongyang on Friday. Russia's Tass news agency says Shoigu, a former defense minister, is due to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two countries have been deepening their military cooperation as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. During Shoigu's visit, the two sides are expected to discuss Pyongyang's provision of troops and artillery to Russia, and Moscow's offering military technical support in return. The two countries are also believed to be coordinating the timing of a summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir...