North Korea

North Korea has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its ill-fated rocket program, but when it came time to give its website a facelift, the country decided to go the thrifty route. It turns out that North Korea's revamped website is based on a design template created by a California Web designer that sells on themeforest.com for a mere $15. But just because it was cheap doesn't mean it's not pretty. In fact, we'd say the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

North Korea is threatening "retaliatory measures" for a decision by the United States to withhold 240,000 metric tons of food promised as part of an agreement announced less than two months ago. Never mind that the cancellation followed Pyongyang's failed launching of a missile designed to put a satellite into space, an operation the U.S. considered a violation of that same agreement, not to mention U.N. Security Council resolutions. The regime's chutzpah and hypocrisy know no bounds.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 1, 2009 -- The Los Angeles Times today announced the publication of Laura Ling and Euna Lee's first-hand account of the story that took them to the North Korean-Chinese border and the events leading up to their detention in a North Korean prison. The lengthy Op-Ed article will be published on latimes.com tonight and in The Times Wednesday, Sept. 2nd print edition, as well as made available to other publications tomorrow via the LA Times- Washington Post news service.

North Korea has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its ill-fated rocket program, but when it came time to give its website a facelift, the country decided to go the thrifty route. It turns out that North Korea's revamped website is based on a design template created by a California Web designer that sells on themeforest.com for a mere $15. But just because it was cheap doesn't mean it's not pretty. In fact, we'd say the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

Not since 1950 when the U.S. Army briefly captured Pyongyang during the Korean War have so many Americans descended on the world's most reclusive, anti-U.S. capital. This time, though, the invasion is not military, but musical. A 747 jumbo jet from Beijing is scheduled to arrive Monday in Pyongyang carrying a full symphony orchestra -- 130 members of the New York Philharmonic and their instruments, minus only the piano.

Trains stopped running. Markets closed. In at least one city, officials urged people to get off the streets and soldiers were everywhere. It is rarely easy to find out what's happening inside North Korea. On the cold Monday when officials announced the death of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, the few reports trickling out of the country indicated that the country of 24 million people shut down for a time. No signs of unrest were reported. But faced with making the transition to Kim's largely untested young son, the power structure appeared to be taking no chances.

SEOUL — North Korea failed in its much-hyped effort to launch a satellite into space Friday, undercutting its claims to be a "strong and prosperous" nation on the centennial of founder Kim Il Sung's birth. After weeks of boasting by the country, the missile launched at 7:39 a.m. on a sunny, wind-free morning from a base near the west coast city of Sinuiju. U.S. and South Korean intelligence reports say the rocket quickly broke up and splashed into the Yellow Sea. "The missile traveled one to two minutes and broke apart in the air. It broke into 20 separate pieces," Shin Won-shik, a South Korean Defense Ministry official, said at a briefing Friday morning.

For a day and a half last month, the people of this small tourist town watched in puzzlement as the rusty freighter Pong Su maneuvered off the coast. At times, they say, the 350-foot cargo ship came within a few hundred yards of the rugged shoreline that is famous for shipwrecks. Just after midnight April 16, the ship approached a rocky, deserted beach and launched a rubber speedboat. In it were two men and the only cargo the ship had been carrying: at least 110 pounds of high-quality heroin.

His day begins at 4:30 a.m. The 64-year-old retired math teacher doesn't own a clock or even a watch, but the internal alarm that has kept him alive while so many of his fellow North Koreans have starved to death tells him he had better get out to pick grass if his family is to survive. Soon the streets of his city, Chongjin, will be swarming with others doing the same. Some cook the grass to eat. The teacher feeds it to the rabbits his family sells at the market. At 10 a.m.

If you go About 300 U.S. tourists travel to North Korea annually between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31, the period coinciding with the Arirang Festival (commonly called "mass games") in the capital city of Pyongyang. This is the only time American tourists are allowed, according to Walter Keats, president of Asia-Pacific Travel in Kenilworth, Ill. Truly independent travel is not permitted; visitors are required to have government "escorts," who are with you whenever you leave your hotel.

Classical music has a long and fruitful history serving as an informal olive branch between hostile countries. Cultural exchanges between the former Soviet Union and the West helped to thaw Cold War tensions as early as the 1950s. Few people today know the diplomatic power of classical music better than Myung-Whun Chung, the South Korean conductor who has embarked on a one-man mission in recent months to reestablish cultural ties with North Korea. Chung, who leads the Seoul Philharmonic, is in a unique position to use the podium as a diplomatic vehicle.

SEOUL - North and South Korea played their own distinctive games of power politics last week. The processes of leadership selection were enacted almost simultaneously, a coincidence that defined them so sharply as to provide a classroom lesson on the differences between the two systems. North Korea got all the publicity, not all of it because of the long-range missile it insisted on firing in the face of warnings to cease and desist. There was also the huge outpouring in Pyongyang for the centennial of the birth of the nation's "Great Leader," Kim Il Sung at which his grandson, Kim Jong Un, made his maiden speech before thousands of wildly cheering soldiers.

Fear that North Korea might be positioning itself to market weapons technology to other developing nations may have been eased by its latest failure - the fourth in 15 years - to build a functioning rocket. But the demonstration that Pyongyang has not mastered and may not be able to afford such a sophisticated weapons program may not be enough to deter it from continuing to try, according to arms control and security analysts. North Korea's neighbors as well as the United States and other world powers are worried that its efforts to launch a rocket mask a program to build a delivery system for a nuclear warhead.

SEOUL — North Korea failed in its much-hyped effort to launch a satellite into space Friday, undercutting its claims to be a "strong and prosperous" nation on the centennial of founder Kim Il Sung's birth. After weeks of boasting by the country, the missile launched at 7:39 a.m. on a sunny, wind-free morning from a base near the west coast city of Sinuiju. U.S. and South Korean intelligence reports say the rocket quickly broke up and splashed into the Yellow Sea. "The missile traveled one to two minutes and broke apart in the air. It broke into 20 separate pieces," Shin Won-shik, a South Korean Defense Ministry official, said at a briefing Friday morning.

WASHINGTON - The spectacular failure of a North Korean rocket, and the humiliation it presumably caused the nation's young new leader, makes it likely the regime will soon test a nuclear device or take other provocative actions, according to U.S. officials and outside analysts. The United Nations Security Council condemned North Korea for Friday's launch, saying it violated two previous U.N. resolutions. And the White House said it would not honor a promise to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid to the impoverished nation.

BEIJING - For decades,North Korea's leaders have bet heavily on a stark calculation: In order to survive, they need to nurture their rocket and nuclear programs at the expense of feeding their people. Rarely have the consequences been as clear. Friday's attempted satellite launch was an inglorious failure for Kim Jong Un, the twentysomething who has been in power only four months. The launch was supposed to be the marquee event of 100th anniversary celebrations this weekend marking the birth of his grandfather, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, and the emergence of the third generation of the dynasty.

North Korea is threatening "retaliatory measures" for a decision by the United States to withhold 240,000 metric tons of food promised as part of an agreement announced less than two months ago. Never mind that the cancellation followed Pyongyang's failed launching of a missile designed to put a satellite into space, an operation the U.S. considered a violation of that same agreement, not to mention U.N. Security Council resolutions. The regime's chutzpah and hypocrisy know no bounds.

World Cup 2010: NORTH KOREA FIFA ranking: 105 Overall World Cup record: 1-2-1 Coach: Kim Jong-Hun Best performance: Quarterfinals, 1966 Overview: Making their first appearance in the World Cup finals in 44 years, the North Koreans face long odds in South Africa, where they are included with Brazil, Portugal and the Ivory Coast in the so-called "group of death" in the first round. Although the North Koreans are big and fast, they are painfully short on international experience, fielding a roster made up almost entirely of players from domestic leagues.

BEIJING - The spectacle unfolding on a launchpad on the west coast of North Korea creates a picture of a boastful and media-savvy regime willing to brush off international condemnation - but perhaps not completely unified behind its youthful new leader. Despite warnings from the United States, as well as China and Russia, Pyongyang said Wednesday that it was fueling a three-stage rocket for imminent launch, depending on weather conditions. "We don't really care about the opinions from the outside.

SEOUL - North Korea appears to be preparing for a third nuclear test, digging a new underground tunnel at a site where previous tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009, South Korea's official news agency reported. Photos taken by a U.S. satellite reveal the excavation work at the Punggye-ri site in the country's northeast, the Yonhap agency reported Sunday. The work comes as North Korea also prepares to launch a satellite, called Kwangmyongsong-3, sometime this week to commemorate the centennial of founding father Kim Il Sung's birth.