#North Korea

#North Korea

The 2025 Refocus International Photographer of the Year Awards reaffirmed the platform's status as a leading showcase for contemporary photography, highlighting work that transcends borders and cultures. This year's winners delivered not just images but deeply human stories, ranging from raw street moments to bold conceptual pieces. Canadian photographer Luke Gram earned the top honor for his series "Humanity Within the Architecture of Control," a subtle yet powerful exploration of everyday life inside North Korea that reveals how individuality persists within rigid systems.

Cybercriminals stole $2.7 billion in crypto this year, a new record for crypto-stealing hacks, according to blockchain monitoring firms. Once again, in 2025, there were dozens of crypto heists hitting several cryptocurrency exchanges and other web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. The biggest hack by far was the breach at Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit, where hackers stole around $1.4 billion in crypto.

During a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on 3 December, new evidence was presented suggesting that Ukrainian children abducted by Russia have been transferred to North Korea, where they are reportedly held in military-style camps. The information, brought forward by Ukrainian journalist and media adviser Ostap Yarysh, marks one of the starkest escalations yet in Russia's forced displacement campaign, a campaign already recognised internationally as a war crime and the subject of International Criminal Court indictments against Vladimir Putin and Russia's Commissioner for Children, Maria Lvova-Belova.

Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis (the latter being the US Army soldier) each pled guilty to one wire fraud conspiracy for providing their identities to North Koreans between 2019 and 2022 so the Norks could fraudulently get work at US companies. All three provided space in their homes for laptops issued by the companies they supposedly worked for and installed remote access software that allowed their North Korean comrades to appear to be working from the US, the DoJ said.

For 75 years, the US has wielded wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces. The set-up has its origins in the Korean War which erupted in 1950 and largely ended with the truce of 1953. In simple terms, Seoul can command its troops only as long as there is no open conflict, and despite South Korean leadership taking on more and more responsibility in the intervening decades, a major breakout of hostilities would still see Washington take command.

Russian President Vladimir Putin received North Korea's top diplomat at the Kremlin on October 27 as Russian forces continued their push in eastern Ukraine, penetrating a key city amid fierce fighting. North Korean media said Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui discussed "many future projects to constantly strengthen and develop" the bilateral relationship while also passing on leader Kim Jong Un's "brotherly regard" to Putin. No further details were given.

Earlier this year, as North Korea began sending more soldiers to Russia to assist in its war against Ukraine, Maggie Feldman-Piltch turned to a group of adult content creators for their help. The creators had noticed an uptick in subscribers from the DPRK who suddenly had access to a less restrictive internet environment than they were used to back home, including adult content recommended by their Russian counterparts.

The North Korean vessel crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) near the South Korean border island of Baengnyeong at about 5am local time on Friday (20:00 GMT) and remained on the southern side of the maritime frontier for an hour while also advancing up to 5km (3.1 miles) south of the demarcation line, South Korea's military said. Our military broadcasted a warning and fired warning shots, after which the North Korean merchant ship retreated from our territorial waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

"I do not think the timing of Iron Mace is in response to any particular event, but it is an overdue exercise to learn effective ways to prevent and counter a possible North Korean nuclear threat," said Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general in the South Korean army and now a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. "And even though we may not be able to link these exercises with a single event in the North, it is clear that the North is becoming increasingly militarily capable and the alliance needs to be prepared for a possible nuclear scenario on the peninsula in order to prevent it," he told DW.