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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that the country’s military will “widen” its “fighting front” this year, speaking during a visit to the defense ministry on the army’s founding anniversary Sunday.
“This year is a grand year of transformation, in which our military’s fighting front must widen further and we must struggle more boldly,” Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a test of an “upgraded” version of the country’s 600mm multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) on Tuesday in order to present a “grave threat” to enemies, according to state media.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim on Wednesday saying that unspecified enemies, likely referring to the U.S. and South Korea, will “clearly” be convinced of new technological advancements demonstrated during the test.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected new statues for a memorial honoring DPRK soldiers who fought against Ukraine, though state media avoided any mention of military cooperation with Russia.
Kim, defense minister No Kwang Chol and high-ranking officials visited the Mansudae Art Studio on Sunday, according to the party daily Rodong Sinmun the following day.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un publicly fired a top economic official and warned party cadres over what he sees as chronic incompetence at a ceremony for upgrading an industrial machine factory Monday, according to state media.
Pyongyang described the upgrade project as key to improving the economy, while NK News analysis suggests Kim’s attention on the factory is related to plans to upgrade weapons production capabilities as well.
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Kim Jong Un sent New Year’s greetings to North Korean soldiers dispatched overseas in a midnight address Thursday, highlighting the importance the country attaches to troops dispatched in support of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
At a New Year’s Eve event in Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium, the leader extended “militant salutations” to overseas units who are ushering in 2026 “far from home with warm hearts yearning for the motherland,” the ruling party’s official newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported Thursday.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a “long-range strategic cruise missile” test on Sunday, according to state media, calling it an “exercise of war deterrence in the current situation where we are facing various security threats.”
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday that the DPRK military launched two cruise missiles on the west coast, each flying around 170 minutes before striking a target building. NK News analysis shows the target is on an island near Nampho which has been used numerous times during missile tests in recent years.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited two major missile factories in the east coast city of Hamhung in recent days where he called for increasing missile production and building more arms plants, according to state media on Friday.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim was satisfied with short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) and artillery rocket production in 2025, and that he “ratified” draft documents for modernizing weapons factories to be reviewed at the Ninth Party Congress scheduled for sometime in the coming months.
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North Korea fired around 10 “artillery rockets” on Tuesday afternoon, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), as part of an apparent test.
The test came on the same day as leader Kim Jong Un kicked off the ruling party’s year-end plenum. State media had yet to report on the rocket launch as of midday Wednesday.
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This week, three members of the NK News team unpack their time at the APEC summit in Gyeongju and discuss how North Korea featured in the week’s diplomatic drama.
Despite high expectations, U.S. President Donald Trump did not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip to Korea, though Pyongyang still loomed large in many of the summit’s side discussions.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung pledged to continue efforts to forge a lasting “peace” with North Korea at a summit on Wednesday, despite low prospects for a Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un during his visit.
At a meeting on the sidelines of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) events in South Korea, Lee praised Trump’s “wonderful skills as a peacemaker” and offered Seoul’s support for his diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kicked off construction of a large cemetery and memorial for soldiers who died in Russia’s war against Ukraine on Thursday, according to state media, where he said the two countries’ “blood ties” outmatched participation in the war by the “U.S. and the West.”
Thousands of military construction workers and troops who fought in Russia — including those who have recovered from injuries — attended the ceremony to build the “Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at Overseas Military Operations.”
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South Korea has suspended tours of the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom ahead of President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit, amid speculation that he could meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Seoul’s unification ministry said on Monday that it will not conduct any special tours of the Joint Security Area (JSA) “from late October to early November,” a move that appears aimed at clearing the schedule for a potential second Panmunjom meeting between the two leaders.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected combat and reconnaissance drones and called their development a “top priority” to prepare for modern warfare on Thursday, reiterating the need to rapidly integrate artificial intelligence in unmanned systems.
During his visit to the Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex (UATC, 무인항공기술련합체), Kim oversaw performance tests of “strategic and tactical unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and multipurpose drones,” the ruling party daily Rodong Sinmun reported on Friday.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected “new” ballistic missile production capabilities on Sunday, according to state media, a few days before he is scheduled to attend a military parade in Beijing on Wednesday and meet the Chinese and Russian leaders.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday that Kim visited a “newly-inaugurated combined missile production line of a major munitions enterprise” and approved three new “long-term” plans for missile production and increased spending on weapons development, signaling that he will head into diplomatic talks with no intention of discussing a reduction in arms production.
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North Korea’s economy grew almost 4% in 2024, its fastest pace in eight years, thanks in part to stronger economic cooperation with Russia, South Korea’s central bank said Friday.
According to a report by the Bank of Korea (BOK), North Korea’s real gross domestic product (GDP) reached $26.6 billion (36.97 trillion won) last year, up 3.7% from the year prior.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a new fishing village Tuesday to promote “improving the material life of regional people,” according to state media.
However, the message of the leader prioritizing nationwide rural development contrasted with the lack of state media coverage of major flooding on the other side of the country in recent days, according to NK News analysis of satellite imagery.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the country’s largest new warship under development on the west coast and called this week’s U.S.-ROK military drills “the clearest expression of a will to provoke a war,” according to state media on Tuesday.
The allies’ annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) joint exercises “constitute a clearly stated position that unhesitatingly shows their intent to be most hostile and confrontational toward the DPRK,” Kim reportedly said at the Nampho Shipyard on Monday.
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U.S. Army soldiers watch as fellow Coalition soldiers pass by near the entrance to the International Zone on May 30, 2021 in Baghdad, Iraq.
John Moore | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The U.S. military carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that left one U.S. service member in critical condition and wounded two other U.S. personnel, officials said.
The back-and-forth clash was the latest demonstration of how the Israel-Hamas war is rippling across the Middle East, creating turmoil that has turned U.S. troops at bases in Iraq and Syria into targets.
Iran-aligned groups in Iraq and Syria oppose Israel’s campaign in Gaza and hold the United States partly responsible.
At President Joe Biden’s direction, the U.S. military carried out the strikes in Iraq at 1:45 GMT, likely killing “a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants” and destroying multiple facilities used by the group, the U.S. military said.
“These strikes are intended to hold accountable those elements directly responsible for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and Syria and degrade their ability to continue attacks. We will always protect our forces,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, in a statement.
A U.S. base in Iraq’s Erbil that houses U.S. forces came under attack from a one-way drone earlier on Monday, leading to the latest U.S. casualties.
The base has been repeatedly targeted. Reuters reported on another significant drone attack in October on the barracks at the Erbil base on Oct. 26, which penetrated U.S. air defenses but failed to detonate.
The Pentagon did not disclose details about the identity of the service member who was critically wounded or offer more details on the injuries sustained in the attack. It also did not offer details on how this drone appeared to penetrate the base’s air defenses.
“My prayers are with the brave Americans who were injured,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The White House National Security Council said Biden was briefed on the attack on Monday and ordered the Pentagon to prepare response options against those responsible.
“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
Still, it is unclear if the latest U.S. retaliation will deter future action against U.S. forces, who are deployed in Iraq and Syria to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State militants.
The U.S. military has already come under attack at least 100 times in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, usually with a mix of rockets and one-way attack drones.
The U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad also came under mortar fire earlier in December, the first time it had been attacked in more than a year, in a major escalation.
The latest unrest came less than a week after Austin returned from a trip to the Middle East focused on containing efforts by Iran-aligned groups to broaden of the Israel-Hamas war.
That includes setting up a U.S.-led maritime coalition to safeguard Red Sea commerce following a series of drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that more than 20 countries have agreed to participate in the new U.S.-led coalition, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian.
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Civilians conduct search and rescue operations and debris removal work at the heavily damaged buildings after Israeli attacks at Al Bureij Refugee Camp as Israeli attacks continue on the 27th day in Gaza City, Gaza on November 02, 2023.
Ashraf Amra | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The United States is facing its fourth major inflection point in history since the early 20th century, and if world leaders get it wrong, the results could be similar to what occurred during the 1930s and ultimately led to World War II. That’s according to Frederick Kempe, CEO of foreign policy think tank Atlantic Council, and it is a fear he says more CEOs of major corporations are focused on today.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned, “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.”
According to Kempe, that’s a feeling shared in many corporate boardrooms.
“Every CEO, all the banks I am talking to, are factoring in geopolitics in their thinking in a way they didn’t five years ago,” Kempe said at the CNBC Global Evolve virtual summit on Thursday.
This shift has not happened suddenly with the outbreak of war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, Kempe said. It has been building over the past five years as a series of exogenous shocks have upended the status quo in markets.
“Putin’s war in Ukraine was a wake-up call,” Kempe said, with more C-suite members building geopolitical analysis into government affairs teams, adding outsourced relationships with consultants, and bringing more risk management into C-suite positions.
“No one is saying it won’t affect business. … Geopolitics is coming into the board room in way it hasn’t in my lifetime,” he said.
He said it is reasonable for CEOs to conclude it might get worse. The first four years of the latest decade have included four exogenous shocks: COVID, a “sloppy” withdrawal by the U.S. government in Afghanistan which weakened the U.S. standing in the world, contributing to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and the need to move entire businesses out of Russia, and now the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.
“You may not be able to predict the next risk, but if there is one in each of the first four years [of the decade] why wouldn’t there be more in the next six?” Kempe said.
The last three major inflection points in history were World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, and now the tensions and risks are higher than ever. “There’s a more interconnected world than we’ve ever had with technological capability to do more harm more quickly,” he said.
Kempe believes it’s up to the United States to ensure the global system stays intact. He cited the choices made by the U.S. after World War I that led to isolationism, the Holocaust, and millions of deaths, while the nation “got it right” after World War II, he said, resulting in international institutions like the United Nations and NATO.
The growing bilateral relationships between adversaries of the U.S.—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—raise the risk level.
The autocratic countries are working together more closely than Kempe has ever seen before, and although they may not be plotting against the U.S. specifically, they are aligned in not wanting the U.S. “to run the global system any longer,” he said.
That danger presents a huge risk, as Kempe does not think the U.S. is unified enough yet with its own allies to counteract this collaboration.
Kempe’s greatest anticipated peril is a move by China against Taiwan, which would have devastating impacts to the global economy due to China’s prominence in the world markets. But as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson seeks to separate funding for Israel from Ukraine military aid, and tie Ukraine aid to legislation covering U.S. domestic border security issues, the U.S. needs to keep the war in Ukraine top of mind, Kempe said. If the U.S. does not support Ukraine enough, China may see that as a green light to attack Taiwan, he said.
Kempe advises companies to decentralize China in their supply chains, mitigate against risk, and build up resilience, “because you may not be able to redirect the next risk. … You have to understand risk first and be humble about it.”
Sign up to watch all of CNBC’s Evolve Global Summit exclusively on-demand. Hear how CEOs from Target, FedEx, Kraft Heinz, FanDuel and more are adapting, innovating and transforming in this new era of business. Access now.
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PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — A handful of centenarian survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor are expected to gather at the scene of the Japanese bombing on Wednesday to commemorate those who perished 81 years ago.
That’s fewer than in recent years, when a dozen or more traveled to Hawaii from across the country to pay their respects at the annual remembrance ceremony.
Part of the decline reflects the dwindling number of survivors as they age. The youngest active-duty military personnel on Dec. 7, 1941, would have been about 17, making them 98 today. Many of those still alive are at least 100.
About 2,400 servicemen were killed in the bombing, which launched the U.S. into World War II. The USS Arizona alone lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, nearly half the death toll.
Robert John Lee recalls being a 20-year-old civilian living at his parent’s home on the naval base where his father ran the water pumping station. The home was just about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) across the harbor from where the USS Arizona was moored on battleship row.
The first explosions before 8 a.m. woke him up, making him think a door was slamming in the wind. He got up to yell for someone to shut the door only to look out the window at Japanese planes dropping torpedo bombs from the sky.
He saw the hull of the USS Arizona turn a deep orange-red after an aerial bomb hit it.
“Within a few seconds, that explosion then came out with huge tongues of flame right straight up over the ship itself — but hundreds of feet up,” Lee said in an interview Monday after a boat tour of the harbor.
He still remembers the hissing sound of the fire.
Sailors jumped into the water to escape their burning ships and swam to the landing near Lee’s house. Many were covered in the thick, heavy oil that coated the harbor. Lee and his mother used Fels-Naptha soap to help wash them. Sailors who were able to boarded small boats that shuttled them back to their vessels.
“Very heroic, I thought,” Lee said of them.
Lee joined the Hawaii Territorial Guard the next day, and later the U.S. Navy. He worked for Pan American World Airways for 30 years after the war.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have statistics for how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still living. But department data show that of the 16 million who served in World War II, only about 240,000 were alive as of August and some 230 die each day.
There were about 87,000 military personnel on Oahu at the time of the attack, according to a rough estimate compiled by military historian J. Michael Wenger.
The ceremony sponsored by the Navy and the National Park Service will feature a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the minute the attack began, and a missing-man-formation flyover.
Navy and park service officials are due to deliver remarks.
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