Jean Lee

audioboom.com — South Korea election in the midst of North Korean provocation. @GordonGChang @newsjean on the John Batchelor Show.

PBS — North Korea marked its most important holiday today -- the Day of the Sun, which commemorates the birthday of founding ruler Kim Il-sung. At the ceremony for the event, North Korean politician and army official Choe Ryong-hae charged President Donald Trump with "creating a war situation" by sending a Navy carrier strike group to the region earlier this month.

The New York Times — Though he once appeared as the favorite to succeed his father, Kim Jong-nam began living abroad in exile after being caught in 2001 trying to enter Japan with a fake Dominican passport (the portly Mr. Kim used the name Pang Xiong, Chinese for "fat bear," a detail that hints at his sense of humor).

PBS — In our news wrap Friday, Malaysian toxicologists have determined that a chemical weapon was used to assassinate the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Also, more than 60 people are dead after a pair of bombings by Islamic State militants near a northern town in Syria, which Turkish and Syrian fighters retook just yesterday.

BBC — Malaysia: N Korean diplomat is a suspect behind the killing of Kim Jong Nam.

NPR — NPR's Robert Siegel speaks with Jean Lee of the Wilson Center about reports of the apparent assassination of the half-brother of North Korea's leader. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Now a North Korean murder mystery. The estranged, exiled half-brother of the country's dictator seems to have been assassinated at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The New York Times — It turns out the North Korean delegation had submitted three birth years for Hong Su-jong at various international competitions. At least one of the birth dates, March 9, 1989, would have made her too young to qualify for the Athens Olympics in 2004, where she competed in the team and all-around events.

U.S. News & World Report — SEOUL, South Korea – A religious cult. A shadowy, shamanistic leader holding sway over the nation's top ruler. Allegations of corruption, influence peddling and political royalty pulling strings to line their pockets. We've heard this story in South Korea before; it's a classic tale of court intrigue. Except that it's happening now, in 2016, in a country that bills itself as a democracy. Fifty years ago, in authoritarian South Korea, such allegations may not have even reached newspapers, so deeply did corruption rule post-colonial, postwar South Korea. But in the South Korea of 2016, President Park Geun-hye's admission that she for years has shared presidential documents with a friend who had no official government position or security clearance touched a nerve. Thousands turned out last weekend in downtown Seoul to vent their anger. Park's approval ratings plunged below 10 percent, and calls for her resignation are growing.

The New York Times — Delving into North Korea's own publications to find out more about the North Korean gymnast whose smile in a selfie shot by a South Korean gymnast ricocheted around the world during the Rio Olympics. SEOUL, South Korea — In a selfie that has spread quickly online, the North Korean gymnast Hong Un-jong smiles brightly as a South Korean competitor at the Rio Olympics, Lee Eun-ju, 17, holds up her smartphone and snaps a picture of them hugging. The picture of them taking the selfie ricocheted across social media, and it was cited as an example of the power of sports diplomacy and the Olympic spirit bringing together two countries perpetually on the brink of war.

U.S. News & World Report — WASHINGTON - Never before have so many North Korean soldiers infiltrated the American capital. By one count, at least 22 North Korean soldiers and guerrilla fighters - strapped with rifles, guiding artillery and covered with leaves serving as camouflage - are stalking the halls of American University. Call off the dogs: They're paintings, not people. Yet it's a startling sight in a country still technically at war with North Korea. "Contemporary North Korean Art: The Evolution of Socialist Realism," at the university's Katzen Arts Center, features paintings prized by North Korea, as well as newer pieces from the regime's state-run studios.

aspensecurityforum.org — Peril on the 38th Parallel at the Aspen Security Forum North Korea continues its underground nuclear tests, and there are indications that it has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead. Sanctions and threats have seemed only to embolden the volatile young leader in Pyongyang. Can Kim Jong Un be stopped before he turns the peninsula, and the region, into a nuclear wasteland? Jane Harman, President, Director, and CEO, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Jean H. Lee, Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Katharine Moon, SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Professor of Political Science and Wasserman Chair of Asian Studies, Wellesley College Moderator: Gordon Chang, Columnist, The Daily Beast

Foreign Policy Magazine — As delegates take their seats inside an elaborately festooned hall in Pyongyang this week, one question looms: What will happen at the Seventh Party Congress, North Korea's biggest political convention in 36 years? So cloaked in mystery is North Korea's political machinery that very few details have emerged about the ongoing party congress, a rubber-stamp gathering of delegates that historically has served as a stage for the unveiling of key ideological movements put forth by the leadership. Major developments from this congress may not be revealed until the event ends in a few days' time, if they are formally announced at all.

U.S. News & World Report — For months, North Koreans toiled day and night, renovating the Central Zoo, planting rows of apple trees and churning out coal in the deep, dark mines in the west. Factory workers hustled to produce everything from shoes and makeup to soft drinks and batteries so they could celebrate with the claim that they had surpassed yearly quotas. The hard work done, laborers are laying grass, planting flowers, raising banners and turning on lights as they put the finishing touches on what promises to be the biggest event of leader Kim Jong Un’s five-year rule: North Korea’s first party congress in 36 years.

U.S. News & World Report — For months, North Koreans toiled day and night, renovating the Central Zoo, planting rows of apple trees and churning out coal in the deep, dark mines in the west. Factory workers hustled to produce everything from shoes and makeup to soft drinks and batteries so they could celebrate with the claim that they had surpassed yearly quotas. The hard work done, laborers are laying grass, planting flowers, raising banners and turning on lights as they put the finishing touches on what promises to be the biggest event of leader Kim Jong Un’s five-year rule: North Korea’s first party congress in 36 years. RELATED CONTENT Smuggled Images Provide Rare Look Inside North Korea By convening a party congress, Kim is signaling to his people that the Workers’ Party is firmly back on track and in control as the nation’s ruling body after 17 years of military-dominated rule under his father, the late Kim Jong Il. Like his father and grandfather before him, Kim Jong Un will use the nation’s highest-level political gathering, which begins Friday, as a platform to unveil the policies and ideology that will come to define his era of leadership. But more importantly, the party congress and the celebrations that will accompany the days-long affair will serve as a stage for Kim Jong Un as he seeks to cement his legitimacy as the third-generation Kim to rule North Korea.

38north.org — Four years after the Associated Press (AP) mounted its signboard on a wooden door inside an armed compound in Pyongyang, Agence France-Presse (AFP) announced that it would become the second global news agency to open a bureau in North Korea. " Good luck to @AFP on the wild ride ahead," I tweeted after their announcement. I should know about the rollercoaster that awaits AFP; I opened the AP's Pyongyang bureau in 2012. While working for the AP, I was under orders to view AFP and Reuters as our main wire service competition.

Reuters — PARTICIPANTS: Jason Fields, Matthew Gault, Jean H. Lee North Korea is the most mysterious and oppressive regime on earth. Few journalists penetrate Pyongyang and fewer still stay long enough to understand the country and its people. Jean Lee is one of those determined few. In 2012, Lee established an Associated Press bureau in North Korea. She spent the next few years covering the country for the wire service. From glorious state ceremonies to bizarre classrooms, Lee experienced a side of North Korea rarely open to anyone from the West.

The New York Times — It was party time in Pyongyang. Workers scrambled to hang congratulatory banners in the lobby of the Koryo Hotel, my home away from home in the North Korean capital, where I was posted as an Associated Press correspondent. A gaggle of cooks, still in aprons and chef's hats, dashed out from the kitchen to watch the festivities, and mothers tightened the pink bows in their daughters' hair as the girls fidgeted in anticipation. Confetti twinkled through the air as the heroes of the moment paraded in, faces beaming, to cheers and wild applause.

Foreign Policy Magazine — SEOUL - North Korea's most famous girl band swept into Beijing on Dec. 11 with pomp, panache, and glamour, flashing crimson-rimmed smiles as they swished past photographers in matching fur-trimmed military overcoats.Then they were gone. As enigmatically as they had arrived, the roughly two-dozen women from the Moranbong Band flew out on North Korea's national airline, Air Koryo, on Dec. 12, just hours before they were to play their first concert abroad. In their wake, a flurry of speculation: Was it about money? A disagreement over the song list? Did one of the performers, purportedly an ex of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, rouse too much gossip?

Brookings Institution — "What is it like inside an American nightclub?" The question from a young North Korean woman startled me. For so long, curiosity about the outside world was not just taboo for North Koreans, but also dangerous. North Korea strictly regulates interaction between North Koreans and foreigners, limiting travel overseas to official business and forbidding spontaneous, unmonitored visits between locals and visitors. With the "imperialist Yankees" remaining Enemy No. 1 for the North Koreans, travel to the United States is not an option for all but a few North Koreans.

koreasociety.org — In 2011, Jean Lee became the first American reporter granted permission to work as a journalist in North Korea, and a year later opened AP's Pyongyang bureau, making the news agency the first and only U.S. news outlet with an office in the North Korean capital. Lee, who now serves as a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., shares photos and videos of homes, factories, schools and farms typically off-limits to foreigners, and offers her personal insights on daily life in North Korea.

BBC — Chang Song-thaek, the uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and vice-chairman of the National Defence Commission, has been executed for "acts of treachery", state media says. Jean Lee, an Associated Press correspondent, told the Today programme that there has been "truly unprecedented coverage coming out of North Korea from state media". "This is a very clear way [for Kim Jong-un] to tell the people that he is ruthless... and that it is against the law in North Korea to challenge him," she continued. Ms Lee also explained that Chang Song-thaek's position had previously "looked unassailable".

Houston Chronicle — The 67-year-old Jang held the posts of vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party. Four days after his dramatic public arrest, Jang was tried for treason by a special military tribunal and executed, state media reported. For the outside world, KCNA's 2,700-word treatise ripping Jang's reputation to shreds provided an intriguing and revealing glimpse into the murky, feudalistic world of politics in the secretive country. For North Koreans, the shocking public pillorying of a man seen as a father figure to Kim Jong Un was designed to send a clear message about the intolerance of opposition in a totalitarian state that demands absolute loyalty to the leader.

SEOUL, South Korea - While the rest of North Korea's top brass leaped to their feet before Kim Jong Un, clapping wildly in a requisite show of respect at high-level meetings, his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, often seemed nonchalant, at times even bored. Once considered the force behind the young leader, he displayed a bold insouciance that seemed calculated to show he was beyond reach. So by purging his own uncle, Kim has delivered a more chilling message: No one is beyond reach, not even family. Jang's fall from grace, accompanied by allegations from corruption to womanizing and capped by his dramatic arrest at a party meeting Sunday, has no doubt spooked Pyongyang's elite.

National Post — "Hello world from comms center in #Pyongyang." That Twitter missive, sent Monday from Koryolink's main service center in downtown Pyongyang using my iPhone, marked a milestone for North Korea: It was believed to be the first tweet sent from a cellphone using the country's new 3G mobile data service. Later, as we were driving through Pyongyang, I used my iPhone to snap a photo of a new roadside banner referring to North Korea's controversial Feb. 12 nuclear test while AP's Chief Asia photographer David Guttenfelder shot an image of a commuter walking beneath a bridge at dusk.