May 17, 2016, by Andy Lim— Ri Yong-ho is the new Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). He also became an alternate member of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Political Bureau when the 7th Congress of the WPK was held in May 2016.

April 8, 2016— A survey study of 233 of the United States’ top Asia/Korea experts, government officials, scholars, and opinion leaders found that domestic stabilization, not nuclear weapons, ranks as the #1 issue for the U.S. with unification (i.e., highest composite score in the entire survey in terms of most acute lack of knowledge/most acute concern for U.S. interests). The top four blind spots for the U.S.: 1) domestic stabilization; 2) nuclear weapons; 3) economic development; 4) cost.