North

The incident is the first alleged defection of a North Korean soldier in more than a year.

South Korea says it has taken a North Korean soldier into custody after he crossed the country’s heavily guarded border.

The soldier crossed the military demarcation line (MDL) that divides the peninsula on Sunday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, which said it “tracked and monitored” the soldier before securing him.

South Korea’s military said it would investigate the circumstances of the soldier’s crossing – a relatively rare incident in the mine-strewn border zone between the two nations still technically at war.

South Korean media described the crossing near the central part of the border as a “defection”, with the Chosun Ilbo daily saying the soldier expressed his wish to defect after being approached by a South Korean soldier.

If confirmed, the soldier would join tens of thousands of North Koreans who have fled poverty and repression in North Korea since the peninsula was split by war in the 1950s. Last year, 236 North Koreans arrived in the South, with women accounting for 88 percent of the total.

The last time a soldier from North Korea, which derides defectors as “human scum”, escaped to the South was in August last year.

Most defectors, however, take a different route – escaping across North Korea’s border with China before eventually making their way to the South. Direct crossings between the two Koreas are relatively rare and extremely risky, as the border area is full of mines and well-monitored on both sides.

Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the latest soldier who crossed the border may have been able to navigate the dangerous terrain due to his “likely familiarity with the area”.

“The latest crossing will not be received positively by Pyongyang, as he could provide the South with information on its troop movements and operations in the border area,” the analyst told the AFP news agency.

In July, a North Korean civilian crossed the border by foot in a 20-hour operation aided by the South’s military.

The latest crossing came four months after liberal politician Lee Jae-myung took office as South Korean president, following months of political chaos, which began with the conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived attempt to impose martial law in December.

Lee has taken a different stance from his predecessor on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promising to “open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation”.

Diplomatic efforts have stalled on the Korean Peninsula since the collapse of denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019 during the first United States President Donald Trump administration, after a series of Trump-Kim summits, globally watched spectacles that bore little concrete progress.

After terrorists chased her from her home in Lungu village of Sokoto State, Saratu now sits in Jabo town, devastated after losing three of her own and two orphaned grandchildren who never made it out. The terrorists stormed their village in Sabon Birni, North West Nigeria. She ran barefoot to the bush, clutching a small wrapper, and never returned. For Saratu and countless others across the region, the statistics of killings, kidnappings, and cattle rustling are not just numbers. They are ruptured families, stolen futures, and a daily struggle to live with dignity in the reported violence.

Amidst shattered livelihoods and decades-long insecurity, people in Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto states have continued to push back with resilience that helps them survive, facing the violence that pushes them out of their houses and farmlands. 

HumAngle interviewed locals across the states, documenting what drives the violence, how the communities struggle to cope, and what a credible path to peace might look like. Those interviewed included traditional rulers, religious leaders, women’s associations, vigilante groups, civil society activists, and members of both herding and farming communities who shared experiences, human costs, and grassroots resilience.

For about one and a half decades, these people have been engulfed in a violence that ravaged many parts of the northwestern region. What began as disputes between farmers and herders has mutated into cattle rustling, mass killing and the scourge of kidnapping for ransom. These conflicts have seeped into every facet of their lives, displacing families, crippling agriculture, eroding trust, and gnawing at the very fabric of society.

Taxed by fear

Sokoto’s geographical misfortune is evident on a map. Nestled against the volatile Zamfara State and sharing a porous frontier with the Niger Republic, the state’s rural local government areas (LGAs) have become easy targets for well-armed groups. 

Sabon Birni and Isa LGAs, the worst affected, live under the shadow of Bello Turji, a notorious non-state armed group leader imposing “taxes” on villages, a perverse form of governance enforced through violence.

In Tangaza, Gudu, Binji, and Silami, locals now face an even deadlier menace. Their ungoverned frontiers with the Niger Republic have opened the door to the Lakurawa, a transnational terror group turning the borderland into its strongest foothold. Exploiting weak state security and the grinding poverty that traps many young men, the Lakurawa has embedded itself in local communities, luring recruits with promises of power, protection, or survival. 

What began as a shadowy infiltration has evolved into a full-blown insurgency. Today, the group wages a campaign of killings, livestock raids, and mass intimidation on both sides of the border, leaving residents of Sokoto and neighbouring Nigerien villages in constant fear.

The human toll is staggering. Farming, the lifeline of most families, has been disrupted. Thousands of cattle have been stolen. In Sabon Birni alone, an estimated 600,000 cattle and five million small ruminants were rustled between 2019 and 2024, while vast tracts of farmland remain in accessible. For those farmers who manage to reach their fields, access often comes at a heavy price.

Kidnappings have become routine. In the same Sabon Birni, reports suggest that more than ₦160 billion was paid in ransoms and so-called protection levies over the same five-year period.

According to Shu’aibu Gwanda Gobir, a community leader, about 528 villages were once under the control of armed groups. A day after the brutal killing of the Sarkin Gobir of Gatawa District, Isa Bawa, in August 2024, gunmen kidnapped 192 people in the Sabon Birnin area. At the time, over 600 people were already being held captive.

Children have been driven out of classrooms; many are now in displacement camps, while countless others roam the streets, begging in the city of Sokoto. 

Women recount harrowing tales of sexual violence, their trauma lingering long after the attacks, and hunger and malnutrition stalk villages already stripped of livelihoods, leaving communities in a state of protracted vulnerability.

For farming and herding families, the cost is measured not only in stolen cattle and abandoned fields but also in fractured trust, deepening poverty, and a sense of being abandoned by the state.

Beneath this devastation, communities are not merely passive victims; they also fight back for survival. According to Magajin Balle, the village head of Balle in Gudu LGA, “in some areas, youths patrol their own streets with locally purchased weapons. Vigilante networks such as the Vigilante Group of Nigeria and ‘Yansakai’ militias provide a semblance of security. Communities pool money to support local defenders.”

Elsewhere, however, resilience takes different forms. In rural parts of Isa LGA, attempts are made to negotiate fragile truces (Sulhu) with gang leaders. In rural areas of Balle, where Lakurawa terrorists have entrenched a stronghold, residents have been forced to submit to the directives of the group.

Armed groups continue to unleash relentless violence across Sokoto State, defying local resilience efforts. In recent weeks, waves of attacks have swept through Shagari, Isa, Sabon Birni, and Raba LGAs, with outlying villages in Dange-Shuni now also under siege. Entire communities have been uprooted, with women and children bearing the brunt. 

Many families are forced into a cycle of displacement, seeking safety in nearby towns before returning to their homes by day, while others have fled entirely. Thousands are now sheltering in Jabo, Dange-Shuni, and Rara, or across the border in Guidan Roumdji of the Niger Republic, highlighting the deepening humanitarian crisis.

Tension has also heightened in Shagari LGA’s rural areas after a series of attacks in Aske Dodo, Tungar Barke, Jandutse, Lungu, and Ayeri by armed groups, leaving several dead, scores abducted, and hundreds displaced to Jabo, Kajiji, and Shagari in search of refuge. According to a BBC report, this led to women seeking shelter in Shagari town to stage a protest against the government.

In Raba LGA, over 500 people were forced to flee from their homes across six communities on August 26. Most of them are women and children, now crowded into a school and market square in Rara village, where they seek safety and shelter.

In Sabon Birni and Isa LGAs, communities remain trapped between violence and hunger. This September, armed groups unleashed deadly assaults like never before, while floods destroyed roads, bridges and crops, cutting residents off from aid. With no safe passage and livelihoods washed away, many fled across the border into Niger in search of refuge. “People are being squeezed from both sides by the gunmen and by the floods,” says Sa’idu Bargaja, a lawmaker representing the Isa-Sabon Birni constituency. It is, he says, a crisis that leaves no room for escape.

In Shagari LGA, the anguish of displacement is written into women’s lives like Saratu Sode of the Lungu community. Now taking refuge in Jabo, she describes how violence has torn apart her family and her village.

“We fled when word spread that gunmen were coming. Those who could not escape that night were caught. Two of our neighbours were attacked; one was hacked with a machete and is in hospital, and the other was shot dead. Three of my relatives were seized before they could run, and they are still in captivity,” she recounts.

“Three of my children and two of my orphaned grandchildren, whose father was killed during an earlier attack, are not with me. I don’t know where they are. They might have been killed, or they may be in the hands of armed groups.”

Her neighbour, Hadiza from the Aske Dodo community, shares a similar story. Forced from her home three times, she now shelters in an abandoned building in Jabo. “On the last occasion, we woke in the night to the news that someone nearby had been slaughtered. At dawn, we fled. Our children no longer go to school. Our husbands have abandoned their farms, fleeing to save their lives. I do not sleep at night,” she says.

Their voices echo a broader crisis in Sokoto’s rural communities, where waves of armed violence have left families fractured, livelihoods destroyed, and children robbed of education. Beyond the numbers of the dead and displaced, the stories of women like Saratu and Hadiza lay bare the daily reality: survival in a landscape where the state is absent, safety is fragile, and tomorrow is uncertain.

Magajin Tsamaye, a village head in Sabon Birni, told HumAngle that peace deals and levies payments are not the best strategies. He urges the government to reform the social justice system and tackle root causes like illiteracy and youth unemployment. “People should be less fearful of death,” Magaji bluntly added, “so they can boldly repel attacks.”

Fighting without surrender

Kebbi’s experience mirrors Sokoto’s in many ways, but with one critical difference: communities here largely reject paying taxes to armed groups. While the LGAs of Fakai, Danko Wasagu, Zuru, Augie, and Yauri, which border the dens of armed groups in Sokoto, Zamfara, and Niger, face sporadic raids and kidnappings, an ethos of resistance endures.

In Augie, Arewa, and, to a lesser extent, Dandi, Bunza, Bagudo, Maiyama, Koko, and Fakai, the shadow of the Lakurawa looms large. Their presence causes sudden waves of violence that leave communities unsettled, never knowing when the next strike might come.

These unpredictable and ruthless raids have turned daily life into a gamble of survival. Farmers abandon fields, traders fear the open road, and entire villages, especially in Arewa and Augie, live with the gnawing uncertainty that their relative calm could be shattered at any moment. This unpredictability, the incessant rhythm of violence, cements Lakurawa’s grip.

In this year’s rainy season, vast tracts of land in Kebbi State have not been tilted because the Lakurawa declared them no-go zones. In the remote areas of Augie and Arewa LGAs, the group has marked out areas as “buffer zones,” warning through local agents that any farmer seen nearby would be punished. 

“In the remote villages of Garu, Kunchin Baba, Gumki, and Gumundai, farmers now live under these restrictions,” said a man known as Bello Manager, the Commandant of the Vigilante Group of Niger in the Arewa LGA.

“Farmers are forbidden not only from cultivating their land but also from adapting to change. The militants have blocked the sale of farming bulls for power tillers; machines many had hoped would ease labour shortages, and in some cases seized and destroyed the tillers outright,” the Bello added.

A resident of Goru, speaking to BBC Hausa on condition of anonymity, said: “The majority of communities where the Lakurawa have established a stronghold are living in fear and uncertainty. These include Goru, Malam Yauro, Goru Babba, Goru Karama, Gorun Bagiga, Gumki and Faske. In these places, the Lakurawa force herders to pay ₦10,000 per cow; they have banned women from farming, and traditional rulers are forbidden from wearing turbans. Across all these areas, there is no visible sign of state presence.”

This ban is devastating for communities already struggling with the steady depletion of oxen used for ploughing and harrowing. What should have been a season of renewal is turning instead into a season of fear and enforced stagnation.

In Bunza LGA, the Lakurawa have tightened their grip, launching repeated assaults and livestock raids that have crippled livelihoods and deepened fear. In just the past seven months, more than 1,000 head of cattle have been rustled beyond several cattle they extort as so-called zakat.

“The scale of the theft underscores the vulnerability of even the most prominent figures. Victims include retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Abubakar Tilli, who lost 110 cattle; Bello Mamuda, former chairman of Bunza, who lost 67; and a former member of the House of Assembly representing Bunza, whose herd of 49 was stolen. Altogether, over 1,000 cattle have been stolen by the Lakurawa in Bunza over the past seven months,” Yau Gumundai, a local in the area, told HumAngle.

But the damage goes beyond statistics. Markets have emptied, families have scattered, and fear has become part of daily life. “Recently, there has been an intensification of Lakurawa assaults in Bunza and neighbouring Dandi,” Gumundai explains.

“Their last attack in Bunza was on Friday, Sept. 19, when they opened fire at a security checkpoint. People fled the market in panic, leaving behind their belongings. Many were injured. They keep us in constant fear.”

The attacks illustrate a grim pattern: armed groups now challenge not only ordinary citizens but also security forces and political elites. As livestock raiding evolves from economic plunder into a tool of terror, communities in not only Bunza but also many other LGAs of Kebbi State are left with dwindling livelihoods, deepening insecurity, and a gnawing uncertainty about whether the state can protect them.

Local security has become a sophisticated patchwork of formal and informal alliances. Security outfits work hand-in-hand with trade unions; from motor transport workers to petroleum marketers to monitor public spaces, track suspicious movements, and alert communities. In every LGA, from ward level upwards, volunteer patrols are organised. Wealthy residents and the poor pool resources to fund the patrols in shifts from dawn to dusk.

While the rural communities of Tangaza and Gudu in Sokoto State have succumbed and remain defenceless, an investigation by HumAngle found that, in the face of Lakurawa incursions and raids, the people of Augie in Kebbi refuse to stand idle.

Until recently, as Lakurawa incursions continue, particularly in Arewa, Augie, and Bunza LGAs, locals argued that collaborative vigilance in Kebbi was what prevented the violence of armed groups from reaching the scale seen in Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina. But it is also draining; financially, psychologically, and militarily, particularly now that communities face mobile insurgents armed with military-grade weapons, including PKTs, RPGs, GPMGs, AAs, and AK-49s. 

Living and negotiating with the enemy

While Sokoto is taxed by fear, some of the most striking community-led peace deals have emerged in Zamfara. 

In Kaura Namoda, Maru, Bungudu, and elsewhere, communities have brokered localised truces with armed groups. The terms vary; in some cases, farmers pay “levies” to cultivate land; in others, both sides settle for a “peace” that often turns cold. When such agreements hold, people return to their fields, markets reopen, and a fragile semblance of regular life returns.

But peace is never absolute. A deal with one gang does not protect against another, and breaches, whether through real provocations or whispered rumours, collapse months of careful dialogue. The Yansakai’s actions, sometimes indiscriminate and retaliatory, also undermine trust.

A resident of Nasarawa Burkulu and a member of Miyetti Allah, speaking to HumAngle on condition of anonymity, paints a chilling picture of life under sustained attack in Bukkuyum LGA. He says that from the first assault in 2019 through to September 2025, thousands have been kidnapped, tens of thousands of ruminants rustled, and hundreds killed, while whole villages have at times fallen under the control of armed groups.

“Between 2019 and today, over 3,000 people have been taken, 30,000 livestock stolen, and more than 1,000 people brutally killed in Bukkuyum LGA,” the local told HumAngle. “Several settlements towards the Anka-Bukkuyum boundary: Ruwan Rani, Yashi, Zauna, Bardi, Kwali, Bunkasau, Kamaru, Gasa Hula, and Rafin Maiki are flooded with armed men, some of whom appear to be recent arrivals. Many villages are effectively under siege.”

The human consequences are stark. “In these communities, most men have fled their homes,” the source added. “Women and children run into the bush when armed men arrive at night.” The testimony underlines how insecurity has hollowed out normal life: farms lie untended, markets are disrupted, and entire families live in constant fear.

Another local source described the trauma of abduction, detailing how unarmed citizens were held captive for more than four months. Also a victim of abduction, the source was released only after her parents paid ₦430,000 in ransom.

“In captivity we were dehumanised,” she recalled. “I watched people being murdered in front of me. Returning home brought stigma; I often wished for death because I felt my life was worthless.”

These accounts expose a sustained campaign that is not merely criminal theft and occasional violence but a strategy that displaces communities, destroys livelihoods and inflicts deep psychological wounds. They also raise urgent questions about the state’s capacity to protect civilians in areas where armed groups can operate with impunity.

Armed groups continue to ravage communities, where killings and kidnappings for ransom have become routine. The crisis, analysts and statesmen say, has worsened under the so-called Sulhu dialogue strategy in Kaduna’s Birnin Gwari and Katsina, pushing armed groups into Zamfara in unprecedented numbers.

“Dialogue in Birnin Gwari has led to the intensification of violence in Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kebbi, as many members of armed groups move into areas not under the Sulhu regime,” says Murtala Rufa’i, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

“The truces struck with armed groups in Kaduna displaced hundreds of armed groups’ members into rural Zamfara and adjacent Sokoto, leaving villages under relentless assault while towns such as Gummi, Bukkuyum, and Garin Gaura in Zamfara, and Kebbe and Shagari in Sokoto, are overwhelmed by displaced families,” says Hon. Suleman Muhammad Abubakar, lawmaker representing the Gummi-Bukkuyum constituency.

The human toll is devastating. “Recently, a canoe carrying people fleeing Gummi and nearby villages capsized, killing 15,” Abubakar recounts. “They were escaping the siege of armed groups who had poured into Gummi and Bukkuyum after leaving Birnin Gwari, a direct consequence of the dialogue policy.”    

Despite this, there is an undercurrent of hope, as locals express the readiness of many communities to reintegrate repentant members of armed groups, provided the process is genuine and inclusive. Traditional authorities still hold moral sway, and even some armed groups’ leaders enforce discipline within their ranks to preserve deals.

Locals recommend empowering these traditional and religious actors, strengthening rural education, and ensuring government services reach neglected areas. “Peace is possible,” says village head of Birnin Magaji, “but only if we all talk honestly, and to everyone who holds a gun.”

Conflict on the city’s edge

Katsina’s pain is sharpened by geography. Not only does it border Zamfara and Sokoto, but its northern frontier touches the Niger Republic, a corridor for illicit arms. Some of the region’s most feared warlords, such as Dogo Gide and Ado Aleru, frequent the state, and in specific communities, non-state armed groups effectively govern in place of the state.

Rural violence’s evolution in Katsina follows a now-familiar pattern: resource conflict between herders and farmers, worsened by climate change and land encroachment, spiralling into cattle rustling, then into the kidnapping economy. Today, it is a fully fledged industry, drawing in disenfranchised youth as foot soldiers.

In Kankara District, Ibro Gwani and Rabi Usman Mani of Dannakwabo account for an unending ordeal of violence in Katsina State.

From 2011 to 2025, the district was scarred by killings, abductions and violent attacks that have left families shattered and entire communities traumatised.

Since the devastating blow of Dec. 11, 2020, which left over 300 boys kidnapped, waves of killings, abductions, and displacements have continued.

Ibro Gwani, for instance, was kidnapped three times for which he paid a ransom of ₦10 million. “I know that one of our community leaders, Mai Unguwa Babangida Lauwal, was kidnapped and had to pay ₦4 million,” Gwani adds.

Rabi Usman Dannakwabo was also abducted alongside her husband, Usman Mani Dannakwabo, who is a police officer. 

“Residents have been murdered in their homes, on their farms, on village roads and even on playgrounds. I know of dozens of men, women and children who have been shot dead,” she says. “Some of our relatives had also been gunned down, hacked with machetes, and some, including myself and my husband, have been dragged into captivity, many of us never return.”

The state government’s measures, from negotiations to fuel sales bans to military offensives, have had mixed results. While initial gains were sometimes significant, armed groups adapted swiftly, exploiting sophisticated communications technology and local networks and even controlling the sale of scarce commodities in some areas.

Communities often choose confrontation over negotiation. Informal militias are armed and funded by locals, and private gun ownership for self-defence is widespread. But there are costs: accusations of abuses by community militias against innocent Fulani have driven some into the arms of the very armed groups they once feared.

Past state-led dialogues faltered, partly due to the exclusion of affected communities from the process. A local tells HumAngle that effective dialogue should emphasise the need for inclusive engagement, economic empowerment, better governance, and border control to stem the flow of weapons.

Despite earlier peace deals, armed groups shatter the calm with fresh and increasingly brutal assaults. One of the most recent was on August 19, when gunmen stormed Unguwan Mantau in Malumfashi LGA. At dawn, they attacked a village mosque filled with worshippers. Young and old men were bowed in prayer when the shooting began, leaving many dead and others injured and rushed to the hospital.

When Jibrin Kolo Adamu talks about how the HumAngle Accountability Fellowship changed his life, his eyes light up with purpose. “The fellowship was impactful because I am currently working because of the skills I acquired from it,” he said. 

He added that “I learnt the art of human storytelling, and it helped me to win several grants and partnerships for my organisation. I now lead advocacy programs because of the HumAngle training.”

Jibrin is one of many young journalists and advocates from Borno State who have passed through the HumAngle Accountability Fellowship. The fellowship program was launched in 2022 with support from the MacArthur Foundation to promote transparency, accountability through storytelling, and community-driven advocacy initiatives. Over the past three years, five cohorts have been trained, with fellows drawn from the northern, central, and southern federal constituents of Borno state.

For many of them, the fellowship was a turning point.

Halima Bawah, a fellow from central Borno, said the training gave her the courage to start her own organisation. “I launched an advocacy group promoting renewable and sustainable climate action solutions. Now my company provides climate-smart solutions, recycling plastic waste, and offering consultations to other organisations,” she explained proudly.

Rukkaya Ahmed Alibe, who works with a radio station in Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno State, said the fellowship transformed her broadcasting career. “I have integrated human-centred storytelling into my radio programs. It has made my work more impactful and connected to the people. I now produce stories that give voice to local communities,” she said.

Another alumnus, Abubakar Mukhtar Abba, from central Borno, shared how the fellowship inspired his journalism journey. “I had no background in journalism, but the fellowship gave me everything in six months. I am now a freelance journalist reporting important stories about the humanitarian crisis in the region. My stories are driven by the question of accountability and how it affects the lives of ordinary people. All thanks to HumAngle,” he said.

The fellowship aims to build a new generation of journalists and advocates who use storytelling to demand accountability and amplify community voices in conflict-affected areas.

Speaking during an alumni roundtable session held on Oct. 11 in Maiduguri, Angela Umoru-David, HumAngle Foundation’s Director, said the engagement was an opportunity to see how far the fellows have come. “Engaging with the alumni was an opportunity to experience first-hand the impact the fellowship had on the participants. We have achieved exactly what we hoped for: a network of young people pushing locally-driven solutions and demanding accountability,” Angela said.

According to Angela, many alumni are now leading organisations, winning international fellowships, and pursuing advanced studies abroad. “We have an alumnus pursuing a PhD in security studies in China, another starting a waste management and environmental protection company, and many others representing their communities on global platforms,” she added.

The stories of progress from the fellows are not limited to Borno State alone. Across Adamawa and Yobe, the fellows have similar stories. During a similar roundtable held in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, in September, fellows said HumAngle had been a major influence on how their careers are blossoming currently, expressing their willingness for collaborations in the future.

“The support HumAngle gives us goes a long way,” Habila Albert, a member of the second cohort of the fellowship noted. Fellows from Damaturu in Yobe also highlighted stories of collaboration within each other.

Salma Jumah, Senior Programme Officer of the Foundation, noted that the fellowship’s success reflects the power of knowledge and collaboration. “The learning session with the Accountability Fellows has shown us that they have built a strong network and a remarkable trail of impact. Hearing from participants across all cohorts, we’ve seen significant accomplishments and stories of change that speak to the strength of this community,” Salma said.

From classrooms to radio stations, and from local advocacy groups to international platforms, the fellows of the HumAngle Accountability Fellowship continue to inspire change and promote accountability and transparency in both private and public sectors across northeastern Nigeria.

North Korea showcased its newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-20, during a military parade in Pyongyang overseen by leader Kim Jong Un. The missile is believed to be capable of reaching anywhere on the US mainland.

SEOUL, Oct. 11 (UPI) — North Korea showed off its new Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade, state-run media reported on Saturday, touting it as the North’s “most powerful nuclear strategic weapon.”

The parade, held on Friday night at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, was attended by foreign dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Vietnamese Communist Party chief To Lam and Russian ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The event marked the 80th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and highlighted the North’s recent diplomatic outreach efforts as well as its growing military strength.

After a fireworks show and 21-gun salute, thousands of marching troops paraded past the grandstand, followed by a procession of military hardware, according to KCNA.

“The spectators broke into the most enthusiastic cheers when the column of Hwasongpho-20 ICBMs, the most powerful nuclear strategic weapon system of the DPRK, entered the square,” the KCNA report said.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Also on display were medium- and long-range strategic missiles, drone launch vehicles, Chonma-20 battle tanks, 155mm howitzers and 600mm multiple rocket launchers, KCNA said.

In his remarks, Kim praised the “ideological and spiritual perfection” of North Korea’s military and called for its continued development.

“Our army should continue to grow into an invincible entity that destroys all threats approaching our range of self-defense,” he said. “It should steadily strengthen itself into elite armed forces which win victory after victory.”

Analysts had been anticipating the unveiling of the Hwasong-20 ICBM at Friday’s parade. Last month, Kim oversaw the final test of a new solid-fuel engine made with composite carbon fiber materials that he said would be used for the new ICBM.

Missiles using solid-fuel propellants have long been on Kim’s wish list of weapons, as they can be transported and launched more quickly than liquid-fuel models. North Korea has unveiled several long-range missiles that analysts believe are capable of reaching the continental United States.

It remains to be seen whether Pyongyang has the atmospheric re-entry vehicle technology to successfully deliver a nuclear payload, however.

Images released by KCNA showed Kim flanked by Chinese Premier Li and Vietnam’s To Lam, with Medvedev next to Lam. The parade comes as the isolated regime is making a renewed diplomatic push onto the international stage.

Last month, Kim traveled to Beijing to attend a military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, where he stood shoulder to shoulder with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During that visit, Kim held his first summit with Xi in six years, as ties between the longtime allies show signs of warming after a suspected rift over Pyongyang’s growing military alignment with Moscow.

On Thursday, Kim held one-on-one talks with Vietnam’s Lam and China’s Li, considered to be the second-in-command to Xi, according to KCNA.

At an event held on the eve of the anniversary, Kim vowed to transform North Korea into a “more affluent and beautiful land” and a “socialist paradise.”

Wales’ World Cup qualifying fate is back in their own hands after group rivals Belgium and North Macedonia cancelled each other out.

North Macedonia top Group J after holding out for a goalless draw in Ghent against second-place Belgium, who travel to Cardiff on Monday.

Wales are third ahead of that game knowing they will secure automatic qualification for the 2026 tournament if they win their remaining three games.

North Macedonia lead the group standings with 12 points from six games, one point ahead of Belgium and two ahead of Wales, who both have a game in hand.

The team finishing second will enter the play-offs in March, while Wales could even make that stage by finishing third following their performance in the Nations League last year.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un vowed to turn the country into a ‘socialist paradise’ during a huge ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Kim Jong Un claims no mistakes made in 80-year history of ruling party at event attended by Chinese and Russian leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared the country’s global standing is growing stronger and promised to transform the country into an “affluent socialist paradise” during an event marking the 80th anniversary of the governing Workers’ Party of Korea, according to state media.

At a speech at May Day stadium in Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim said the party had not made “a single mistake or error” in its 80-year history, leading the country on a path of ascent riding on the wisdom and strength of the people, KCNA state news agency said on Friday.

“Today, we stand before the world as a mighty people with no obstacles we cannot overcome and no great achievement we cannot accomplish,” he said, KCNA reported.

North Korea has long been one of the most isolated and insular nations in the world, suffering economic difficulties while building up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

Friday’s events follow Kim’s visit to Beijing last month for China’s 80th anniversary of its World War II victory, standing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a massive military parade in his first public appearance on the multilateral diplomatic stage.

United States President Donald Trump suggested that Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders were conspiring against the United States as they gathered in Beijing, saying “no one even had this in their thoughts”.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote to China’s leader Xi Jinping at the time: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

KCNA did not name the guests attending Thursday’s events. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Vietnamese leader To Lam and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev had arrived in Pyongyang to attend anniversary celebrations, state media had reported.

Mass games and art performances were held at the stadium, with Kim accompanied by guests whom the large crowd gathered greeted with cheers “that shook the capital’s night sky”, KCNA said.

Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton, reporting from Seoul, said according to a South Korean government adviser, North Korea was “no longer the most isolated state in the world”.

“The message here is also … that he has consolidated his power at home and now increasingly on the international stage,” Barton added.

Kim talks tough on US and promises to build a ‘socialist paradise’

Kim said that North Korea has been pushing for the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy to cope with “growing nuclear war threats by the US imperialists”, according to state media.

“Our party and government are still coping with our adversaries’ ferocious political and military moves of pressure by pursuing harder-line policies, holding fast to firm principles and employing brave, unflinching countermeasures,” Kim said.

“This is powerfully propelling the growth of the progressive camp against war and hegemony.”

Last month, Kim Jong Un had suggested that he is open to talks with the US if Washington stops insisting that his country give up its nuclear weapons.

“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearising us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” Kim said in late September.

Kim on Friday also expressed confidence in overcoming difficulties and drastically improving the economy in the near future. “I will surely turn this country into a more affluent and beautiful land and into the best socialist paradise in the world,” Kim said.

The North Korean leader also held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday, praising the two countries’ “friendly and cooperative relations”.

Kim praised Li’s visit as “showing the invariable support and special friendly feeling towards the WPK and the government and people of the DPRK” as well as Beijing’s efforts to maintain “traditional DPRK-China friendly and cooperative relations and further develop them”, KCNA reported.

In “The Last Frontier,” which premieres Friday on Apple TV+, a plane carrying federal prisoners goes down in the Alaskan wilderness outside a town where Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke) is the U.S. Marshal. Eighteen passengers survive, among them a sort of super-soldier we will come to know as Havlock (Dominic Cooper). Sad intelligence agent Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett) is sent to the scene by her dodgy superior (American treasure Alfre Woodard).

I won’t go into it in depth, especially given the enormous number of reveals and reversals that make up the plot; pretty much everything not written here constitutes a spoiler. The production is excellent, with well-executed set pieces — the plane crash, a tug-of-war between a helicopter and a giant bus, a fight on a train, a fight on a dam. (I do have issues with the songs on the soundtrack, which tend to kill rather than enhance the mood.) The large cast, which includes Simone Kessell as Frank’s wife, Sarah — they have just about put a family trauma behind them when opportunities for new trauma arise — and Dallas Goldtooth, William Knifeman on “Reservation Dogs,” as Frank’s right hand, Hutch, is very good.

It’s as violent as you’d expect from a show that sets 18 desperate criminals loose upon the landscape, which you may consider an attraction or deal killer. (I don’t know you.) At 10 episodes, with a lot of plot to keep in order, it can be confusing — even the characters will say, “It’s complicated” or “It’s not that simple,” when asked to explain something — and some of the emotional arcs seem strange, especially when characters turn out to be not who they seem. Things get pretty nutty by the end, but all in all it’s an interesting ride.

But that’s not what I came here to discuss. I’d like to talk about snow.

There’s a lot of snow in “The Last Frontier.” The far-north climate brings weather into the picture, literally. Snow can be beautiful, or an obstacle. It can be a blanket, as in Eliot’s “Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow,” or a straitjacket, as in 2023’s “A Murder at the End of the World,” a Christie-esque murder mystery that trapped the suspects in an Icelandic luxury hotel. It’s part of the aesthetic and part of the action, which it can slow, or stop. It can be deadly, disorienting, as when a blizzard erases the landscape (see the first season of “Fargo”). And it requires the right clothes — mufflers, fur collars, wool caps, big boots, gloves — which communicate coziness even as they underscore the cold.

The snowy landscape in shows like “The Last Frontier” is part of the aesthetic and action.

(Apple)

Even when it doesn’t affect the plot directly, it’s the canvas the story is painted on, its whiteness of an intensity not otherwise seen on the screen, except in starship hallways. (It turns a moody blue after dark, magnifying the sense of mystery.) Growing up in Southern California — I didn’t see real snow until I was maybe 10? — I was trained by the movies and TV, where all Christmases are white if the budget allows, to understand its meaning.

It was enough that “The Last Frontier” was set in Alaska (filmed in Quebec and Alberta) to pique my interest, as it had been for “Alaska Daily,” a sadly short-lived 2022 ABC series with Hilary Swank and Secwépemc actor Grace Dove as reporters looking into overlooked cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women. This may go back to my affection for “Northern Exposure” (set in Alaska, filmed in Washington state), with its storybook town and colorful characters, most of whom came from somewhere else, with Rob Morrow’s New York doctor the fish out of water; “Men in Trees” (filmed in British Columbia, set in Alaska) sent Anne Heche’s New York relationship coach down a similar trail. “Lilyhammer,” another favorite and the first “exclusive” Netflix series, found Steven Van Zandt as an American mobster in witness protection in a Norwegian small town; there was a ton of snow in that show.

It serves the fantastic and supernatural as well. The polar episodes of “His Dark Materials” and “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” the icebound sailing ships of “The Terror” live large in my mind; and there’s no denying the spooky, claustrophobic power of “Night Country,” the fourth season of “True Detective,” which begins on the night of the last sunset for six months, its fictional town an oasis of light in a desert of black. In another key, “North of North,” another remote small town comedy, set in Canada’s northernmost territory among the Indigenous Inuit people is one of my best-loved shows of 2025.

But the allure of the north is nothing new. Jack London’s Yukon-set “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild” — which became an Animal Planet series for a season in 2000 — entranced readers back around the turn of the 19th century and are still being read today.

Of course, any setting can be exotic if it’s unfamiliar. (And invisible if it’s not, or annoying — if snow is a thing you have to shovel off your walk, its charm evaporates.) Every environment suggests or shapes the stories that are set there; even were the plots identical, a mystery set in Amarillo, for example, would play differently than one set in Duluth or Lafayette.

I’ll take Alaska.