North Korea has punished more than 10 military officials as the crackdown on illegal foreign media shifted to focus on high-ranking cadres and their families.

A source told Radio Free Asia that “[an] official of a trading company directly under the Ministry of Defense was caught with three South Korean movies, 10 Japanese pornographic movies, and seven South Korean dramas, including ‘Crash Landing on You,’ and ‘Descendants of the Sun,’ and five American movies…he was punished after the inspection.” “Crash Landing on You” is about a South Korean woman who mistakenly crosses the border into North Korea and falls in love with a North Korean soldier, while the main protagonist of “Descendants of the Sun” is a South Korean Special Forces soldier.

The daughter of the Head of a branch political department of the Ministry of State Security (“MSS”) and her boyfriend were publicly executed for watching and distributing South Korean films, soap operas, and entertainment programs in Pyongsong, including a cooking show “Baek Jong-won's Alley Restaurant,” among others. Though the lives of her father and other family members were spared, they were sent to a political prison camp.

North Korean authorities judged that the couple was able to avoid registering their imported computer with the MSS and engage in illegal copying of videos because they were protected by the father’s position at the MSS.

Approximately 300 people reportedly watched the execution, while about 20 people accused of taking part in distributing the videos and the MSS officials were given front row seats to the execution before being arrested for participating in or overlooking the illegal distribution of videos.

The recent announcement that Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin, stars of the South Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” are getting married has become a hot topic in North Korea. 

One woman in her 30’s from North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK that “[these] characters shared a special love in the show, and people are saying they want to run up and congratulate them personally [about the marriage]...I hope to live in a world where everyone is comfortable with one another and young people from both Koreas can fall in love.”

Another woman in her 20’s who lives in Pyongyang told Daily NK that “I think Jong Hyok and Se Ri’s love is memorable as it’s a love that transcends different systems, political views, and nations.” After news of the marriage broke, it became trendy for North Koreans to watch the drama “Crash Landing on You” again.

A third woman in her 40’s told Daily NK that even officials charged with cracking down on foreign media content have watched the drama with their families, laughing and crying the whole time. 

Two years ago, authorities responsible for a North Korean greenhouse project ordered residents from a rural farm village in Kyongsong county, North Hamgyong Province, to grow vegetables. In return, the authorities promised to provide the villagers with more vegetables than they could ever eat. However, the food was shipped to Pyongyang for the country’s elites, a source told Radio Free Asia.

The farm sits on 490 acres of land and includes about 300 greenhouses, and “[last] week, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that the Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm had produced about 10,000 tons of fresh produce, including cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and crown daisy [which is a popular leafy vegetable],” said the source. The newspaper report said that the vegetables were delivered to the people of the province last year, “[but] in actuality, ordinary residents of Kyongsong county have never been given a single vegetable grown from those greenhouses,” the source added, “[they] worked for over a year. Not many people complained because they had the hope that they would be able to eat their fill of vegetables in the very near future.”

The Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm was a pilot program and the government has plans to expand the program. For instance, according to a Kyongsong resident, another greenhouse farm is already under construction in nearby South Hamgyong Province’s Hamju county, “[the] residents of Hamju county have been mobilized for the construction work. Even when they complete their new greenhouse farm, they will never have a chance to eat any of the veggies...[when] they were building the greenhouse farm up here in Jungphyong, the local housewives supported the construction effort, even sending in homemade soil for use in the farms. Despite their personal sacrifices, the housewives never received any vegetables.”

The second source also claimed that high-ranking officials who live nearby would drive by the farms and take the vegetables as they please.

Three hours after Yoon Suk-yeol was elected President of South Korea, North Korea announced that it will soon launch a military spy satellite, a move that is speculated to circumvent the ban on long-range missile testing by the UN Security Council.

“We are aware of the growing North Korean nuclear threat, and amid the tensions of the U.S.-China strategic competition, we are also faced with the task of strengthening our global diplomatic capabilities...to protect people’s safety, property, territory and sovereignty,” Yoon said in a speech on election day, adding that South Korea would also “build a strong national defense force.”

According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un noted that the satellite will provide “real-time information” on the movements of “the aggression troops of the U.S. imperialism and its vassal forces” in the region. In response, the U.S. military announced that it is stepping up intelligence and surveillance efforts near North Korea, as well as increasing readiness of its ballistic missile defense forces.

Yoon’s administration will likely align South Korea with the U.S., and allow President Biden’s administration to “articulate its North Korea policy more clearly without fearing friction with Seoul,” said Go Myong-hyon, a research fellow at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.