- Brighton Beach is a neighborhood on Lake Washington in southeast Seattle. It is just south of the Bailey Peninsula (home to Seward Park) and extends from the lake over Graham Hill, across the Rainier Valley, and up the side of Beacon Hill, generally between S Othello Street on the south and S Orcas Street on the north. English immigrants who purchased lots there in the 1880s named the neighborhood for a resort town in England. Before that the area had been home to Duwamish Indians who had a village called hah-HAO-hlch (“forbidden place”) just south of Bailey Peninsula, and then to settlers who logged the huge trees, built farms, orchards, and a schoolhouse, and platted house lots.
- World Report 2024: North Korea (hrw.org)
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found that the government committed systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity. Ruled by third-generation totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, the government maintains fearful obedience by using threats of torture, executions, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced labor. It systematically denies basic liberties, including freedom of expression, association, and religion. It does not tolerate pluralism, and it bans independent media, civil society organizations, and trade unions.