NGO

• The FINN Global Health Impact Group is championed by Gil Bashe, Chair Global Health and Purpose, with support from Fern Lazar, managing partner, Global Health Lead; Amy Terpeluk, managing partner, CSR and Social Impact Lead; and Jessica Berk Ross, managing partner, Global Public Affairs Lead.
• The Global Health Impact Group will work alongside the FINN Purpose and Social Impact Practice, which focuses on climate, diversity, environment, and sustainability priorities.
• FINN Global Health Impact meets the needs of clients committed to solving issues at the intersection of climate and health."
• The FINN Global Health Impact Group will do its part to head off the impact of those challenges."

• Coalition members seek to leverage the U.S. experience in veteran policy to address Ukrainian needs and prepare a report for the U.S. Congress on this matter.
• As the head of the Institute for Democracy and Development "PolitA," Kateryna Odarchenko remarked that Ukraine is learning from its American counterparts, who possess years of experience in veteran support.
• Insights and advice from experts in veteran policy, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
• Conference participants formed a working group tasked with developing an Action Plan to adapt U.S. veteran policy experience to Ukrainian realities.

• ABU DHABI, UAE, Feb. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As a member of the WTO Director-General Business Advisory Group, Founder, Chairperson, and CEO of DHGATE Group Diane Wang was invited to speak at the recent 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO MC13) in Abu Dhabi.
• Through DHGATE Group, Diane has been actively pursuing initiatives to overcome these challenges and empower vulnerable groups, such as through providing resources, digital tools, and training and education for trade skills.
• The biennial Ministerial Conference is the world's topmost decision-making body for multilateral trade agreements.
• "The WTO plays a very important role through promoting policies, encouraging public-private collaboration, and encouraging cooperation between countries.

• Consuming and sharing foreign media in North Korea can be punishable by death.
• However, North Korea closed its borders during the COVID pandemic, and since then the steady flow of escapees has slowed considerably.
• This has prompted North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to adopt increasingly harsh measures to combat access to illegal media.

Crackdown

• Shortly after inheriting the leadership in 2011, Kim tried a number of relatively soft approaches to controlling foreign media access, alongside continued punitive measures.
• This law sets out specific punishments for both viewers and distributors of foreign media, going further than the existing criminal code.
• At the same time, Kim has publicly condemned K-Pop (pop music originating in South Korea) as a “vicious cancer” permeating North Korean society.

Changing hearts and minds

• North Korean escapees have also reported paying keen attention to the settings they saw in films and dramas.
• Modern streets, cars and homes, with people displaying relative freedom of choice, expression and movement, all offer North Koreans a glimpse into life under capitalism.
• A similar campaign condemns young North Koreans for showing affection in public and mimicking “western style” dating culture.

Building social bonds

• It also unsettles the government’s ability to maintain a culture of suspicion and mistrust between citizens.
• This could potentially generate social change.

• Foreign diplomats, humanitarian aid workers and tourists are not yet allowed back into North Korea following the pandemic.
• So, combined with many fewer escapees arriving in the South, it is difficult to know whether foreign media access and consumption has declined since 2020.

Sarah A. Son does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.