North Korean state media continued its heavy focus on rice transplanting this week, underscoring how agriculture is key to the regime’s domestic priorities. Drought conditions had previously weighed heavily on planting progress for wheat and barley crops, but rainfall this week offered timely relief for a country facing chronic food shortages.

In a milestone for the country’s energy sector, North Korea finally completed the first stage of the Tanchon Power Station, a mega project launched in 2018 that leader Kim Jong Un referenced on multiple occasions. Its completion is expected to expand electricity generation capacity in