North Korean people line up on the street side and welcome the motorcade of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea, 19 June 2024. The Russian president is on a state visit to North Korea from 18-19 June at the invitation of the North Korean leader. He last visited North Korea in 2000, shortly after his first inauguration as president. (Photo by Gavriil Grigorov/EPA/EFE)

Domestic tourists visit the beach at Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area in Wonsan, North Korea's Kangwon Province on July 1, 2025. North Korea opened a massive resort area on its east coast, state media said on July 2, with the tourism pet project of leader Kim Jong Un reportedly set to welcome Russian guests later this month. (Photo by Kim Won Jin/AFP Photo)

An African immigrant tries to jump a fence into a ferry terminal in the western Greek town of Patras April 28, 2015. Afghan, Iranian and Sudanese immigrants, living precariously in abandoned factories in Patras, southwest Greece, try to stow away on nearby ferries to Italy as they seek a better life in Europe beyond crisis-hit Greece. (Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

North Korean soldiers wave along the Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite to the Chinese border city of Dandong October 7, 2014. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)

A man carrying an axe walks past a house marked with bullet holes in Gyallesu district after recent clashes between Shi'ites and the army in Zaria, Kaduna state, Nigeria, February 3, 2016. Sectarian tensions are rising in Nigeria's Muslim north, where hundreds of Shi'ites were killed in clashes with the army in the town of Zaria in December, according to Shi'ites and rights groups. Following the clashes, bulldozers sent by the state levelled Shi'ite shrines, a cemetery and offices in the deeply divided town. The region is already grappling with an insurgency waged by the jihadist Boko Haram group. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

A soldier walks on the bank of the river in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 16, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A woman travels on a train stopping at a subway station visited by foreign reporters in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Associated Press photographer Wong Maye-E tries to get her North Korean subjects to open up as much as is possible in an authoritarian country with no tolerance for dissent and great distrust of foreigners. She has taken dozens of portraits of North Koreans over the past three years, often after breaking the ice by taking photos with an instant camera and sharing them. Her question for everyone she photographs: What is your motto? Their answers reflect both their varied lives and the government that looms incessantly over all of them. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)