SEOUL — When Ri Il Gyu, North Korea's No. 2 diplomat in Cuba, finally decided to flee to South Korea in frustration over his highly repressive, corrupt country in November, he finished all necessary preparatory work alone. About a week later, he told his family to be ready to leave the Caribbean nation together in less than eight hours.

'My wife first told me not to make such a dreadful joke. So I showed her our plane tickets, and she was speechless,' Ri said in an interview with the Associated Press (AP) on Friday. 'I told my kid that there is no future or hope for North Korea.'