“North South Man Woman” co-director Sun Kim returns to the NK News Podcast to discuss the five-year process of making the documentary, which follows North Korean defector Yoojin Han and her matchmaking agency connecting North Korean women with South Korean men. Kim explains how a chance encounter with longtime collaborator Morten Traavik in North Korea […]

Korea Risk Group Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins this week’s podcast to discuss the latest signals from Pyongyang following President Donald Trump’s renewed outreach to Kim Jong Un and the decision to shorten the Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises from 11 days to five. He breaks down two recent statements from Kim Yo Jong, […]

Donald Trump is once again reaching out to Kim Jong Un, praising their personal relationship, calling for a reduction in U.S.-South Korea military exercises and claiming the North Korean leader has responded “very positively.” This week, NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins the podcast to unpack what Trump actually said, how closely it resembles […]

Jeongmin Kim hosts this week’s NK News Podcast and is joined by Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko to discuss a series of recent satellite imagery investigations into North Korea’s military infrastructure, beginning with an unusual new facility at a factory producing short-range ballistic missiles supplied to Russia. Colin explains why North Korea built and then […]

Former U.N. official Jerome Sauvage joins this week’s podcast to discuss his new book, Witness to North Korea: Three Years on the Ground in the DPRK, which recounts his posting in Pyongyang from late 2009 to early 2013. He explains why he accepted one of the U.N.’s most difficult assignments and what it took to […]

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins this week’s podcast to discuss Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that Russia has requested another 30,000 North Korean troops for its war against Ukraine. He explains how realistic a deployment of that size would be, why Russia may be preparing facilities in the Voronezh region and whether DPRK […]

This month, Dr. Rüdiger Frank joins North Korea Unpacked with Jacco Zwetsloot to discuss how decades of marketization have transformed North Korea’s economy and society, and why old assumptions about engagement and pressure may no longer apply. He talks about the emergence of what he describes as a sizable North Korean middle class, how smartphones, […]

This week, the NK News Podcast presents a special episode on one of the most unlikely stories in World Cup history: North Korea’s extraordinary run at the 1966 tournament and the English town that embraced the team as its own. Sixty years after the DPRK stunned Italy and reached the quarterfinals, this episode revisits how […]

NK News Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin joins this week’s podcast to discuss North Korea’s deepening ties with China and Russia, starting with Premier Pak Thae Song’s meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing during a visit marking the 65th anniversary of the China-DPRK alliance treaty. He also previews Wang Huning’s upcoming visit to Pyongyang and explains […]

NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins this week’s podcast to discuss North Korea’s naval modernization push, from Kim Jong Un’s latest cruise missile test from the Kang Kon destroyer to the recent commissioning of the Choe Hyon, the country’s first 5,000-ton warship to formally enter service. He also breaks down his latest NK […]