North Korea News Podcast by NK News

In this episode, veteran KBS journalist Bong Seung Shin shares his experience reporting from North Korea and communicating with journalists on the ground in the country.

Shin first traveled to Pyongyang in 2008, crossing the demilitarized zone by air as part of a trip organized by an NGO. He describes the excitement of entering North Korea for the first time, the strict media controls he faced and the challenge of filming under constant supervision.

A decade later, in 2018, Shin led KBS coverage of inter-Korean events from Seoul, coordinating live broadcasts with his team stationed in Pyongyang. He explains how they managed to send footage, the professionalism of North Korean media workers and how journalists on both sides found common ground despite political barriers.

Reflecting on both trips, Shin discusses what these experiences taught him about inter-Korean relations, the divided culture of the two Koreas and his hope to one day open a KBS bureau in Pyongyang.

Bong Seung Shin (신봉승) is a TV journalist with South Korea’s state-owned broadcaster KBS. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

NK News founder Chad O’Carroll joins the podcast this week to unpack the busy week ahead on the Korean Peninsula as APEC kicks off and U.S. President Donald Trump heads to South Korea.

He discusses the growing speculation over whether Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time in over six years, and explores signs that the DPRK may be keeping the door open for such diplomacy. 

He also talks about the appointment of Kevin Kim as the new acting U.S. chargé d’affaires in Seoul, as well as Kim Jong Un’s visit to a cemetery for Chinese soldiers who fought in the Korean War. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

This week, historian Remco Breuker explores how Pyongyang has built illicit networks that operate far beyond its borders to oversee labor exports, arrange business deals and traffic arms.

He reflects on the collapse of the U.N. Panel of Experts that once tracked sanctions violations, warning that the world has lost a vital mechanism for understanding and constraining North Korea’s overseas operations.

He also argues for rebuilding expertise on the country’s financial and labor networks to regain leverage, while questioning the effectiveness and ethics of existing sanctions. 

Remco Breuker is a historian who works on medieval Korean and Northeast Asian history and on contemporary North Korean affairs. Since 2014, he has been working on making the voices of elite exiles from the DPRK heard in academic debates. He is the author of a number of books about North Korea, most recently “De Wereld volgens Noord-Korea” (“The World According to North Korea”).

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

This week, NK News Correspondent Jooheon Kim joins the podcast to discuss the North Korean soldier who crossed the inter-Korean border over the weekend, marking the first confirmed military defection under the Lee Jae-myung administration. 

He also talks about next week’s APEC Summit in Gyeongju. With former U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to attend, speculation is growing over whether Trump might reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for an impromptu meeting. 

Finally, he breaks down new details on North Korea’s diplomatic and defense interactions with Southeast Asian nations, particularly Indonesia and Vietnam, around the recent party anniversary celebrations.

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

For a brief period after Korea’s liberation, a cross-peninsula postage system shuttled letters across the 38th parallel, linking the Soviet-led north and U.S.-led south. 

This week, postal expert Tony Bard and historian JiHoon Suk join the podcast to explore this forgotten link and the logistics, politics and human stories behind the letter exchanges. They also reflect on the lasting significance of the inter-Korean postal system and the lack of any regular mail contact in the 75 years since its demise.

Anthony Bard is editor of The London Philatelist and a member of the Royal Philatelic Society London. He collects North and South Korean postal history from 1945, with a focus on Korean War material and post-Armistice commissions.

JiHoon Suk is a Korean historian completing his Ph.D. at Yonsei University, specializing in early modern Korean history.

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

This week, Korea Risk Group Executive Director Jeongmin Kim and Senior Analytical Correspondent Colin Zwirko unpack North Korea’s military parade in Pyongyang for the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea. 

They explore how the event demonstrated both a commitment to spectacle and restraint, featuring more than 100,000 soldiers but fewer weapons in years past. They also dig into parade references to North Korea’s support of the war in Ukraine, the debut of new weapons like the Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile and the high-profile foreign dignitaries on hand from China, Russia and Vietnam.

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

This week, Chandana Seshadri joins the podcast to discuss her RUSI Journal article, “How DPRK IT Workers Exploit Identity Management Vulnerabilities,” which documents how North Korean workers slip through remote-hiring systems to earn hard currency and open doors for bigger cyber operations. 

The researcher highlights the case of Christina Chapman — a U.S. citizen who helped DPRK workers get remote jobs through “laptop farms” — as a key example of how ordinary employment channels can be manipulated for sanctions evasion. She also explains how the rapid shift to remote work after COVID-19 opened new vulnerabilities for infiltration, as companies often skip in-person verification and identity checks.

Seshadri calls for international working groups to share best practices and red flags while respecting privacy laws, while stressing the issue is not only relevant to cybersecurity but also national security and sanctions enforcement.

Chandana Seshadri is a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center’s 38 North and former research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), specializing in the intersection of sanctions, financial crime and cyber threats with a focus on North Korea. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

NK News’ Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko unpacks the key developments ahead of North Korea’s Oct. 10 military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea. He begins by discussing Pyongyang’s latest weapons exhibition, where state media previewed an unmanned surface vehicle — a type of naval drone — and explains that while the display appears designed to showcase technological progress, doubts remain over Pyongyang’s ability to control such systems without satellite communications support.  

He also talks about the DPRK’s naval ambitions, including Kim Jong Un’s recent inspection of new destroyers and the troubled rollout of the country’s corvette program, as well as the long-delayed opening of the Pyongyang General Hospital, a massive medical facility first promised in 2020. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

James Heenan, the representative of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul, joins the podcast this week to unpack the High Commissioner’s new update on human rights in the DPRK — an effort to take stock of the situation in the country 11 years after the landmark U.N. Commission of Inquiry report.

Several activists have argued that the update offers little in the way of new revelations and falls short by not naming key perpetrators. But Heenan contends that its value lies elsewhere: It is the most comprehensive trend analysis to date, built on 314 victim and witness testimonies gathered over the past decade and backed by dozens of U.N. documents.

He outlines what the report has to say about North Korea’s tightening system of repression — rooted in state ideology, codified punishments and forced labor — and weighs in on what meaningful public action looks like now.

James Heenan is the representative for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul. He previously served as the head of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Palestine and has also worked in academia on labor rights issues and as a practicing lawyer in the U.K. and Australia. He last appeared on episode 325 of the NK News podcast. 

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss President Lee Jae-myung’s first speech to the U.N. General Assembly and his debut of a new acronym for his peace road map — “E.N.D.,” short for exchange, normalization and denuclearization.

He also talks about Seoul's unification minister’s controversial “two states” remarks, Lee’s calls for greater military self-reliance and North Korea’s latest diplomatic outreach to China, with Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui meeting her counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.