North Korea News Podcast by NK News

NK News Correspondent Jooheon Kim joins the podcast this week to discuss Ahn Hak-sop, a 95-year-old former North Korean soldier and so-called unconverted prisoner of war who is seeking repatriation to the DPRK after decades in the South. He also talks about the controversy surrounding ROK police investigations into defector remittances to relatives in the North, which have focused attention on leg...

On today’s episode, Kornel Chang discusses his new book “A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under U.S. Occupation,” which sheds light on the period from 1945 to 1950 when the country was divided into the North and South. Chang describes how the immediate post-liberation “opening” was more fluid than commonly portrayed, with ordinary Koreans pursuing varied aspirations that did not map neatly onto left-...

NK News Executive Director Jeongmin Kim joins the podcast to discuss the story of a North Korean defector in her 70s who is under investigation for allegedly leaking the locations of fellow escapees to Pyongyang’s secret police, as well as the daring maritime defection of a North Korean who swam across the Han River estuary. She also talks about the recent decision by South Korea and the U.S. to p...

On this week’s episode, Maeng Hyo-shim, a young woman who fled North Korea in 2018, joins the podcast to share her experiences of state discrimination, systemic neglect and a violent attack against her disabled mother which led her family to escape the DPRK. Born in Hyesan in 2001, Maeng shares her memories of life growing up under the Kim regime, where people with disabilities were routinely excl...

On this week’s episode, NK News Data Analyst Anton Sokolin unpacks major construction updates on the Russia–DPRK car bridge project near the Tumen River.  He also breaks down the ambitious trilateral initiative to launch historical boat tours connecting China, Russia and North Korea along the same river as well as new direct flights between Moscow and Pyongyang and a Russian military aircraft’s my...

The flurry of summitry in 2018-19 between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in inspired hopes for a breakthrough on resolving a decades-old conflict, only for talks to collapse without any progress on the DPRK nuclear issue. This week, historian John Delury returns to the podcast to revisit that heady time on the Korean Peninsula and e...

North Korea broke its relative silence about the new South Korean administration of Lee Jae-myung on Monday, with the DPRK leader’s sister Kim Yo Jong dismissing the president’s peace overtures and attacking Seoul’s alliance with the U.S. NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins the podcast to discuss why North Korea’s proverbial “bad cop” suddenly weighed in on inter-Korean ties and what Py...

North Korea’s ruling Kim family has orchestrated not one but two leadership successions during its over seven decades in power, and may well be preparing for a third. But the success of such transitions in authoritarian states is far from certain and depends in large part on how rulers manage the elites that compose their power base, a new book argues. This week, researchers Edward Goldring and Pe...

South Korea’s National Assembly questioned the Lee administration’s nominees for key positions last week, including the ministers of unification, defense, foreign affairs and labor, and North Korea issues ended up playing a prominent role at all of the hearings. NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast this week to discuss the main takeaways from the hearing, and to explain why the que...

In this episode, Professor Andrei Lankov and NK News’ Anton Sokolin discuss the fascinating story of the Yankovskys — a Russian family whose journey took them from Siberian exile to colonial Korea, and ultimately, to the heart of North Korea's tumultuous 20th-century history. The discussion centers on the family’s time in what became the DPRK after relocating from Siberia, where they ran a tiger h...

NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins this week’s episode to discuss Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s high-profile visit to the newly opened Wonsan Kalma beach resort, where he met Kim Jong Un aboard a luxury yacht. He also dissects emerging signs that North Korea is preparing for a military parade and possible mass games to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Worker...

Dr. Shinyong Kwon joins this week’s episode to discuss how neighborhood associations — known today as inminban in the DPRK — have been used as tools of governance, social indoctrination and moral authority. She explains how these associations originated from East Asian communal traditions but were reshaped under Japanese colonial rule to serve wartime mobilization and state control and traces how...

Seoul last week said it cannot confirm a CNN report that North Korea plans to send 30,000 additional soldiers to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, amid conflicting intelligence assessments.  While Ukraine’s military intelligence suggested the deployment is imminent, its chief Kyrylo Budanov said no buildup has yet been observed, instead predicting voluntary enlistment of DPRK nationals into Russian...

Professor Mitsuhito Mimura, a leading Japanese expert on the North Korean economy, joins this week’s podcast for an in-depth discussion on the DPRK’s economic resilience, shifting trade patterns and deepening ties with China and Russia. With over 35 trips to North Korea under his belt, Mimura shares rare insights into how Pyongyang sustains infrastructure growth under heavy sanctions, how unoffici...

North Korea finally opened the long-delayed Wonsan Kalma mega resort on the east coast last week, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for a “new era” of tourism. But with the tourism zone boasting over 50 hotels and capacity for 20,000 tourists, questions remain about who will actually visit the resort as the country keeps its doors closed to most foreigners. This week, NK News Correspondent Jooheon K...

In this episode, Norwegian artist and director Morten Traavik and cultural mediator Sun Kim discuss their new documentary “North South Man Woman.” The film explores the emotional complexities of North Korean defectors trying to build lives — and relationships — in South Korea, with a special focus on matchmaking between DPRK women and ROK men. Traavik and Kim reflect on the documentary’s five-year...

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has announced nominations for several key positions handling North Korean issues, continuing to select pro-engagement officials for inter-Korean roles. NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park talks about the latest appointments, as well as South Korea’s live-fire artillery exercises near the inter-Korean border and North Korea’s launch of about 10 artillery rockets...

Dr. Dong Jin Kim, a leading peace studies scholar with research experience spanning Korea, Ireland, Cyprus and South Africa, joins the podcast to explore how divided societies navigate conflict, peacebuilding and reconciliation, as well as lessons from these cases for the Korean Peninsula. Examining Ireland’s journey, he argues that lasting peace depends on sustained community engagement and mutua...

Israel’s dramatic strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s retaliation have dominated headlines in recent days, and North Korea is no doubt paying close attention. NK News CEO Chad O’Caroll joins the podcast to talk about what lessons North Korea might be drawing from the clashes and U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, including the importance of deterrence and missile capabilities and the value of sec...

This week, Balazs Szalontai returns to the podcast to explore the overlooked history of North Korea’s relationship with countries across the Middle East and North Africa. The expert discusses how Pyongyang navigated ideological contradictions, opportunistic diplomacy and shifting global alliances throughout the Cold War, touching on the DPRK’s ties with Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Iraq and more. He also...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a hospital construction site in Kusong on Monday, where he criticized the skills of the military conscripts he frequently mobilizes for major state construction projects. NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins the podcast to talk about Kim's comments, as well the voyage by North Korea’s damaged destroyer to a shipyard in the northeast for...

In this episode, NK News welcomes back Professor Moon Chung-in, one of South Korea’s most influential scholars of inter-Korean relations to assess the landscape on the peninsula today and what prospects remain for diplomacy. He discusses why he believes North Korea has officially abandoned unification in its current form, how inter-Korean engagement has become increasingly constrained by global ge...

North Korea’s new warship remains submerged on its side more than 10 days after the embarrassing failure to side-launch the vessel last month, despite DPRK experts’ confidence that they could right the ship. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made only a passing mention of North Korea at the Shangri-La Dialogue over the weekend, even as officials talked behind the scenes about wanting U.S. Forces...

A year and a half ago, North Korea made waves when it announced that it was abandoning the goal of inter-Korean reunification. Now, South Koreans are getting ready to head to the ballot box to elect a new president, with their pick set to shape Seoul’s policy toward a neighbor that now views the South as a “hostile, enemy state.” On this week’s episode, Dr. Tomasz Wierzbowski and Dr. J.R. Kim join...

Just one week remains until South Koreans head to the polls in the snap election to replace impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol, setting up potential changes in how Seoul approaches North Korea, the U.S. alliance and more. NK News Executive Director Jeongmin Kim joins the podcast to unpack where the major and minor candidates stand on DPRK policy — and whether they’re avoiding the topic altogether....