Podcasts about Pyongyang

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson's life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances. This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan. Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church's response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson's life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances. This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan. Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church's response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson's life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances. This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan. Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church's response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson's life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances. This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan. Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church's response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

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.

Watch this episode on YouTube.LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman join host Cliff May to explain why diplomacy only works when backed by force. From Gaza to Ukraine, they trace how strength — not illusions — shapes outcomes and frustrates the ambitions of the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang has expressed the country's readiness to strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic communication with North Korea. He met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Thursday.

Watch this episode on YouTube.LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster and Brad Bowman join host Cliff May to explain why diplomacy only works when backed by force. From Gaza to Ukraine, they trace how strength — not illusions — shapes outcomes and frustrates the ambitions of the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang.

Adventure photographer Dan Milner has spent three decades turning a bike into a passport. From North Korea to Afghanistan, from camping among polar bears in Svalbard to being buried by a 10-day Alaskan blizzard, his career has been about chasing risk, chasing stories, and suffering for the photo. During this episode we get into the infamous 1994 MBUK self-timer 'selfie' that started it all, smuggling bikes onto gondolas in flip-flops, why real risk changes as you age, the strange normality of Pyongyang, bivvying through a typhoon with minders in polythene raincoats, and the wild beauty of Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. Dan also opens up about leaving Chamonix after 24 years for a biodiversity project on the Isle of Skye, the demise of magazines versus short form content, mentoring the next generation, and where AI does (and doesn't) fit into adventure storytelling. We hope you enjoy the fascinating look into one of the world's most respected adventure photographers.  The Ride Companion Christmas Ride at BikePark Wales! Episode Sponsors:-  - WORX Tools → 15% off the full range with code THERIDECOMPANION: https://uk.worx.com - Talk it out with BetterHelp and get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/ridecompanion - Want an easy way to tick your daily nutritional needs? Support the show and get 15% OFF HUEL products with code ‘RIDE' at huel.com Unlock a healthier, easier way to eat with Huel — nutritionally complete meals in minutes, so you can focus on what really matters… biking. Get early access & ad-free episodes → https://www.patreon.com/theridecompanion You can also support our long term partners: - Marin Bikes: marinbikes.com/gb - Focus Bikes: focus-bikes.com - HUEL: Get 15% OFF with code 'RIDE' at huel.com/ - Hiplok: https://hiplok.com/the-ride-companion  - Play Fantasy Downhill at The Race Companion: theracecompanion.com instagram.com/theracecompanion - Get 10% off Troy Lee Designs with code 'theridecompanion' at saddleback.avln.me/c/OzduCWvjtcOr - Athletic Greens: Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs at athleticgreens.com/RIDECOMPANION - Compex: Get 20% off with code ‘THERIDECOMPANION' at compex.com/uk/ - Worx: Get 15% off with code ‘THERIDECOMPANION' at worx.com - LAKA: Get 30 days of FREE insurance with code ‘RIDECOMPANION30' at laka.co - HKT Products: Use code ‘PODCAST' for 10% off the entire site. Follow Olly Wilkins Instagram @odub_23 YouTube @owilkins23 The Ride Companion Instagram @theridecompanion YouTube @TheRideCompanion YouTube clips and BTS channel @moreridecompanion Get official Ride Companion merch, find old episodes and more theridecompanion.co.uk

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.

On today's episode, Andy sits down with Bobbie Johnson, senior editor at Wired and an investigative journalist with deep experience covering technology, security, and digital culture. Bobbie unpacks a startling new investigation into how North Korea has infiltrated Western tech companies through remote work schemes. Using fake identities, stolen documents, and AI-powered tools to breeze through coding tests and interviews, North Korean operatives have managed to secure jobs at hundreds of U.S. companies. With the help of facilitators inside the United States, these workers receive laptops, funnel salaries back to Pyongyang, and generate millions for the regime's weapons programs. The conversation explores how these tactics threaten both national security and private industry, why they're so hard to detect, and what steps companies can take to guard against them. Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original Firecracker Farm Use code IRONCLAD to get 15% off your first order at https://firecracker.farm/ AmmoSquared Visit https://ammosquared.com/ today for a special offer and keep yourself fully stocked. With over 100,000 members and thousands of 5-star ratings, Your readiness is their mission. TacPack Visit http://www.TacPack.com and use code IRONCLAD at checkout to get a free $70 tactical gift Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Det regerande Liberaldemokratiska Partiet står inför ett ordförandeskifte sedan Shigeru Ishiba i förra veckan meddelade att han avgår från posten efter bara ett år. Vi kopplar upp oss mot Jakob Edberg som är en av de främsta experterna på japansk politik. Jakob är en flitig och uppskattad gäst i podden och ger här sin syn på saken. Är det månne dags för Japan att få sin första kvinnliga premiärminister?NYHETEREfter det att premiärminister Shigeru Ishiba mer eller mindre tvingades lämna sin post på grund av svaga valresultat och hård kritik från det egna partiet så pågår nu en öppen kamp inom det Liberaldemokratiska Partiet om vem som ska ta över.Bland huvudkandidaterna nämns den ultrakonservativa Sanae Takaichi, som vill låna för att finansiera reformer och Shinjiro Koizumi, som är son till den förre premiärministern Junichiro Koizumi. Yoshimasa Hayashi och Toshimitsu Motegi är outsiders som bägge har fokus på penningpolitik och stabilitet. Frågor om inflation och levnadsomkostnader dominerar debatten. Partiledarvalet avgörs den 4 oktober.USA:s utrikesminister Marco Rubio, Japans Takeshi Iwaya och Sydkoreas Cho Hyun möttes i samband med FN:s generalförsamlings möte i New York på tisdagen och uttryckte då oro över Kinas militära aktiviteter i vattnen runt Taiwan. Även Kinas växande territorialanspråk i Sydkinesiska havet kritiserades. Nordkoreas kärnvapenprogram kom också upp till diskussion under mötet och de tre nationerna lovade tätare säkerhetssamarbete. Mötet ses som en markering om Japans allt tydligare roll i regionens säkerhet.När det gäller utvecklingen i Mellanöstern varnade utrikesminister Takeshi Iwaya i ett anförande Israel för att blockera en tvåstatslösning. Från Tokyos sida framhåller man att palestinierna har rätt till en egen stat. ”Frågan är inte om utan när,” sade Iwaya om ett framtida erkännande. Japan uppmanar Israel att avstå från bosättningar och andra ensidiga åtgärder. Uttalandet markerar en ovanligt skarp linje från japansk diplomati. Samtidigt betonar regeringen behovet av hållbar fred. Den humanitära situationen i området beskrivs som mycket bekymmersam.Ny statistik från Socialdepartementet visar att Japan nu kan stoltsera med nästan hundratusen personer som är hundra år eller äldre. Det är 55:e året i rad som antalet ökar, enligt departementet. Orsakerna till att japanerna lever allt längre uppges vara vård i världsklass, en tradition av näringsrik kost och starka sociala nätverk. Samtidigt väcker utvecklingen oro för framtiden. Vem ska ta hand om alla äldre? Frågan om äldrevård och pensionssystem pressar redan Japans ekonomi.EkonomiI Bank of Japan kvartalsundersökning, den så kallade Tankan-undersökningen för september väntas enligt ekonomiska bedömare en försiktig optimism i industrins förtroende. Stora tillverkningsföretag uppger att det ser något ljusare på läget nu än tidigare. Prognosen för kommande månader är dock dämpad. Exportberoende företag oroas av global svaghet och osäker efterfrågan. Amerikanska tullar på japanska bilar har lättats något, vilket ger visst hopp. Men riskerna är många, från oljepriser till valutafluktuationer.SportHöstens stora sumoturnering i Tokyo har nått strax över halvtid. Hōshōryū leder efter imponerande segrar och ser ut att kunna gå hela vägen. Men nykorade stormästaren yokozunan Ōnosato är fortfarande jagar tätt bakom. Även Hokutofuji och Aonishiki har gjort intryck med skrällsegrar mot högre rankade motståndare. Turneringen lockar fullsatta läktare till sumoarenan Ryōgoku Kokugikan.Nordkorea vill skicka runt 150 idrottare till Asiatiska spelen i Nagoya nästa år. Men landet omfattas av inreseförbud till Japan sedan flera år tillbaka. Undantag har ibland gjorts för internationella tävlingar, men frågan väcker politisk debatt. Kritiker varnar för att legitimera Pyongyang. Förespråkare menar att sport och politik bör hållas isär. Ett beslut väntas inom kort.Gå gärna in och prenumerera på Japanpoddens kanal på plattformen Substack. Då får du ett mail varje gång vi publicerar något. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit japanpodden.substack.com

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: South Korea says it has intelligence that Russia may have secretly supplied North Korea with nuclear reactor modules for submarines. If true, it would represent a dangerous leap forward for Pyongyang's military capabilities and a major escalation in Moscow's ties with the regime. Israel declares its new laser defense system, the Iron Beam, operational. Officials say it's a historic milestone—promising to shoot down rockets and drones at the speed of light and at a fraction of the cost of traditional interceptors. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Jacked Up Fitness: Get the all-new Shake Weight by Jacked Up Fitness at https://JackedUpShakeWeight.com Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss newly revealed DPRK state media footage that appears to blame Russia for North Korean casualties during fighting against Ukraine. He also talks about what President Lee Jae-myung said about the DPRK at a press conference to mark his first 100 days, as well as Pyongyang's criticism of U.S. military drills with South Korea and Japan that kicked off on Monday. 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.

durée : 00:57:59 - Cultures Monde - par : Julie Gacon, Mélanie Chalandon - Trump veut relancer les négociations avec Pyongyang, malgré l'échec de 2019. Soutenu par Séoul, il espère revoir Kim Jong-un. Mais le virage stratégique nord-coréen vers Moscou et Pékin, et son refus de la dénucléarisation, rendent l'issue incertaine. - réalisation : Vivian Lecuivre - invités : Sébastien Falletti Journaliste, correspondant du Figaro à Séoul; Pascal Dayez-Burgeon Chargé de mission au CNRS, ancien diplomate français à Séoul; Hui-Yeon Kim Maîtresse de conférences en sociologie à l'INALCO, membre titulaire de l'Institut Français de Recherche sur l'Asie de l'Est (IFRAE)

BEIJING — Russian President Vladimir Putin and the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, met for bilateral talks in Beijing on Wednesday.北京——俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京和朝鲜民主主义人民共和国最高领导人金正恩周三在北京举行双边会谈。 The two leaders met formally at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse after attending a military parade in the Chinese capital that marked the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression from 1931 to 1945 and the World Anti-Fascist War.两位领导人在出席了中国首都举行的纪念1931年至1945年中国人民抗日战争和世界反法西斯战争胜利80周年阅兵式后，在钓鱼台国宾馆正式会晤。 Putin and Kim traveled from a formal reception to the negotiations in the same car, the Kremlin said in a post on social media.克里姆林宫在社交媒体上的一篇帖子中表示，普京和金正恩乘坐同一辆车从正式招待会前往谈判现场。 After a bilateral meeting between Russian and DPRK delegations, the two leaders held a one-on-one meeting, the Kremlin said.克里姆林宫表示，在俄罗斯和朝鲜代表团举行双边会晤后，两位领导人举行了一对一的会谈。 Putin also invited Kim to visit Russia again, following on from the DPRK leader's last visit to the country in 2023.继朝鲜领导人2023年最后一次访问俄罗斯之后，普京还邀请金再次访问俄罗斯。 In his remarks, Kim said the cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow has "significantly strengthened" since the two countries signed a strategic partnership pact in June last year during a summit in the DPRK capital.金在讲话中表示，自去年6月两国在朝鲜首都举行的峰会上签署战略伙伴关系协议以来，平壤和莫斯科之间的合作“大大加强”。 The leaders bid each other a warm farewell after the two-and-a-half-hour talks, Russia's TASS news agency reported.据俄罗斯塔斯社报道，经过两个半小时的会谈，两国领导人相互热情告别。 "See you soon," Kim said through an interpreter, hugging Putin goodbye.“很快见，”金通过翻译说，拥抱普京道别。 "We are waiting for you, come visit us," Putin replied.普京回答说：“我们在等你，来拜访我们吧。”。 delegationn.代表团/ˌdelɪˈɡeɪʃn/​ negotiationn.谈判/nɪˌɡəʊʃiˈeɪʃn/

President Xi Jinping reaffirmed on Thursday China's commitment to maintaining, consolidating and developing its relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, saying that this position will never change no matter how the international situation evolves.Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during a meeting with Kim Jong-un, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.Kim arrived in the Chinese capital on Tuesday to attend commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War.This marks his first visit to China since early 2019, and also the first time since becoming the top leader of the DPRK that Kim has appeared alongside more than 20 world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, when they attended the grand military parade on Wednesday in Beijing."I feel pleased to meet with you again after six years," Xi said, recalling his state visit to the neighboring country in June 2019, during which he had felt a closeness as with family members between the two countries.Xi said Kim's attendance at the commemoration demonstrated the DPRK's firm commitment to safeguarding the victorious outcome of World War II, and also provided an important opportunity for the two parties and countries to further advance their friendly and cooperative relations.China will, as always, support the DPRK in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions and in opening new prospects for its socialist cause, Xi said.He expressed Beijing's readiness to strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic communication with Pyongyang, deepen exchanges of experience in party and state governance, enhance mutual understanding and friendship, and promote closer interactions at all levels as well as practical cooperation in various fields.Xi noted that in the face of unprecedented global challenges, he has successively put forward the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity, as well as the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the Global Governance Initiative, all of which have received active support and response from the DPRK.He called on the two countries to strengthen strategic coordination in international and regional affairs to safeguard their common interests.On the Korean Peninsula issue, Xi said China has always upheld an objective and fair position and stands ready to continue working with the DPRK to safeguard peace and stability on the peninsula.Kim said he was filled with deep feelings to be meeting with Xi again after six years."Over these six years, China has undergone tremendous changes and development, which has left a strong impression on me. What I feel even more profoundly, however, is the enduring friendship between the peoples of the DPRK and China that has never changed," he said, noting that no matter how the world situation may evolve, the friendship will remain forever.He also reaffirmed that the DPRK will continue to firmly support China's position on issues concerning its core interests, and support China in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.Kim also expressed gratitude to China for its long-standing, unswerving support and assistance for the cause of socialism in the DPRK.Kim added that his country is willing to maintain close exchanges between the two parties and governments at all levels and deepen mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation to deliver more tangible results, among other things.He said the DPRK appreciates China's fair position on the Korean Peninsula issue and stands ready to continue strengthening coordination with China at the United Nations and other multilateral platforms to safeguard their common and fundamental interests.Accompanying Kim on the visit were DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and senior officials from key departments of both the WPK Central Committee and the DPRK government.On Thursday evening, Xi had a chat over tea with Kim and hosted a banquet in his honor.

Last time we spoke about the Soviet Victory in Asia. After atomic bombings and Japan's surrender, the Soviets launched a rapid Manchurian invasion, driving toward Harbin, Mukden, Changchun, and Beijing. Shenyang was taken, seeing the capture of the last Emperor of China, Pu Yi. The Soviets continued their advances into Korea with port captures at Gensan and Pyongyang, and occupation of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, ahead of anticipated American intervention. Stalin pushed for speed to avoid US naval landings, coordinating with Chinese forces and leveraging the Sino-Soviet pact while balancing relations with Chiang Kai-shek. As fronts closed, tens of thousands of Japanese POWs were taken, while harsh wartime reprisals, looting, and mass sexual violence against Japanese, Korean, and Chinese civilians were reported.  This episode is the Surrender of Japan Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  With the Manchurian Campaign over and Japan's surrender confirmed, we've reached the end of the Pacific War and the ushering of a new era. This journey took us 3 years, 8 months, and 27 days and it's been a rollercoaster. We've gone over numerous stories of heroism and horror, victory and defeat, trying to peel back a part of WW2 that often gets overshadowed by the war in Europe. Certainly the China War is almost completely ignored by the west, but fortunately for you all, as I end this series we have just entered the China war over at the Fall and Rise of China Podcast. Unlike this series where, to be blunt, I am hamstrung by the week by week format, over there I can tackle the subject as I see fit, full of personal accounts. I implore you if you want to revisit some of that action in China, jump over to the other podcast, I will be continuing it until the end of the Chinese civil war. One could say it will soon be a bit of a sequel to this one. Of course if you love this format and want more, you can check out the brand new Eastern Front week by week podcast, which really does match the horror of the Pacific war. Lastly if you just love hearing my dumb voice, come check out my podcast which also is in video format on the Pacific War Channel on Youtube, the Echoes of War podcast. Me and my co-host Gaurav tackle history from Ancient to Modern, often with guests and we blend the dialogue with maps, photos and clips. But stating all of that, lets get into it, the surrender of Japan. As we last saw, while the Soviet invasion of Manchuria raged, Emperor Hirohito announced the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire on August 15. Public reaction varied, yet most were stunned and bewildered, unable to grasp that Japan had surrendered for the first time in its history. Many wept openly as they listened to the Emperor's solemn message; others directed swift anger at the nation's leaders and the fighting services for failing to avert defeat; and some blamed themselves for falling short in their war effort. Above all, there was a deep sympathy for the Emperor, who had been forced to make such a tragic and painful decision.  In the wake of the Emperor's broadcast, war factories across the country dismissed their workers and shut their doors. Newspapers that had been ordered to pause their usual morning editions appeared in the afternoon, each carrying the Imperial Rescript, an unabridged translation of the Potsdam Declaration, and the notes exchanged with the Allied Powers. In Tokyo, crowds of weeping citizens gathered all afternoon in the vast plaza before the Imperial Palace and at the Meiji and Yasukuni Shrines to bow in reverence and prayer. The shock and grief of the moment, coupled with the dark uncertainty about the future, prevented any widespread sense of relief that the fighting had ended. Bombings and bloodshed were over, but defeat seemed likely to bring only continued hardship and privation. Starvation already gripped the land, and the nation faced the looming breakdown of public discipline and order, acts of violence and oppression by occupying forces, and a heavy burden of reparations. Yet despite the grim outlook, the Emperor's assurance that he would remain to guide the people through the difficult days ahead offered a measure of solace and courage. His appeal for strict compliance with the Imperial will left a lasting impression, and the refrain “Reverent Obedience to the Rescript” became the rallying cry as the nation prepared to endure the consequences of capitulation. Immediately after the Emperor's broadcast, Prime Minister Suzuki's cabinet tendered its collective resignation, yet Hirohito commanded them to remain in office until a new cabinet could be formed. Accordingly, Suzuki delivered another broadcast that evening, urging the nation to unite in absolute loyalty to the throne in this grave national crisis, and stressing that the Emperor's decision to end the war had been taken out of compassion for his subjects and in careful consideration of the circumstances. Thus, the shocked and grief-stricken population understood that this decision represented the Emperor's actual will rather than a ratified act of the Government, assuring that the nation as a whole would obediently accept the Imperial command. Consequently, most Japanese simply went on with their lives as best they could; yet some military officers, such as General Anami, chose suicide over surrender. Another key figure who committed seppuku between August 15 and 16 was Vice-Admiral Onishi Takijiro, the father of the kamikaze. Onishi's suicide note apologized to the roughly 4,000 pilots he had sent to their deaths and urged all surviving young civilians to work toward rebuilding Japan and fostering peace among nations. Additionally, despite being called “the hero of the August 15 incident” for his peacekeeping role in the attempted coup d'état, General Tanaka felt responsible for the damage done to Tokyo and shot himself on August 24. Following the final Imperial conference on 14 August, the Army's “Big Three”, War Minister Anami, Chief of the Army General Staff Umezu, and Inspectorate-General of Military Training General Kenji Doihara, met at the War Ministry together with Field Marshals Hata and Sugiyama, the senior operational commanders of the homeland's Army forces. These five men affixed their seals to a joint resolution pledging that the Army would “conduct itself in accordance with the Imperial decision to the last.” The resolution was endorsed immediately afterward by General Masakazu Kawabe, the overall commander of the Army air forces in the homeland. In accordance with this decision, General Anami and General Umezu separately convened meetings of their senior subordinates during the afternoon of the 14th, informing them of the outcome of the final Imperial conference and directing strict obedience to the Emperor's command. Shortly thereafter, special instructions to the same effect were radioed to all top operational commanders jointly in the names of the War Minister and Chief of Army General Staff. The Army and Navy authorities acted promptly, and their decisive stance proved, for the most part, highly effective. In the Army, where the threat of upheaval was most acute, the final, unequivocal decision of its top leaders to heed the Emperor's will delivered a crippling blow to the smoldering coup plot by the young officers to block the surrender. The conspirators had based their plans on unified action by the Army as a whole; with that unified stance effectively ruled out, most of the principal plotters reluctantly abandoned the coup d'état scheme on the afternoon of 14 August. At the same time, the weakened Imperial Japanese Navy took steps to ensure disciplined compliance with the surrender decision. Only Admiral Ugaki chose to challenge this with his final actions. After listening to Japan's defeat, Admiral Ugaki Kayō's diary recorded that he had not yet received an official cease-fire order, and that, since he alone was to blame for the failure of Japanese aviators to stop the American advance, he would fly one last mission himself to embody the true spirit of bushido. His subordinates protested, and even after Ugaki had climbed into the back seat of a Yokosuka D4Y4 of the 701st Kokutai dive bomber piloted by Lieutenant Tatsuo Nakatsuru, Warrant Officer Akiyoshi Endo, whose place in the kamikaze roster Ugaki had usurped, also climbed into the same space that the admiral had already occupied. Thus, the aircraft containing Ugaki took off with three men piloted by Nakatsuru, with Endo providing reconnaissance, and Ugaki himself, rather than the two crew members that filled the other ten aircraft. Before boarding his aircraft, Ugaki posed for pictures and removed his rank insignia from his dark green uniform, taking only a ceremonial short sword given to him by Admiral Yamamoto. Elements of this last flight most likely followed the Ryukyu flyway southwest to the many small islands north of Okinawa, where U.S. forces were still on alert at the potential end of hostilities. Endo served as radioman during the mission, sending Ugaki's final messages, the last of which at 19:24 reported that the plane had begun its dive onto an American vessel. However, U.S. Navy records do not indicate any successful kamikaze attack on that day, and it is likely that all aircraft on the mission with the exception of three that returned due to engine problems crashed into the ocean, struck down by American anti-aircraft fire. Although there are no precise accounts of an intercept made by Navy or Marine fighters or Pacific Fleet surface units against enemy aircraft in this vicinity at the time of surrender. it is likely the aircraft crashed into the ocean or was shot down by American anti-aircraft fire. In any event, the crew of LST-926 reported finding the still-smoldering remains of a cockpit with three bodies on the beach of Iheyajima Island, with Ugaki's remains allegedly among them. Meanwhile, we have already covered the Truman–Stalin agreement that Japanese forces north of the 38th parallel would surrender to the Soviets while those to the south would surrender to the Americans, along with the subsequent Soviet occupation of Manchuria, North Korea, South Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands. Yet even before the first atomic bomb was dropped, and well before the Potsdam Conference, General MacArthur and his staff were planning a peaceful occupation of Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The first edition of this plan, designated “Blacklist,” appeared on July 16 and called for a progressive, orderly occupation in strength of an estimated fourteen major areas in Japan and three to six areas in Korea, so that the Allies could exercise unhampered control over the various phases of administration. These operations would employ 22 divisions and 3 regiments, together with air and naval elements, and would utilize all United States forces immediately available in the Pacific. The plan also provided for the maximum use of existing Japanese political and administrative organizations, since these agencies already exerted effective control over the population and could be employed to good advantage by the Allies. The final edition of “Blacklist,” issued on August 8, was divided into three main phases of occupation. The first phase included the Kanto Plain, the Kobe–Osaka–Kyoto areas, the Nagasaki–Sasebo area in Kyushu, the Keijo district in Korea, and the Aomori–Ominato area of northern Honshu. The second phase covered the Shimonoseki–Fukuoka and Nagoya areas, Sapporo in Hokkaido, and Fusan in Korea. The third phase comprised the Hiroshima–Kure area, Kochi in Shikoku, the Okayama, Tsuruga, and Niigata areas, Sendai in northern Honshu, Otomari in Karafuto, and the Gunzan–Zenshu area in Korea. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff initially favored Admiral Nimitz's “Campus” Plan, which envisioned entry into Japan by Army forces only after an emergency occupation of Tokyo Bay by advanced naval units and the seizure of key positions ashore near each anchorage, MacArthur argued that naval forces were not designed to perform the preliminary occupation of a hostile country whose ground divisions remained intact, and he contended that occupying large land areas was fundamentally an Army mission. He ultimately convinced them that occupation by a weak Allied force might provoke resistance from dissident Japanese elements among the bomb-shattered population and could therefore lead to grave repercussions. The formal directive for the occupation of Japan, Korea, and the China coast was issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on August 11. The immediate objectives were to secure the early entry of occupying forces into major strategic areas, to control critical ports, port facilities, and airfields, and to demobilize and disarm enemy troops. First priority went to the prompt occupation of Japan, second to the consolidation of Keijo in Korea, and third to operations on the China coast and in Formosa. MacArthur was to assume responsibility for the forces entering Japan and Korea; General Wedemeyer was assigned operational control of the forces landing on the China coast and was instructed to coordinate his plans with the Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek; and Japanese forces in Southeast Asia were earmarked for surrender to Admiral Mountbatten. With the agreement of the Soviet, Chinese, and British governments, President Truman designated MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on August 15, thereby granting him final authority for the execution of the terms of surrender and occupation. In this capacity, MacArthur promptly notified the Emperor and the Japanese Government that he was authorized to arrange for the cessation of hostilities at the earliest practicable date and directed that the Japanese forces terminate hostilities immediately and that he be notified at once of the effective date and hour of such termination. He further directed that Japan send to Manila on August 17 “a competent representative empowered to receive in the name of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Imperial Government, and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters certain requirements for carrying into effect the terms of surrender.” General MacArthur's stipulations to the Japanese Government included specific instructions regarding the journey of the Japanese representatives to Manila. The emissaries were to leave Sata Misaki, at the southern tip of Kyushu, on the morning of August 17. They were to travel in a Douglas DC-3-type transport plane, painted white and marked with green crosses on the wings and fuselage, and to fly under Allied escort to an airdrome on Lejima in the Ryukyus. From there, the Japanese would be transported to Manila in a United States plane. The code designation chosen for communication between the Japanese plane and US forces was the symbolic word “Bataan.” Implementation challenges arose almost immediately due to disagreements within Imperial General Headquarters and the Foreign Office over the exact nature of the mission. Some officials interpreted the instructions as requiring the delegates to carry full powers to receive and agree to the actual terms of surrender, effectively making them top representatives of the Government and High Command. Others understood the mission to be strictly preparatory, aimed only at working out technical surrender arrangements and procedures. Late in the afternoon of August 16, a message was sent to MacArthur's headquarters seeking clarification and more time to organize the mission. MacArthur replied that signing the surrender terms would not be among the tasks of the Japanese representatives dispatched to Manila, assured the Japanese that their proposed measures were satisfactory, and pledged that every precaution would be taken to ensure the safety of the Emperor's representatives on their mission. Although preparations were made with all possible speed, on August 16 the Japanese notified that this delegation would be somewhat delayed due to the scarcity of time allowed for its formation. At the same time, MacArthur was notified that Hirohito had issued an order commanding the entire armed forces of his nation to halt their fighting immediately. The wide dispersion and the disrupted communications of the Japanese forces, however, made the rapid and complete implementation of such an order exceedingly difficult, so it was expected that the Imperial order would take approximately two to twelve days to reach forces throughout the Pacific and Asiatic areas. On August 17, the Emperor personally backed up these orders with a special Rescript to the armed services, carefully worded to assuage military aversion to surrender. Suzuki was also replaced on this date, with the former commander of the General Defense Army, General Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, becoming the new Prime Minister with the initial tasks to hastily form a new cabinet capable of effecting the difficult transition to peace swiftly and without incident. The Government and Imperial General Headquarters moved quickly to hasten the preparations, but the appointment of the mission's head was held up pending the installation of the Higashikuni Cabinet. The premier-designate pressed for a rapid formation of the government, and on the afternoon of the 17th the official ceremony of installation took place in the Emperor's presence. Until General Shimomura could be summoned to Tokyo from the North China Area Army, Prince Higashikuni himself assumed the portfolio of War Minister concurrently with the premiership, Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai remaining in the critical post of Navy Minister, and Prince Ayamaro Konoe, by Marquis Kido's recommendation, entered the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio to act as Higashikuni's closest advisor. The Foreign Minister role went to Mamoru Shigemitsu, who had previously served in the Koiso Cabinet. With the new government installed, Prince Higashikuni broadcast to the nation on the evening of 17 August, declaring that his policies as Premier would conform to the Emperor's wishes as expressed in the Imperial mandate to form a Cabinet. These policies were to control the armed forces, maintain public order, and surmount the national crisis, with scrupulous respect for the Constitution and the Imperial Rescript terminating the war. The cabinet's installation removed one delay, and in the afternoon of the same day a message from General MacArthur's headquarters clarified the mission's nature and purpose. Based on this clarification, it was promptly decided that Lieutenant General Torashiro Kawabe, Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff, should head a delegation of sixteen members, mainly representing the Army and Navy General Staffs. Kawabe was formally appointed by the Emperor on 18 August. By late afternoon that same day, the data required by the Allied Supreme Commander had largely been assembled, and a message was dispatched to Manila informing General MacArthur's headquarters that the mission was prepared to depart the following morning. The itinerary received prompt approval from the Supreme Commander. Indeed, the decision to appoint a member of the Imperial Family who had a respectable career in the armed forces was aimed both at appeasing the population and at reassuring the military. MacArthur appointed General Eichelberger's 8th Army to initiate the occupation unassisted through September 22, at which point General Krueger's 6th Army would join the effort. General Hodge's 24th Corps was assigned to execute Operation Blacklist Forty, the occupation of the Korean Peninsula south of the 38th Parallel. MacArthur's tentative schedule for the occupation outlined an initial advance party of 150 communications experts and engineers under Colonel Charles Tench, which would land at Atsugi Airfield on August 23. Naval forces under Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet were to enter Tokyo Bay on August 24, followed by MacArthur's arrival at Atsugi the next day and the start of the main landings of airborne troops and naval and marine forces. The formal surrender instrument was to be signed aboard an American battleship in Tokyo Bay on August 28, with initial troop landings in southern Kyushu planned for August 29–30. By September 4, Hodge's 24th Corps was to land at Inchon and begin the occupation of South Korea. In the meantime, per MacArthur's directions, a sixteen-man Japanese delegation headed by Lieutenant-General Kawabe Torashiro, Vice-Chief of the Army General Staff, left Sata Misaki on the morning of August 19; after landing at Iejima, the delegation transferred to an American transport and arrived at Nichols Field at about 18:00. That night, the representatives held their first conference with MacArthur's staff, led by Lieutenant-General Richard Sutherland. During the two days of conference, American linguists scanned, translated, and photostated the various reports, maps, and charts the Japanese had brought with them. Negotiations also resulted in permission for the Japanese to supervise the disarmament and demobilization of their own armed forces under Allied supervision, and provided for three extra days of preparation before the first occupying unit landed on the Japanese home islands on August 26. At the close of the conference, Kawabe was handed the documents containing the “Requirements of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers,” which concerned the arrival of the first echelons of Allied forces, the formal surrender ceremony, and the reception of the occupation forces. Also given were a draft Imperial Proclamation by which the Emperor would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and command his subjects to cease hostilities, a copy of General Order No. 1 by which Imperial General Headquarters would direct all military and naval commanders to lay down their arms and surrender their units to designated Allied commanders, and the Instrument of Surrender itself, which would later be signed on board an American battleship in Tokyo Bay. After the Manila Conference ended, the Japanese delegation began its return to Japan at 13:00 on August 20; but due to mechanical problems and a forced landing near Hamamatsu, they did not reach Tokyo until August 21. With the scheduled arrival of the advanced party of the Allied occupation forces only five days away, the Japanese immediately began disarming combat units in the initial-occupation areas and evacuating them from those areas. The basic orders stated that Allied forces would begin occupying the homeland on 26 August and reaffirmed the intention ofImperial General Headquarters "to insure absolute obedience to the Imperial Rescript of 14 August, to prevent the occurrence of trouble with the occupying forces, and thus to demonstrate Japan's sincerity to the world." The Japanese government announced that all phases of the occupation by Allied troops would be peaceful and urged the public not to panic or resort to violence against the occupying forces. While they sought to reassure the population, they faced die-hard anti-surrender elements within the IJN, with ominous signs of trouble both from Kyushu, where many sea and air special-attack units were poised to meet an invasion, and from Atsugi, the main entry point for Allied airborne troops into the Tokyo Bay area. At Kanoya, Ugaki's successor, Vice-Admiral Kusaka Ryonosuke, hastened the separation of units from their weapons and the evacuation of naval personnel. At Atsugi, an even more threatening situation developed in the Navy's 302nd Air Group. Immediately after the announcement of the surrender, extremist elements in the group led by Captain Kozono Yasuna flew over Atsugi and the surrounding area, scattering leaflets urging the continuation of the war on the ground and claiming that the surrender edict was not the Emperor's true will but the machination of "traitors around the Throne." The extremists, numbering 83 junior officers and noncommissioned officers, did not commit hostile acts but refused to obey orders from their superior commanders. On August 19, Prince Takamatsu, the Emperor's brother and a navy captain, telephoned Atsugi and personally appealed to Captain Kozono and his followers to obey the Imperial decision. This intervention did not end the incident; on August 21 the extremists seized a number of aircraft and flew them to Army airfields in Saitama Prefecture in hopes of gaining support from Army air units. They failed in this attempt, and it was not until August 25 that all members of the group had surrendered. As a result of the Atsugi incident, on August 22 the Emperor dispatched Captain Prince Takamatsu Nabuhito and Vice-Admiral Prince Kuni Asaakira to various naval commands on Honshu and Kyushu to reiterate the necessity of strict obedience to the surrender decision. Both princes immediately left Tokyo to carry out this mission, but the situation improved over the next two days, and they were recalled before completing their tours. By this point, a typhoon struck the Kanto region on the night of August 22, causing heavy damage and interrupting communications and transport vital for evacuating troops from the occupation zone. This led to further delays in Japanese preparations for the arrival of occupation forces, and the Americans ultimately agreed to a two-day postponement of the preliminary landings. On August 27 at 10:30, elements of the 3rd Fleet entered Sagami Bay as the first step in the delayed occupation schedule. At 09:00 on August 28, Tench's advanced party landed at Atsugi to complete technical arrangements for the arrival of the main forces. Two days later, the main body of the airborne occupation forces began streaming into Atsugi, while naval and marine forces simultaneously landed at Yokosuka on the south shore of Tokyo Bay. There were no signs of resistance, and the initial occupation proceeded successfully.  Shortly after 1400, a famous C-54  the name “Bataan” in large letters on its nose circled the field and glided in for a landing. General MacArthur stepped from the aircraft, accompanied by General Sutherland and his staff officers. The operation proceeded smoothly. MacArthur paused momentarily to inspect the airfield, then climbed into a waiting automobile for the drive to Yokohama. Thousands of Japanese troops were posted along the fifteen miles of road from Atsugi to Yokohama to guard the route of the Allied motor cavalcade as it proceeded to the temporary SCAP Headquarters in Japan's great seaport city. The Supreme Commander established his headquarters provisionally in the Yokohama Customs House. The headquarters of the American Eighth Army and the Far East Air Force were also established in Yokohama, and representatives of the United States Pacific Fleet were attached to the Supreme Commander's headquarters. The intensive preparation and excitement surrounding the first landings on the Japanese mainland did not interfere with the mission of affording relief and rescue to Allied personnel who were internees or prisoners in Japan. Despite bad weather delaying the occupation operation, units of the Far East Air Forces and planes from the Third Fleet continued their surveillance missions. On 25 August they began dropping relief supplies, food, medicine, and clothing, to Allied soldiers and civilians in prisoner-of-war and internment camps across the main islands. While the advance echelon of the occupation forces was still on Okinawa, “mercy teams” were organized to accompany the first elements of the Eighth Army Headquarters. Immediately after the initial landings, these teams established contact with the Swiss and Swedish Legations, the International Red Cross, the United States Navy, and the Japanese Liaison Office, and rushed to expedite the release and evacuation, where necessary, of thousands of Allied internees.  On September 1, the Reconnaissance Troop of the 11th Airborne Division conducted a subsidiary airlift operation, flying from Atsugi to occupy Kisarazu Airfield; and on the morning of September 2, the 1st Cavalry Division began landing at Yokohama to secure most of the strategic areas along the shores of Tokyo Bay, with Tokyo itself remaining unoccupied. Concurrently, the surrender ceremony took place aboard Halsey's flagship, the battleship Missouri, crowded with representatives of the United Nations that had participated in the Pacific War.  General MacArthur presided over the epoch-making ceremony, and with the following words he inaugurated the proceedings which would ring down the curtain of war in the Pacific “We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate. Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do a majority of the people of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice or hatred. But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone befits the sacred purposes we are about to serve, committing all our peoples unreservedly to faithful compliance with the understandings they are here formally to assume. It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past — a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice. The terms and conditions upon which surrender of the Japanese Imperial Forces is here to be given and accepted are contained in the instrument of surrender now before you…”.  The Supreme Commander then invited the two Japanese plenipotentiaries to sign the duplicate surrender documents : Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, on behalf of the Emperor and the Japanese Government, and General Umezu, for the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. He then called forward two famous former prisoners of the Japanese to stand behind him while he himself affixed his signature to the formal acceptance of the surrender : Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, hero of Bataan and Corregidor and Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur E. Percival, who had been forced to yield the British stronghold at Singapore. General MacArthur was followed in turn by Admiral Nimitz, who signed on behalf of the United States. Alongside the recently liberated Generals Wainwright and Percival, who had been captured during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines and Singapore respectively, MacArthur then signed the surrender documents, followed by Admiral Nimitz and representatives of the other United Nations present. The Instrument of Surrender was completely signed within twenty minutes. Shortly afterwards, MacArthur broadcast the announcement of peace to the world, famously saying, “Today the guns are silent.” Immediately following the signing of the surrender articles, the Imperial Proclamation of capitulation was issued, commanding overseas forces to cease hostilities and lay down their arms; however, it would take many days, and in some cases weeks, for the official word of surrender to be carried along Japan's badly disrupted communications channels. Various devices were employed by American commanders to transmit news of final defeat to dispersed and isolated enemy troops, such as plane-strewn leaflets, loudspeaker broadcasts, strategically placed signboards, and prisoner-of-war volunteers. Already, the bypassed Japanese garrison at Mille Atoll had surrendered on August 22; yet the first large-scale surrender of Japanese forces came on August 27, when Lieutenant-General Ishii Yoshio surrendered Morotai and Halmahera to the 93rd Division. On August 30, a British Pacific Fleet force under Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt entered Victoria Harbour to begin the liberation of Hong Kong; and the following day, Rear-Admiral Matsubara Masata surrendered Minami-Torishima. In the Marianas, the Japanese commanders on Rota and Pagan Islands relinquished their commands almost simultaneously with the Tokyo Bay ceremony of September 2. Later that day, the same was done by Lieutenant-General Inoue Sadae in the Palaus and by Lieutenant-General Mugikura Shunzaburo and Vice-Admiral Hara Chuichi at Truk in the Carolines. Additionally, as part of Operation Jurist, a British detachment under Vice-Admiral Harold Walker received the surrender of the Japanese garrison on Penang Island. In the Philippines, local commanders in the central Bukidnon Province, Infanta, the Bataan Peninsula, and the Cagayan Valley had already surrendered by September 2. On September 3, General Yamashita and Vice-Admiral Okawachi Denshichi met with General Wainwright, General Percival, and Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Styer, Commanding General of Army Forces of the Western Pacific, to sign the formal surrender of the Japanese forces in the Philippines. With Yamashita's capitulation, subordinate commanders throughout the islands began surrendering in increasing numbers, though some stragglers remained unaware of the capitulation. Concurrently, while Yamashita was yielding his Philippine forces, Lieutenant-General Tachibana Yoshio's 109th Division surrendered in the Bonins on September 3. On September 4, Rear-Admiral Sakaibara Shigematsu and Colonel Chikamori Shigeharu surrendered their garrison on Wake Island, as did the garrison on Aguigan Island in the Marianas. Also on September 4, an advanced party of the 24th Corps landed at Kimpo Airfield near Keijo to prepare the groundwork for the occupation of South Korea; and under Operation Tiderace, Mountbatten's large British and French naval force arrived off Singapore and accepted the surrender of Japanese forces there. On September 5, Rear-Admiral Masuda Nisuke surrendered his garrison on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshalls, as did the garrison of Yap Island. The overall surrender of Japanese forces in the Solomons and Bismarcks and in the Wewak area of New Guinea was finally signed on September 6 by General Imamura Hitoshi and Vice-Admiral Kusaka Jinichi aboard the aircraft carrier Glory off Rabaul, the former center of Japanese power in the South Pacific. Furthermore, Lieutenant-General Nomi Toshio, representing remaining Japanese naval and army forces in the Ryukyus, officially capitulated on September 7 at the headquarters of General Stilwell's 10th Army on Okinawa. The following day, Tokyo was finally occupied by the Americans, and looking south, General Kanda and Vice-Admiral Baron Samejima Tomoshige agreed to travel to General Savige's headquarters at Torokina to sign the surrender of Bougainville. On September 8, Rear-Admiral Kamada Michiaki's 22nd Naval Special Base Force at Samarinda surrendered to General Milford's 7th Australian Division, as did the Japanese garrison on Kosrae Island in the Carolines. On September 9, a wave of surrenders continued: the official capitulation of all Japanese forces in the China Theater occurred at the Central Military Academy in Nanking, with General Okamura surrendering to General He Yingqin, the commander-in-chief of the Republic of China National Revolutionary Army; subsequently, on October 10, 47 divisions from the former Imperial Japanese Army officially surrendered to Chinese military officials and allied representatives at the Forbidden City in Beijing. The broader context of rehabilitation and reconstruction after the protracted war was daunting, with the Nationalists weakened and Chiang Kai-shek's policies contributing to Mao Zedong's strengthened position, shaping the early dynamics of the resumption of the Chinese Civil War. Meanwhile, on September 9, Hodge landed the 7th Division at Inchon to begin the occupation of South Korea. In the throne room of the Governor's Palace at Keijo, soon to be renamed Seoul, the surrender instrument was signed by General Abe Nobuyuki, the Governor-General of Korea; Lieutenant-General Kozuki Yoshio, commander of the 17th Area Army and of the Korean Army; and Vice-Admiral Yamaguchi Gisaburo, commander of the Japanese Naval Forces in Korea. The sequence continued with the 25th Indian Division landing in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan on Malaya to capture Port Dickson, while Lieutenant-General Teshima Fusataro's 2nd Army officially surrendered to General Blamey at Morotai, enabling Australian occupation of much of the eastern Dutch East Indies. On September 10, the Japanese garrisons on the Wotje and Maloelap Atolls in the Marshalls surrendered, and Lieutenant-General Baba Masao surrendered all Japanese forces in North Borneo to General Wootten's 9th Australian Division. After Imamura's surrender, Major-General Kenneth Eather's 11th Australian Division landed at Rabaul to begin occupation, and the garrison on Muschu and Kairiru Islands also capitulated. On September 11, General Adachi finally surrendered his 18th Army in the Wewak area, concluding the bloody New Guinea Campaign, while Major-General Yamamura Hyoe's 71st Independent Mixed Brigade surrendered at Kuching and Lieutenant-General Watanabe Masao's 52nd Independent Mixed Brigade surrendered on Ponape Island in the Carolines. Additionally, the 20th Indian Division, with French troops, arrived at Saigon as part of Operation Masterdom and accepted the surrender of Lieutenant-General Tsuchihashi Yuitsu, who had already met with Viet Minh envoys and agreed to turn power over to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies on 15 August 1945, the Viet Minh immediately launched the insurrection they had prepared for a long time. Across the countryside, “People's Revolutionary Committees” took over administrative positions, often acting on their own initiative, and in the cities the Japanese stood by as the Vietnamese took control. By the morning of August 19, the Viet Minh had seized Hanoi, rapidly expanding their control over northern Vietnam in the following days. The Nguyen dynasty, with its puppet government led by Tran Trong Kim, collapsed when Emperor Bao Dai abdicated on August 25. By late August, the Viet Minh controlled most of Vietnam. On 2 September, in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. As the Viet Minh began extending control across the country, the new government's attention turned to the arrival of Allied troops and the French attempt to reassert colonial authority, signaling the onset of a new and contentious phase in Vietnam's struggle.  French Indochina had been left in chaos by the Japanese occupation. On 11 September British and Indian troops of the 20th Indian Division under Major General Douglas Gracey arrived at Saigon as part of Operation Masterdom. After the Japanese surrender, all French prisoners had been gathered on the outskirts of Saigon and Hanoi, and the sentries disappeared on 18 September; six months of captivity cost an additional 1,500 lives. By 22 September 1945, all prisoners were liberated by Gracey's men, armed, and dispatched in combat units toward Saigon to conquer it from the Viet Minh, later joined by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps, established to fight the Japanese arriving a few weeks later. Around the same time, General Lu Han's 200,000 Chinese National Revolutionary Army troops of the 1st Front Army occupied Indochina north of the 16th parallel, with 90,000 arriving by October; the 62nd Army came on 26 September to Nam Dinh and Haiphong, Lang Son and Cao Bang were occupied by the Guangxi 62nd Army Corps, and the Red River region and Lai Cai were occupied by a column from Yunnan. Lu Han occupied the French governor-general's palace after ejecting the French staff under Sainteny. Consequently, while General Lu Han's Chinese troops occupied northern Indochina and allowed the Vietnamese Provisional Government to remain in control there, the British and French forces would have to contest control of Saigon. On September 12, a surrender instrument was signed at the Singapore Municipal Building for all Southern Army forces in Southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies, and the eastern islands; General Terauchi, then in a hospital in Saigon after a stroke, learned of Burma's fall and had his deputy commander and leader of the 7th Area Army, Lieutenant-General Itagaki Seishiro, surrender on his behalf to Mountbatten, after which a British military administration was formed to govern the island until March 1946. The Japanese Burma Area Army surrendered the same day as Mountbatten's ceremony in Singapore, and Indian forces in Malaya reached Kuala Lumpur to liberate the Malay capital, though the British were slow to reestablish control over all of Malaya, with eastern Pahang remaining beyond reach for three more weeks. On September 13, the Japanese garrisons on Nauru and Ocean Islands surrendered to Brigadier John Stevenson, and three days later Major-General Okada Umekichi and Vice-Admiral Fujita Ruitaro formally signed the instrument of surrender at Hong Kong. In the meantime, following the Allied call for surrender, Japan had decided to grant Indonesian independence to complicate Dutch reoccupation: Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta signed Indonesia's Proclamation of Independence on August 17 and were appointed president and vice-president the next day, with Indonesian youths spreading news across Java via Japanese news and telegraph facilities and Bandung's news broadcast by radio. The Dutch, as the former colonial power, viewed the republicans as collaborators with the Japanese and sought to restore their colonial rule due to lingering political and economic interests in the former Dutch East Indies, a stance that helped trigger a four-year war for Indonesian independence. Fighting also erupted in Sumatra and the Celebes, though the 26th Indian Division managed to land at Padang on October 10. On October 21, Lieutenant-General Tanabe Moritake and Vice-Admiral Hirose Sueto surrendered all Japanese forces on Sumatra, yet British control over the country would dwindle in the ensuing civil conflict. Meanwhile, Formosa (Taiwan) was placed under the control of the Kuomintang-led Republic of China by General Order No. 1 and the Instrument of Surrender; Chiang Kai-shek appointed General Chen Yi as Chief Executive of Taiwan Province and commander of the Taiwan Garrison Command on September 1. After several days of preparation, an advance party moved into Taihoku on October 5, with additional personnel arriving from Shanghai and Chongqing between October 5 and 24, and on October 25 General Ando Rikichi signed the surrender document at Taipei City Hall. But that's the end for this week, and for the Pacific War.  Boy oh boy, its been a long journey hasn't it? Now before letting you orphans go into the wild, I will remind you, while this podcast has come to an end, I still write and narrate Kings and Generals Eastern Front week by week and the Fall and Rise of China Podcasts. Atop all that I have my own video-podcast Echoes of War, that can be found on Youtube or all podcast platforms. I really hope to continue entertaining you guys, so if you venture over to the other podcasts, comment you came from here! I also have some parting gifts to you all, I have decided to release a few Pacific War related exclusive episodes from my Youtuber Membership / patreon at www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel. At the time I am writing this, over there I have roughly 32 episodes, one is uploaded every month alongside countless other goodies. Thank you all for being part of this long lasting journey. Kings and Generals literally grabbed me out of the blue when I was but a small silly person doing youtube videos using an old camera, I have barely gotten any better at it. I loved making this series, and I look forward to continuing other series going forward! You know where to find me, if you have any requests going forward the best way to reach me is just comment on my Youtube channel or email me, the email address can be found on my youtube channel. This has been Craig of the Pacific War Channel and narrator of the Pacific war week by week podcast, over and out!

Send us a textThis episode is a meditation and a prayer — to the Ancestors who came before us, on behalf of the future generations who will carry on after we are gone.Drawing from the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic ideal of living a virtuous life in service to others, I reflect on impermanence, legacy, and what truly matters. Wealth, fame, and status fade like vapor, but kindness, generosity, and love endure across time.I share the story of “Auntie Jay,” a remarkable Korean woman whose life was shaped by an act of compassion decades ago — a reminder that what lasts is not our possessions, but the invisible thread of kindness passed down from generation to generation.The episode closes with a prayer to the Ancestors: gratitude for their struggles, guidance for the present, and the hope that we may leave behind a better world for our children, and their children.

In this week’s segment, Steve Okun, CEO of APAC Advisors, joins us to unpack three major geopolitical shifts shaping Asia’s strategic landscape.First, the fallout from the Trump administration’s sweeping 50% tariffs on Indian imports. With up to $48 billion in exports at risk, India is urgently courting new trade partners—including China, Russia, and Brazil—raising questions about whether Washington’s hardline stance is inadvertently nudging New Delhi closer to Beijing.Next to Beijing’s upcoming Victory Day parade, where North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will appear publicly alongside Xi Jinping. This rare trilateral show of force signals a deepening axis of defiance against Western pressure, with implications for regional security and diplomatic alignment.Finally, Indonesia’s evolving leadership under President Prabowo Subianto.... with his military background and assertive approach to civilian affairs, what does his presidency mean for Southeast Asia’s largest democracy and its role in the Indo-Pacific.The International News Review, “Saturday Mornings Show” host Glenn van Zutphen and co-host Neil HumphreysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world's most endangered democracies—Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, and Ukraine—face relentless threats from the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and Moscow. With Ukraine locked in an existential war, host Cliff May welcomes British historian Mark Galeotti, host of In Moscow's Shadows, for an unflinching look at Russia's ambitions, Putin's imperial drive, and what it all means for the future of the free world.

En Corée du Sud, une cheffe nord-coréenne fait découvrir un aspect méconnu de son pays d'origine : sa gastronomie. Le régime nord-coréen est plutôt connu pour son manque de denrées alimentaires, mais il existe tout de même une véritable culture de la table. Une cuisine que la cheffe de 61 ans souhaite mettre au service de la réunification des deux pays. De notre correspondant à Séoul,  En plein centre de Séoul, sur les pentes d'une colline, un restaurant pas comme les autres. Impossible de trouver ici les plats typiques de la cuisine sud-coréenne, riche et épicée. C'est une cuisine plus simple, plus subtile, qui vient tout droit de Corée du Nord. Une cuisine de survie comme l'explique la cheffe, Lee Ae-ran, réfugiée nord-coréenne qui partage aujourd'hui son savoir-faire de la cuisine nord-coréenne.  Nous la retrouvons aux fourneaux de son restaurant, elle prépare un onban, un plat typiquement nord-coréen, méconnu au Sud : « Alors, la recette ? Ce sont des ingrédients simples, car on en manque au Nord. On sert du riz, des lamelles de poulet, du bouillon de poulet, des champignons, des pousses de soja et une galette d'haricot mungo sur le dessus. On verse le bouillon chaud par-dessus. C'est nourrissant, digeste, bon pour la santé, et apprécié notamment en période de régime. Beaucoup de réfugiés nord-coréens qui ont connu ce plat dans leur jeunesse en sont nostalgiques. » Comme ses compatriotes, Lee Ae-ran cultive ses souvenirs dans sa cuisine. Chacune de ces recettes est liée à une rencontre, un lieu, une mésaventure qu'elle a vécue dans le régime. « Je suis originaire de Pyongyang, la capitale, mais ma famille en a été expulsée par le régime car mes grands-parents étaient propriétaires terriens. On a été envoyés dans un camp de "rééducation révolutionnaire" avant de s'enfuir, plus tard. J'ai récemment écrit un livre dans lequel je partage mes souvenirs de ces moments difficiles au travers de ce qu'on trouvait à manger. » Le plat terminé, on peut se mettre à table. L'onban, manquant d'épices, difficile à trouver au Nord, est particulièrement apprécié des étrangers, notamment des Français, selon la cheffe. Pour Lee Ae-ran, la cuisine a un véritable pouvoir de rapprochement des peuples. Elle souhaite mettre son savoir-faire au service de la réunification des deux Corées, séparées depuis 80 ans. « Je pense que la réunification commence autour de la table. Partager un repas, c'est déjà établir un lien. En Corée du Sud, il est difficile pour les Nord-Coréens de vraiment s'intégrer, car nous n'avons pas la même culture. En revanche, tout le monde mange, chaque jour. À travers la cuisine, on peut communiquer de manière plus accessible, plus humaine. » Depuis son arrivée en Corée du Sud en 1997, Lee Ae-ran n'a cessé de plaider pour la réunification des deux Corées et l'intégration des réfugiés nord-coréens en mettant toujours sa cuisine au cœur de son engagement. À lire aussiSéoul: Lee Ae-ran, réfugiée nord-coréenne et fière de sa cuisine

The world's most endangered democracies—Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, and Ukraine—face relentless threats from the Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and Moscow. With Ukraine locked in an existential war, host Cliff May welcomes British historian Mark Galeotti, host of In Moscow's Shadows, for an unflinching look at Russia's ambitions, Putin's imperial drive, and what it all means for the future of the free world.

On this episode, scholar Joseph Torigian joins the podcast to discuss his new biography of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's father and Xi senior's delicate diplomacy with North Korea in the 1980s. Torigian explores Xi Zhongxun's role in rebuilding ties, navigating the DPRK's succession politics and nudging Pyongyang toward reform. He also talks about how China and North Korea influenced each other's policies during this pivotal period, and how those interactions still shape Beijing-Pyongyang relations today.  Joseph Torigian is a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover History Lab, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University, and a center associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of  “The Party's Interests Come First” from Stanford University Press. 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.

In this week's episode, NK News Deputy Managing Editor Alannah Hill breaks down President Lee Jae-myung's first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, where Lee appealed for Trump to take on a “peacemaker” role with Pyongyang.  She also discusses the flood of newly released state media footage showing North Korean troops in combat in Russia's Kursk region, which have provided a rare look at battlefield tactics, drone warfare and how official propaganda is framing the 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.

Last time we spoke about the Battle for South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. In August 1945, as Japan teetered on the edge of destruction following the atomic bombings, a desperate situation unfolded. The Soviet Union launched a sudden invasion of Manchuria, catching Japanese forces off guard. On August 14, Japan's decision to surrender was made, announced to the world the following day. However, the Kwantung Army resisted fiercely, engaging in frantic evacuations. In South Sakhalin, Japanese defenders clashed with advancing Soviet troops, facing overwhelming odds. By August 18, chaos reigned on the Japanese side, with forces surrendering and civilians in panic. As the Soviets pushed forward, the situation became increasingly dire for Japan. Despite valiant resistance, the imminent defeat became clear. In a moment of critical decision, Emperor Hirohito accepted the surrender terms, officially sealing Japan's fate and marking the end of the Pacific War. However the Soviets had not yet stopped their onslaught.  This episode is the Soviet Victory in Asia Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  We are drawing near to the real conclusion of this series! Japan has officially surrendered, however the Soviets are not done just yet. East asia is a delicious piece of cake, laid wide open and Stalin intends to take every piece he can grab before the curtain falls. Now as we last left off it was August 18, and General Yamada's Kwantung Army had surrendered to the Soviet forces led by Marshal Vasilevsky, who were advancing rapidly through Manchuria. Yet, some Japanese units, like those at Kalgan, continued to resist occupation until the month's end. On August 19, following Yamada's announcement that all military operations had ceased, a Soviet delegation arrived at Hsinking.  A daring operation took place, where a 225-strong detachment from the 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, part of the 5th Guards Tank Corps, was airlifted to the city's main airfield. This mission, along with others, was carried out under orders from Marshal Vasilevsky on August 18, following the commander's initial offer of surrender from the Kwantung Army. Vasilevsky's directive was urgent: “The Japanese resistance is broken, and the challenging road conditions hinder the swift advance of our main forces. We need to deploy specially formed, fast-moving, and well-equipped units to capture Changchun, Mukden, Jilin, and Harbin immediately. These units should remain flexible for future missions, regardless of their distance from the main forces.”The push to accelerate operations came directly from Stalin himself. In Kulichkin's biography of Marshal Vasilevsky, he recounts a pivotal phone call on August 15. Stalin was informed that the Japanese had “lost command and control” and were unable to mount a strong defense, with their forces divided into several fragmented groups. Vasilevsky confidently stated, “Even a miracle cannot save the Japanese from total defeat,” stressing the need to maintain the momentum of the offensive. Stalin's response was straightforward: “Good. We need to increase the pace. What proposals do you have?” Vasilevsky revealed plans to use airborne assault forces against larger cities like Harbin, Changchun, Jilin, and Mukden, alongside advanced mobile units across all combined arms armies. These units, consisting of tanks and assault guns, were fully equipped with desantniki, ready to engage firmly in the ongoing operations. The landing at Shenyang revealed a remarkable twist of fate. Waiting at the airfield for evacuation to Japan was none other than the recently abdicated Emperor Puyi of Manchukuo. On August 15, 1945, Puyi tuned in to the radio and listened to Emperor Hirohito's address announcing Japan's surrender. In this historic speech, the Showa Emperor referred to the Americans' use of a "most unusual and cruel bomb," which had just devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For Puyi, this was the first revelation of the atomic bombings, information that the Japanese had conveniently withheld from him until that moment. The aircraft carrying Major Chelyshev's force, escorted by fighter planes, landed at 1:15 PM without any opposition and captured him. This small unit's survival hinged on remaining unchallenged, and they successfully secured the airfield. They also freed several Allied personnel held at the nearby Hoten prisoner-of-war camp. As soon as the landing was secured, additional reinforcements were airlifted in later that day, led by General Kravchenko, the commander of the 6th Guards Tank Army. He formally accepted the city's surrender, and the Soviets then transported Puyi to the Siberian town of Chita.  Meanwhile, Vasilevsky's ground offensive pressed on, mostly unopposed, though some resistance persisted. In the Transbaikal Front, Marshal Malinovsky's General Pliyev led his cavalry-mechanized units against the Japanese forces at Kalgan. Other units reached Jehol and accepted the surrender of the 108th Division. General Danilov's 17th Army secured the Shanhaiguan coast, while General Managarov's 53rd Army pushed towards Kailu. The main force of General Kravchenko's 6th Guards Tank Army regrouped at Tungliao and Kaitung, preparing to advance south toward Mukden. General Lyudnikov's 39th Army steadily approached Changchun, confronting the bypassed 107th Division, and General Luchinsky's 36th Army occupied Tsitsihar, accepting the surrender of the 136th Independent Mixed Brigade. At the same time, on General Purkayev's 2nd Far Eastern Front, General Teryokhin's 2nd Red Banner Army continued its siege of the Aihun fortified region. Meanwhile, a forward detachment moved slowly south through the Lesser Khinghan Mountains. General Mamonov's 15th Army began capturing and processing prisoners from the many retreating Japanese units after a successful amphibious assault secured Sansing. The Amur Flotilla supported the army's push towards Harbin, while General Pashkov's 5th Rifle Corps finally reached Poli, which had already been occupied by other Soviet units. In Marshal Meretskov's 1st Far Eastern Front, forward detachments of General Zakhvatayev's 35th Army began arriving at Linkou, focusing on the surrender of Japanese units in the area. Rear elements effectively eliminated the last traces of enemy resistance in the Hutou fortified area.  After a challenging struggle through the wetlands and the capture of Mishan on August 12, advanced detachments of the 35th Army's main force, the 66th and 363rd Rifle Divisions, continued their advance against minimal opposition. The situation was starkly different to their rear, where the 1056th Rifle Regiment of the 264th Rifle Division, supported by the heavily reinforced 109th Fortified Region, worked to dismantle the now-isolated Hutou fortified area. Despite the dire circumstances, the garrison refused to surrender. Thus, the focus shifted to systematically eliminating their defenses, which became a painstaking task. The attackers deployed an artillery destruction group, secured air supremacy, and utilized well-trained assault formations. Their techniques included pouring kerosene or gasoline into ventilation shafts of underground structures, sometimes in alarming quantities. For instance, two tonnes of gasoline were recorded being poured into a single installation before ignition was applied. Despite the brutal and methodical obliteration of their positions, the defenders continued to ignore orders to surrender. Notably, on August 18, a Japanese prisoner was sent under a flag of truce to inform those still holding out that the war was officially over; tragically, he was hacked to death by a sword-wielding officer. Ultimately, this stubbornness led to catastrophic consequences: about 3,000 defenders were killed, blasted and burned, before a small number finally capitulated. Additionally, advanced detachments of General Beloborodov's 1st Red Banner Army reached Shangzhi before continuing towards Harbin, and forward elements of General Krylov's 5th Army pushed on toward Jilin. General Chistyakov's 25th Army commenced disarming General Murakami's 3rd Army, while the 10th Mechanized Corps advanced rapidly westward, crossing the Laoilin Mountain passes to arrive at Tunhua by nightfall. Over in North Korea, the 335th Rifle Division successfully landed in Chongjin, as General Kabanov's Southern Defense Region prepared for an assault on Gensan. In South Sakhalin, despite the surrender of the 125th Regiment and ongoing negotiations with General Mineki's 88th Division, Soviet forces opted to proceed with the planned landing at Maoka. Consequently, Admiral Andreyev's Northern Pacific Flotilla departed from Sovetskaya Gavan in the morning, carrying the bulk of the 113th Rifle Brigade along with a battalion of marines for the long and challenging voyage to Maoka. On Shumshu Island, as General Gnechko's forces were landing their artillery to renew their assault, Japanese officers unexpectedly approached the Soviets under flags of truce, carrying a letter from General Tsutsumi proposing negotiations for surrender. Representatives from both sides began discussions, and by 6 PM, the 91st Division formally surrendered the garrisons of Shumshu, Paramushir, and Onekotan. On August 20, Gnechko dispatched a small detachment on six vessels to seize control of the airfield at Kataoka. However, as they crossed the Second Kuril Strait, batteries on both sides of the narrow waterway opened heavy fire on the Soviet ships, forcing them to withdraw. This breach of the surrender agreement sparked a renewed offensive at 1 PM, coordinated with air strikes. The bases at Kataoka and Kashiwabar were bombed by 61 aircraft, which dropped over 200 bombs, enabling ground troops to push forward up to six kilometers. It was not until General Tsutsumi intervened that the Soviets were assured the Japanese would indeed lay down their arms. Meanwhile, Andreyev's convoy arrived at Maoka harbor on the morning of August 20, successfully landing the first wave of marines amid heavy fog. They quickly spread out and secured the area while the second and third waves of infantry followed behind. By noon, the port area was secured, and the marines began advancing eastward into the city, supported by infantry on their flanks. Taken by surprise, the Japanese defenders were ultimately compelled to retreat, with the 113th Rifle Brigade pursuing them through the mountains to the villages of Futamata and Osaka. In Manchuria, between August 20 and 21, Vasilevsky's units continued their advance to occupy the region's main centers. Stalin urged for greater speed, fearing that any delay might prompt President Truman to order General MacArthur's air-naval assault forces to land there. Notably, Pliyev's first column successfully captured Kalgan, while his second column moved south toward Beijing, securing Gubeikou at the border. Located in one of the passes through the Great Wall, marking the border between Manchukuo and China, the town was garrisoned by Japanese units. These forces surrendered upon the approach of the Soviet troops, who then quickly advanced toward Beijing, about 100 kilometers away. Although not the former capital itself, this area was under the control of Chinese Communist forces known as the 8th Route Army, who aligned with the Soviets. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek was acutely aware that any Japanese capitulation to the Communists in northern China would allow the latter to occupy vital territories, making their removal difficult. Consequently, he commanded the 8th Route Army not to accept any Japanese surrenders, insisting they only surrender to Nationalist forces, with dire punishments threatened for defiance. Adding to the complexity, the Soviet Union and China had signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, discussed at Yalta, just six days earlier on August 14. This treaty promised mutual respect for sovereignty and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. The Soviets had also committed to providing “moral support and aid in military supplies and other material resources” exclusively to the National Government as the legitimate central authority of China. Thus, a significant political and military predicament loomed. However, the Soviets quickly extricated themselves from this situation when Malinovsky issued an order forbidding Pliyev's forces from crossing the border. As Pliyev recounted, his formations were poised just halfway between Chengde and Beijing, needing “only one 'leap' to the Chinese capital.” He noted, “I had to suspend the offensive and move north beyond the Great Wall.” Units from the 6th Guards Tank Army occupied both Changchun and Mukden, initiating a rail movement towards Port Arthur and Dairen. For those curious, at Pingfan and Changchun, General Shiro Ishii and the remaining personnel from Units 731 and 100 were captured by Soviet forces. In a tragic turn of events, all test subjects were murdered and cremated, while the Japanese attempted to destroy evidence of their facilities but were unable to do so in time. Following their capture, the Soviets launched an extensive campaign to uncover the secrets behind Units 731 and 100, leading to the Khabarovsk Trial. If you want to learn more about what I would call “japans operation paperclip”, the secret dealings between Unit 731 and the Allies after the war, I did make an episode about it over on my patreon. Its pretty gruesome stuff so big disclaimer there.' The Soviets arrived to Dairen on 24 August, although these places had surrendered to air-landed forces two days earlier. This was, no doubt, much to the relief of Stalin, as these were amongst the main locations where he most feared American intervention. Indeed, on the day of the landing he had told Vasilevsky to ‘keep in mind' the fact that any delay could mean ‘Truman will order General MacArthur to land his naval assault forces'. The long-resisting 135th Independent Mixed Brigade finally surrendered at Aihun, while advanced units of the 2nd Red Banner Army secured Nencheng and Peian before pushing towards Tsitsihar and Harbin. Forward detachments from the 15th and 1st Red Banner Armies also reached the already-occupied Harbin. Furthermore, advanced units of the 5th and 25th Armies arrived in Jilin to reinforce the air-landed detachment there. Additionally, units from the 88th Rifle Corps and the 10th Mechanized Corps began their southward movement into Korea, heading toward the 38th Parallel. In North Korea, Kabanov dispatched a marine battalion and other units, totaling around 2,000 men, to occupy the fortified port of Gensan on August 20. The following morning, the landing force arrived and disembarked without opposition. However, the Japanese garrison refused to surrender until orders from higher command were received. Meanwhile, Japanese troops began to peacefully surround the harbor area, while Soviet sailors and marines, in a similarly calm manner, took up their defensive positions. As Kabanov noted, “An incomprehensible situation arose, neither peace nor war. The enemy has numerical superiority, but he neither fights nor wants to capitulate.” Unsurprisingly, he added, “the night passed in suspense.” The surreal situation was resolved when Rear Admiral Hori Yugoro and Colonel Tado boarded the frigate EK-3 to meet with Captain Studenichnikov on the morning of August 22. During their discussions, they attempted to negotiate terms, but the Soviet captain issued a bold threat of an immediate large-scale air strike and the initiation of hostilities at the port unless they surrendered unconditionally. While the latter was likely an empty threat, the Japanese officers signed the surrender agreement nonetheless. The process of surrendering the garrison began that evening and continued until August 26. In total, the Soviets captured more than 7,000 officers and men, along with all their military equipment. Looking toward the northern Kuriles, Japanese forces on Shumshu finally began to lay down their weapons on the afternoon of August 22, as Gnechko's units spread out to secure the island. In Manchuria, airborne detachments were also landed at Dairen and Port Arthur to secure these key administrative centers before the Americans could take control. Vanguard units of the 6th Guards Tank Army arrived to reinforce them two days later. Meanwhile, in South Sakhalin, heavy fighting persisted at Futamata despite Mineki's ceasefire agreement on August 22. Soviet air strikes supported the ground forces when weather conditions allowed, and the Japanese finally surrendered by the nightfall of August 23. At the same time, Andreyev dispatched three marine battalions on a small convoy to capture Otomari. However, a fierce storm forced the flotilla to seek refuge in the port of Honto on the morning of August 24. Once the storm subsided that evening, the force left a company of marines to garrison the port and resumed their voyage to Otomari, arriving there on the morning of August 25, just as elements of the 113th Rifle Brigade reached the eastern outskirts of the city. By noon, the 88th Division surrendered, and the city was secured. Shortly after, the 214th Tank Brigade arrived at Toyohara to secure South Sakhalin's administrative center. Thus, the South Sakhalin operation concluded with nearly 18,320 Japanese soldiers taken prisoner. Yet, this wouldn't mark the end of operations for General Cheremisov's 16th Army. Stalin pushed for the 87th and 135th Rifle Brigades, along with three marine battalions, to assemble at Otomari and execute amphibious landings on the southern Kurile Islands, specifically, Etorofu, Shikotan, and Kunashiri, and the islets of the Habomai group. The failure to include the Kuril Islands in the areas designated for surrender to Soviet forces in Truman's General Order No. 1, originally issued on August 15, exacerbated Stalin's inherent suspicions regarding American intentions. Consequently, Vasilevsky was instructed to organize landings on the Kurils, ensuring that, similar to Port Arthur, Soviet occupation would manifest physically through boots on the ground. Despite Truman's subsequent correction of the omission, mistrust endured, as did the directive to occupy the islands. However, where Stalin hesitated was concerning Hokkaido. Truman's somewhat abrupt rejection of Stalin's demand for a portion of Hokkaido undoubtedly irritated the Soviet dictator, yet he chose not to take further action. Scholarly debates have arisen around the rationale behind Stalin's ‘retreat.' When viewed within the framework of his stated geostrategic goal of securing the Soviet Union's sea lines of communication in the Pacific, it becomes understandable. Churchill once likened the Soviet Union's challenges in this regard to those of a “giant with his nostrils pinched.” A look at the map reveals that control of the Kurils would significantly alleviate this pressure in the Far East, making their acquisition crucial. Similarly, occupying southern Sakhalin would allow the Soviet Union to control the northern side of the La Pérouse Strait, which connects the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk. The strait's opposite shore is formed by the northern coast of Hokkaido, and possessing this area would undeniably enhance the security of communications and is therefore highly desirable. However, any unilateral action in this regard would incur a significant and public breach with the Americans, the consequences of which could not be easily predicted. Given that Stalin's claim to the Kurils was firmly based on the agreement reached at Yalta, an agreement which Truman honored, his choice to avoid completely rupturing relations with the U.S. was motivated by strategic self-interest. Consequently, Andreyev's flotilla, carrying these units, departed Otomari on August 27, reaching the west coast of Etorofu at 3:15 AM on August 28. The landing, conducted using small boats, went unopposed and was met by the surrender of General Ogawa's 89th Division. The occupation of the other islands was also peaceful, with the Soviets securing Kunashiri by September 2, and Shikotan and the Habomai islets by September 5. The remaining northern Kurile Islands surrendered without incident as elements of Gnechko's Kamchatka forces arrived at Paramushir on August 24, Onekotan and Shiashkotan on August 25, Matsuwa by August 26, Shimushiru on August 27, and Uruppu by August 29. In total, 63,840 prisoners were taken throughout the Kuriles. On August 24, air-landed detachments arrived at the cities of Pyongyang and Kange to secure the last administrative centers in North Korea. Two days later, units of the 25th Army reached Gensan. With this move, albeit with some geographical liberties, Chistyakov asserted that "the troops of the 25th Army, on the orders of Marshal Meretskov, reached the 38th Parallel.” In the days that followed, units of General Kushibuchi's 34th Army gradually began to surrender and disarm. Finally, in Manchuria, most of Yamada's units had surrendered and were being disarmed. However, one unit continued to resist until the end of the month. The bypassed and encircled 107th Division was engaged in fierce fighting for survival against the 94th Rifle Corps. Due to a lack of communication with Kwantung Army Headquarters, they did not receive any ceasefire orders. As a result, a staff officer from General Iida's 30th Army was dispatched by plane to locate the division and deliver the ceasefire orders. The 107th Division was found near Chalai, and the plane made a forced landing between the Japanese troops and the opposing Soviet forces. The staff officer successfully delivered the orders terminating hostilities in that sector on August 30, which the Japanese troops promptly complied with. By September 1, units of the 53rd Army occupied Kailu, Chaoyang, Fuhsin, and Gushanbeitseifu, while forward detachments secured the Chinchou area on the Liaotung Peninsula. This marked the conclusion of the Manchurian campaign, with the Soviets claiming to have captured between 594,000 and 609,000 prisoners of war across Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and North Korea. The captured Japanese military personnel were subjected to forced labor in Siberian internment camps, as well as camps in Sakhalin, Manchuria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. A significant number were assigned to the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. Unfortunately, the treatment of prisoners of war was deemed inhumane and mishandled. Many suffered from malnutrition, overwork, cave-ins, floods, unsanitary working conditions leading to epidemics, harsh winter weather, violent guards, and brutal suppression of even mild resistance. Disturbingly, some Japanese prisoners were even lynched by their fellow captives. Estimates suggest that between 60,000 and 347,000 Japanese died in captivity. Although 18,616 prisoners were released in 1946, the process of repatriating prisoners of war extended into the 1950s. Those who remained after 1950 were detained for various convictions. However, their release began in 1953 under different amnesties. Following Josef Stalin's death and the subsequent Khrushchev Thaw, the Soviet attitude toward the remaining Japanese prisoners shifted significantly. Accompanied by Soviet officials, they were taken on tours of cities and allowed to purchase gifts for their families. Before repatriation, a banquet in Khabarovsk, hosted by Nikolai Gagen, included high-ranking prisoners such as Jun Ushiroku as attendees. The last major group of 1,025 Japanese POWs was released on December 23, 1956. After that, some Japanese POWs were released in small groups, with some only returning in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, some prisoners who had been held for decades, many of whom had married and started families during their captivity, chose not to return permanently to Japan. The Soviets committed numerous war crimes during their invasion and occupation of Manchuria and other Japanese territories. During the invasion, Soviet soldiers killed and raped Japanese civilians and looted civilian property. Following the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on August 9, 1945, a large number of Japanese citizens residing in the region sought to repatriate to Japan. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers supervised this mass movement and, in October 1945, delegated responsibility to Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Kwantung Army, which was meant to protect the Japanese settlers in Manchuria, quickly retreated and abandoned them. With most able-bodied men drafted into the army, the majority of those left behind were women, children, and the elderly, rendering them highly vulnerable to attacks from Soviet soldiers and local Chinese seeking revenge.In Soviet-occupied Manchuria and North Korea, the repatriation of Japanese civilians was characterized by violent expulsions, accompanied by widespread looting, mass killings, and rampant sexual violence perpetrated by both Soviet soldiers and local populations seeking retribution. Many Japanese civilians succumbed to starvation, disease, mass killings, and mass suicides. Approximately 223,000 Japanese civilians residing in the Soviet-occupied zones died, most within a year and a half after August 9, 1945. Regarding the extensive rape of Japanese women and girls by Soviet soldiers, a former Japanese soldier, Wakatsuki Yoshio, detailed these grim experiences in his memoir, The Records of Postwar Repatriation “What word can possibly describe the violence committed by the Soviet soldiers on Japanese women? I can only think of the word “hideous”. The victim could be a girl of twelve or thirteen years old or an old lady of almost seventy years old. These soldiers did not choose the sites where they raped them, in public, in broad daylight, even on snow-covered roads”. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945 left many Japanese women stranded after their male family members were either conscripted or killed. These women, including young girls, endured severe hardships, facing gang rapes by Soviet soldiers and local Chinese militia groups. In a desperate effort to survive, many were forced to marry Chinese men, either out of necessity or in exchange for assistance in repatriating their remaining family members. Disturbingly, some victims were as young as thirteen. Some women were held in groups and subjected to repeated sexual violence over extended periods. In certain instances, to ensure the safety of the group, members of the Japanese community offered women to their perpetrators. There were also reports of women voluntarily submitting themselves to protect their families, younger peers, or others in their communities. After Japan's defeat in 1945, leaders of the Kurokawa Settler Group in Manchuria offered approximately 15 young women, aged 17 to 21, to Soviet soldiers in exchange for protection. This tragic practice continued from September to November 1945, with some of the women later being offered to Chinese soldiers as well. With no protection from Japanese soldiers, Japanese women often had to devise unique strategies to avoid rape. Memoirs from female repatriates detail various escape tactics. Some women hid in attics every night, narrowly avoiding capture or even gunfire. Others managed to trap intruders in rooms before fleeing or bribed Soviet soldiers with valuables, such as wristwatches, to secure their escape. Notably, some women, particularly former geisha and bar workers, voluntarily went with Soviet soldiers to protect others. These women were referred to as tokkōtai (kamikaze) for their self-sacrifice. Additionally, it wasn't just Japanese women who suffered; Korean and Chinese women were also victims of sexual violence at the hands of various perpetrators in Manchuria. British and American reports indicate that Soviet Red Army troops looted and terrorized the local population in Shenyang, a city in Manchuria. A foreign witness described how Soviet troops, formerly stationed in Berlin, were permitted by the Soviet military to enter Shenyang for "three days of rape and pillage." In Harbin, Soviet forces ignored protests from leaders of the Chinese Communist Party regarding the widespread mass rape and looting committed by their troops. In the immediate aftermath of the war in 1945, in areas of Manchuria occupied by the National Revolutionary Army, 176 Koreans were killed, 1,866 were injured, 3,468 were detained, and 320 were raped by armed Chinese mobs. The attacks against Korean residents in Manchuria were believed to stem from a perception of Korean collaboration with Japanese colonial rule. One of the most infamous instances was the Gegenmiao massacre. On August 10 and 11, Xing'an was bombed, nearly destroying its urban functions. It is estimated that 3,000 of the 4,000 civilians. Anticipating the Soviet invasion, Xing'an had prepared an evacuation plan divided into three groups based on residential area and workplace. The Kwantung Army, however, failed to inform the General Office officials about their retreat. As a result, residents in the eastern area, many of whom were self-employed or office workers, had difficulty obtaining information and securing transportation, while those in the western area had military personnel who were first to learn of the situation. Some of the civilians with a handful of armed men had proceeded on foot towards Gegenmiao Township, about 35 kilometers southeast of Xing'an Street, to wait for a train at Gegenmiao Station and then evacuate to Baichengzi. They aimed to receive protection from the Kwantung Army in Baichengzi. Around 11:40 AM on August 14 in the vicinity of Gegenmyo Hill, where a Lamaist temple was located, they encountered an infantry unit consisting of 14 Soviet medium tanks and 20 trucks. The column reportedly stretched for two kilometers, with about a hundred survivors among them. Soviet troops launched an attack from the hilltop, deploying tanks with machine-gun fire. The tanks attacked multiple times, and when they ceased, Soviet soldiers disembarked and ruthlessly shot and bayoneted survivors. Many who escaped death from gunfire were still severely injured or witnessed family members being killed. Some were left holding their loved ones or chose to commit suicide. It is estimated that only about a hundred survivors were later confirmed, including nearly 200 schoolchildren from the Xing'an Street Zaiman National School. Kwantung Army units, which were supposed to escort the civilians and counterattack, had already retreated southward. Even after the Soviet soldiers left, sporadic gunfire continued, presumably due to suicides. Local residents began to plunder the bodies, stripping them of clothes and valuables. Others drowned in the river while attempting to escape. Reports tell of one woman who had her child killed by Soviet soldiers, only to later face an attack from Chinese militia, who stripped her of her clothes and mutilated her. Surviving mothers and children were also attacked, and those separated were often taken by the Chinese. At the time, it was common for Japanese boys to be sold for 300 yen and girls for 500 yen. Some survivors gathered together and began committing mass suicide, killing those who wished to end their lives. Others expressed intentions to form a death squad with rifles for revenge but ultimately did not resist.   After the war ended on August 15, attacks on displaced persons continued. A 12-year-old girl who joined a group of about ten women after the incident reported that they were attacked and robbed, taking over a week to reach Zhenxi Station, 10 kilometers from Gegenmiao Station. The women sought shelter in an abandoned house near the station but were discovered by Soviet soldiers that night who assaulted them until midnight. Afterward, the soldiers piled dry grass into the house, setting it ablaze in an attempt to burn the women alive. The girl and her sister managed to escape through a window, but many others could not flee in time due to the fire's rapid spread. The girl was forced to live as a residual orphan afterward. Fortunately, some Chinese, Mongolians, and Koreans provided food for the survivors, with some Chinese showing kindness towards the children. Those orphaned children, whose parents had been killed, became known as residual orphans, with about 30 in this unfortunate situation. Many women were forced to become residual women as well. Tragically, around 200 students from a local school, including the headmaster and his wife, were killed during this chaos. Some historians believe the attack stemmed from Soviet soldiers mistaking the refugees for armed Japanese troops because men within the group were carrying firearms for protection. In general, displaced persons at this time often carried small weapons like rifles, and some groups were even armed with light machine guns. In the pioneer groups, women sometimes participated in fighting against bandits, and in the Sado pioneer group incident, children above the fifth grade were forced into combat, regardless of gender. There may also have been prior skirmishes with other Japanese civilian groups before the war's end, further complicating the situation as the Soviet Army, which included female soldiers, may have regarded these mixed civilian and armed groups as a threat. According to Soviet military combat records, on August 14, the Soviet 17th Guards Rifle Division, 19th Guards Rifle Division, 91st Guards Rifle Division, and 61st Tank Division were stationed northwest of Gezhne Temple, but there was no combat activity in the area. On August 15, this unit advanced toward Bai Chengzi and occupied Bai Chengzi Station, which was then taken over by tanks from the 61st Tank Division. Despite extensive documentation, nothing about this incident was revealed until 2014 during the process of perestroika. Reports from British and American sources indicate that the 700,000 Soviet troops occupying Manchuria also terrorized and looted the local population in Mukden. They were not deterred by Soviet authorities and engaged in what was described as "three days of rape and pillage," with similar atrocities occurring in Harbin and across the country. Amid the mass repatriation of Japanese civilians living in the region, Japanese women in Manchuria faced repeated sexual violence at the hands of Russian soldiers every day. In North Korea, it was similarly reported that Soviet soldiers raped both Japanese and Korean women. Additionally, Soviet soldiers looted the property of Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans residing in Manchuria and North Korea. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Amid chaotic surrenders, Emperor Hirohito accepted defeat, but Soviet advances continued relentlessly. As they pushed deeper, the Soviets captured key cities, including Harbin, while Japan's soldiers and civilians struggled for survival against the onslaught. War crimes committed by Soviet troops added to the tragedy, with rampant violence against Japanese civilians. Amidst political tensions, the Soviets secured territory, culminating in the surrender of remaining Japanese forces. The grim conclusion of this campaign marked a profound shift in the power dynamics of East Asia and paved the way for post-war ramifications.

Kate Adie presents stories from Alaska, Washington, South Korea, Chile and France.From the military fly-past to the grandiose entrance on the red carpet, to the press conference, without any questions, the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin drew dismay from Western governments. Steve Rosenberg was in Alaska - and reflects on the aftermath.After the pomp and pageantry of Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin, six European leaders rushed to Washington DC this week to meet with the US President in a show of solidarity with Volodymyr Zelensky. Tom Bateman followed the twists and turns and reflects on what was actually achieved at the White House.Vladimir Putin has come to rely on support from North Korea to bolster his troops in Ukraine. Pyongyang is now sending thousands of construction workers, to help fill a huge labour shortage created by the war. Jean Mackenzie has spoken to six workers who've managed to escape.In the hills of southern Chile and is an alluring tourist destination - a German-style village - but it was once home to a religious sect run by a manipulative and abusive leader. The Chilean government wants to expropriate some of its land to create a memorial for the people who were tortured and killed there during Pinochet's regime. But Grace Livingstone finds, it's proving divisive.In the Loire valley the summer months bring both extended bank holiday weekends in France and the return in the last few decades of the 'Guinguettes', waterside outdoor bars and dance halls which were once popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Jamie Smith-Maillet went to soak up the atmosphereSeries Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinators: Katie Morrison & Sophie Hill Editor: Richard Vadon

$1.5 billion disappears in minutes. But what follows reveals North Korea's expanding reach — from elite hackers to soldiers on the battlefield.The audacious attack was on the ByBit crypto exchange in February 2025. Investigators say North Korean hackers the Lazarus Group are responsible – the biggest heist in the history of crypto. With our hosts Jean Lee and Geoff White, we uncover how they pulled it off.But as Pyongyang's cyber army is striking targets all over the world, North Korean soldiers have also been fighting on more traditional battlegrounds – siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine. We meet the South Korean correspondent who secured a world-exclusive interview with a North Korean POW. Does this all signify a turning point for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as his cyber operatives pull off increasingly daring heists and his military gain real-world combat experience fighting with the Russians against Ukraine? As Kim continues to ally with Vladimir Putin — a leader whose country possesses exactly the kind of nuclear expertise North Korea has long sought – is he more dangerous than ever? Meanwhile North Korea says it has nothing to do with the cybercrimes the Lazarus Group is accused of, saying the United States is making these allegations to try and tarnish its image.Our story is about more than money. It's about where it goes, what it buys, and who's fighting in the shadows.

A ransomware attack exposes personal medical records of VA patients. New joint guidance from CISA and the NSA emphasizes asset inventory and OT taxonomy. The UK government reportedly spent millions to cover up a data breach. Researchers identified two critical flaws in a widely used print orchestration platform.  Phishing attacks increasingly rely on personalization. Rooting and jailbreaking frameworks pose serious enterprise risks. Fortinet warns of a critical command injection flaw in FortiSIEM. Estonian nationals are sentenced in a crypto Ponzi scheme. Michele Campobasso from Forescout joins us to unpack new research separating the hype from reality around “vibe hacking.” Meet the Blockchain Bandits of Pyongyang. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Michele Campobasso from Forescout joins us to unpack new research separating the hype from reality around “vibe hacking.” Their team tested open-source, underground, and commercial AI models on vulnerability research and exploit development tasks—finding high failure rates and significant limitations, even among top commercial systems. Selected Reading Medical records for 1 million dialysis patients breached in data hack of VA vendor (Stars and Stripes) NSA Joins CISA and Others to Share OT Asset Inventory Guidance (NSA.gov) CISA warns of N-able N-central flaws exploited in zero-day attacks (Bleeping Computer) U.K. Secretly Spent $3.2 Million to Stop Journalists From Reporting on Data Breach (The New York Times) From Support Ticket to Zero Day  (Horizon3.ai) Personalization in Phishing: Advanced Tactics for Malware Delivery (Cofense) The Root(ing) Of All Evil: Security Holes That Could Compromise Your Mobile Device (Zimperium) Fortinet warns of FortiSIEM pre-auth RCE flaw with exploit in the wild (Bleeping Computer) Estonians behind $577 million cryptomining fraud sentenced to 16 months (The Record) Someone counter-hacked a North Korean IT worker: Here's what they found (Cointelegraph) Audience Survey Complete our annual audience survey before August 31. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russia has been trying to tackle a significant labour shortage by recruiting North Koreans; the BBC has been speaking to some of them. Also in the programme: the American surgeon recycling surgical pins and plates in Gaza; and how studying cat dementia can help humans.Photograph: President Putin and Kim Jung Un meeting in Pyongyang in 2024. Credit: Reuters.

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 postpone half of their summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield drills and the latest on the dismantling of propaganda loudspeaker arrays along the inter-Korean border. 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.

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Beijing detains one of its top diplomats, a man once seen as a future foreign minister. Is this just another anti-corruption campaign—or evidence of growing paranoia from Xi Jinping? Lebanon signs on to a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah—but days later, six Lebanese soldiers are killed in a blast while seizing the group's weapons. Ukraine accuses Russia of helping North Korea upgrade its nuclear weapons delivery systems. Is Moscow trading tech for troops in its war against Ukraine? And in today's Back of the Brief—an update from Haiti, where the government has declared a three-month state of emergency in the central region as gangs tighten their grip and violence surges. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com.Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on goldJacked Up Fitness: Get the all-new Shake Weight by Jacked Up Fitness at https://JackedUpShakeWeight.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, our hosts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dave Bittner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joe Carrigan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Maria Varmazis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (also host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠T-Minus⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Space Daily show) are back sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. We start with some follow-up on an Arizona woman sentenced to over eight years in prison for running a “laptop farm” that helped North Korean IT workers pose as U.S. employees at hundreds of American companies, funneling over $17 million to Pyongyang through stolen identities and remote access. We also share an update on Joe's Profile picture. We start with Dave's story on a Facebook scam falsely claiming insider access to a secret Yeti cooler deal from Dick's Sporting Goods, using a fake emotional backstory to lure users into clicking a malicious link under the guise of an employee-only loophole. Maria's story is on escalating violence at the Thailand-Cambodia border, where a long-standing territorial dispute has reignited after a leaked phone call between leaders fractured a decades-old political friendship, sparking deadly clashes, diplomatic fallout, and rising tensions fueled by personal betrayal, political instability, and mutual economic pressures. Joe's story follows the indictment of a former Tri-Cities pastor who allegedly used his position and a fake cryptocurrency scheme called “Solano Fi” to defraud his congregation and others out of millions, promising risk-free returns while siphoning the funds for himself and his co-conspirators. Our catch of the day comes from Joe who shares an interesting email from "Xfinity." Complete our annual ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠audience survey⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ before August 31. Resources and links to stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arizona woman sentenced over $17 million North Korea worker fraud scheme⁠ Facebook: Ava Davis  Facebook Facebook Facebook The fractured friendship behind the fight at the Thailand-Cambodia border Lethal Cambodia-Thailand border clash linked to cyber-scam slave camps Beneath the Border: Scam Centers and the Thailand–Cambodia Conflict Grand Jury Charges Pastor, Wife in Alleged Multi-Million Dollar Cryptocurrency Scam Former Tri-Cities Pastor Indicted for Multi-Million Dollar Cryptocurrency Scam ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hackinghumans@n2k.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

1. Scrutiny of the "Tea" Dating AppThe women-focused dating app "Tea" faces backlash after two data breaches exposed 72,000 sensitive images and 1.1 million private messages. Though security upgrades were promised, past data remained exposed, and the app lacks end-to-end encryption. Additionally, anonymous features enabling posts about men have sparked defamation lawsuits. Critics argue Tea prioritized rapid growth over user safety, exemplifying the danger of neglecting cybersecurity in pursuit of scale.2. North Korean Remote Work InfiltrationCrowdStrike has flagged a 220% surge in North Korean IT operatives posing as remote workers—over 320 cases in the past year. These operatives use stolen/fake identities, aided by generative AI to craft résumés, deepfake interviews, and juggle multiple jobs. Their earnings fund Pyongyang's weapons programs. The tactic reveals the limits of traditional vetting and the need for advanced hiring security.3. Airportr's Data ExposureUK luggage service Airportr suffered a major security lapse exposing passport photos, boarding passes, and flight details—including those of diplomats. CyberX9 found it possible to reset accounts with just an email and no limits on login attempts. Attackers could gain admin access, reroute luggage, or cancel flights. Although patched, the incident underscores risks of convenience services with poor security hygiene.4. Risks of AI-Generated CodeVeracode's "2025 GenAI Code Security Report" found that nearly 45% of AI-generated code across 80 tasks had security flaws—many severe. This highlights the need for human oversight and thorough reviews. While AI speeds development, it also increases vulnerability if unchecked, making secure coding a human responsibility.5. Microsoft's SharePoint Hack ControversyChinese state hackers exploited flaws in SharePoint, breaching hundreds of U.S. entities. A key concern: China-based Microsoft engineers maintained the hacked software, potentially enabling earlier access. Microsoft also shared vulnerability data with Chinese firms through its MAPP program, while Chinese law requires such data be reported to the state. This raises alarms about outsourcing sensitive software to geopolitical rivals.6. Russian Embassy Surveillance AttackRussia's "Secret Blizzard" hackers used ISP-level surveillance to deliver fake Kaspersky updates to embassies. These updates installed malware and rogue certificates enabling adversary-in-the-middle attacks—allowing full decryption of traffic. The attack shows the threat of state-level manipulation of software updates and underscores the need for update authenticity verification.7. Signal's Threat to Exit AustraliaSignal may pull out of Australia if forced to weaken encryption. ASIO's push for access contradicts Signal's end-to-end encryption model, which can't accommodate backdoors without global compromise. This standoff underscores a broader debate: encryption must be secure for all or none. Signal's resistance reflects the rising tension between privacy advocates and governments demanding access.8. Los Alamos Turns to AILos Alamos National Laboratory has launched a National Security AI Office, signaling a pivot from nuclear to AI capabilities. With massive GPU infrastructure and university partnerships, the lab sees AI as the next frontier in scientific and national defense. This reflects a shift in global security dynamics—where large language models may be as strategically vital as missiles.

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 mysterious trip to the DPRK. 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.

South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, orders the removal of loudspeakers to reduce tension with Pyongyang. Plus: Witkoff in Moscow, luxury earnings takeaways and a musical round-up with Matt Wolf. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 explore what Seoul's new President Lee Jae-myung might do to revive Trump-Kim diplomacy. He explains why Russia-DPRK ties ensure that another round of engagement won't look like the last and examines how China's ties with the South impact its approach to the North. He also talks about Kim Jong Un's desire to be a “developmental dictator,” the potential impact of the U.S. bombing of Iran on efforts to entice Pyongyang to negotiations and why there is no military solution to the North Korea problem. John Delury is a historian of modern China and an expert on U.S.-China relations and Korean Peninsula affairs. The author of “Agents of Subversion,” he previously served as a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul and most recently taught at the American Academy in Rome, Luiss University and John Cabot University. 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.

Michael speaks with Syd Seiler, former U.S. National Intelligence Officer for North Korea and one of the U.S. government's most experienced Korea hands. Seiler unpacks the long arc of Kim Jong Un's strategy, the roots of North Korea's provocations, and why the regime sees nuclear weapons as essential to its survival. He also discusses the limits of diplomacy, the myth of a quick breakthrough, and how U.S. policy should adapt for the long game.

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In today's episode, we cover Democrats Admit Trump's Tariffs Worked Even liberal voices like Bill Maher now acknowledge that Trump's tariffs didn't tank the economy, despite widespread predictions of disaster. Meanwhile, Europe is reeling from the new U.S.-EU trade deal, calling it a humiliation and bracing for economic pain. Democrats Hit Lowest Approval in 35 Years A new Wall Street Journal poll shows the Democratic Party at its lowest favorability since 1990. Senator Mark Kelly blames messaging, but Bryan highlights six stunning stories, from migrant crime to teacher union extremism, that point to deeply unpopular policies. Nuclear Warning to Putin President Trump authorizes the transfer of U.S. nuclear weapons to a base in the UK and gives Vladimir Putin a 10–12 day deadline to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. New tariffs, and possibly more, are on the table if Moscow fails to comply. Russia Restarts Flights to North Korea A direct air route opens between Moscow and Pyongyang for the first time in 30 years. While publicized as tourism, analysts warn it may serve as a covert weapons pipeline, just as Trump escalates nuclear posturing in Europe. Zelensky Retreats on Anti-Corruption Rollback After global backlash and pressure from the White House, Ukraine's president backpedals on a controversial move to weaken anti-corruption agencies. Still, the episode deepens Western mistrust of Kyiv's leadership. China Bans Gender Humor in Stand-Up Chinese officials warn comedians not to joke about men and women, citing concerns over “gender antagonism.” Bryan unpacks why this crackdown is part of a broader pattern of civil rights suppression that the world needs to confront. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32

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 Pyongyang actually wants from Seoul. He also talks about new U.S. sanctions against a DPRK company and three North Koreans for their role in remote IT worker schemes, as well as a surprise visit to Pyongyang by a global baseball chief. 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.

Yossi Mekelberg and Patricia Cohen look at the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Europe’s reaction to the trade deal with the US, Moscow’s launch of direct flights to Pyongyang and “Ghosts of Iron Mountain”.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coluna em áudio de Rodrigo da Silva conta como Pyongyang desenvolveu uma série de empreendimentos ilícitos para conseguir dólares, sustentar o regime e driblar as sanções dos EUA. ASSINE O ESTADÃO: Seja assinante por R$1,90/mês e tenha acesso ilimitado ao nosso conteúdo. Acesse: http://bit.ly/estadao-oferta-ytSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As appalling scenes of starvation and destruction out of Gaza continue, Christiane speaks exclusively with the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister. The two discuss the hunger crisis in the enclave, who governs the day after the Gaza war ends, and hopes for Palestinian statehood. Then, Oscar-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov joins Christiane to discuss his new documentary "2000 Meters to Andriivka," bringing the brutality of war alive on-screen and connecting viewers to the everyday men fighting on the front lines. Also, from Downton Abbey to Hollywood's golden age, actress Elizabeth McGovern talks to Christiane about her new play about Ava Gardner, and the men who loved her.  Plus, CNN's Isobel Yeung travels to Afghanistan reporting on the devastating impacts and distressing reality on the ground after USAID cuts. And, from her archives, 72 years after the armistice agreement ended fighting in the Korean War,  Christiane's report from Pyongyang about how the legacy of that war is still fueling North Korean hatred towards the United States decades later.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 question of whether Pyongyang is the South's main enemy repeatedly came up. He also talks about unification minister nominee's claims about North Korea's semiconductor plants and AI ambitions, the labor minister nominee's grilling over a request to attend Kim Jong Il's funeral and the defense minister's plan to carry out OPCON transfer from the U.S. to South 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.

Corea del Norte, un país donde las reglas del juego se escriben según los caprichos del poder. En este episodio conocerás una de las historias más insólitas del deporte moderno. Un relato donde las reglas del basquetbol cambian y la ficción se disfraza de victoria. Lo que pasó en las canchas de Pyongyang, la capital, no es una broma, pero si es una demostración los caprichos de un dictador. Encapríchate con ese ron porque estamos por comenzar. 

South Korea and China have a complex relationship characterized by economic interdependence, strategic competition, and regional security concerns. Navigating this delicate balance has been a defining challenge for every South Korean president. Newly elected President Lee Jae Myung has assumed power at a time of increasing US-China strategic competition as well as uncertain global supply chains and growing threat from North Korea. Could this new administration mark a shift in Seoul's approach to Beijing? Or will President Lee maintain strategies similar to that of President Yoon?To discuss ROK-China relations, and President Lee's approach to this intricate issue, we are joined on the podcast today by Dr. Ramon Pacheco-Pardo. He is a professor of international relations at King's College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Center for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy in the Brussels School of Governance. He is also an adjunct fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the author of several books on the domestic affairs and foreign policy of South and North Korea.  Timestamps[00:00] Start[01:44] “[P]ragmatic diplomacy centered on national interests”[05:06] State of Play for Sino-South Korean Relations[09:56] Balancing Between the United States and China[14:47] China Taking Advantage of US-ROK Frictions [19:03] Economic Interdependence as a Leverage[25:39] Xi Jinping Attending APEC South Korea 2025[31:11] American Pressure on Allies to Protect Taiwan

C dans l'air du 14 juillet 2025 : Face à Poutine: la France se réarmePRÉSENTATION : Lorrain SÉNÉCHALDes avions, des blindés et des soldats en rangs serrés sur les Champs-Élysées : le défilé du 14-Juillet, qui a mis à l'honneur cette année des militaires prêts à partir en opération, avait des airs de démonstration de force. Avec en toile de fond, un climat géopolitique tendu, une Europe sous pression, et des discours qui sonnent comme des mises en garde. Emmanuel Macron, dans son allocution traditionnelle aux armées dimanche, n'a pas mâché ses mots. "Nous vivons un moment de bascule", a-t-il déclaré, évoquant un monde devenu "plus brutal". Selon lui, jamais la liberté n'a été aussi menacée depuis 1945. Et "jamais, à ce point, la paix sur notre continent n'a dépendu de nos décisions présentes".À la veille de la Fête nationale, le président a annoncé une augmentation inédite du budget de la Défense : 3,5 milliards d'euros supplémentaires en 2026, puis 3 milliards l'année suivante. L'effort financier vise à atteindre, d'ici 2027, un budget de près de 64 milliards d'euros, soit presque le double de celui d'il y a dix ans. Un tournant stratégique assumé dans un contexte où les certitudes d'hier s'effritent, y compris au sein des alliances occidentales. L'Europe est "mise en danger au moment où la guerre a été portée sur notre sol avec l'invasion de l'Ukraine, et que les États-Unis de Donald Trump ont ajouté une forme d'incertitude" quant à la pérennité de leur soutien, a ainsi affirmé Emmanuel Macron. "Face à un monde plus brutal, la Nation doit être plus forte", car "pour être libres dans ce monde, il faut être craints ; pour être craints, il faut être puissants", a insisté le président de la République. Quelques jours plus tôt, le général Thierry Burkhard, chef d'état-major des armées, avait brossé un sombre tableau des menaces, tant internes qu'externes, qui pèsent sur la France, et pointé "une nécessité de prise de conscience" : "La guerre en Europe est déjà là".Pendant ce temps, en Ukraine, les combats se poursuivent sans relâche. Moscou intensifie ses frappes, battant chaque semaine des records en nombre de missiles et de drones tirés. Face à cette escalade, Volodymyr Zelensky avait appelé ses alliés à envoyer « davantage que des signaux » pour stopper la Russie. Dimanche matin, Donald Trump annonçait finalement l'envoi de systèmes antiaériens Patriot, cruciaux pour la défense de Kiev. "Je suis déçu par la Russie. Je ferai une déclaration majeure lundi", lançait-il, sans en dire plus.Sur le terrain, l'armée ukrainienne tente de renforcer ses rangs. Nos journalistes ont suivi la formation des jeunes volontaires ukrainiens qui ont décidé de s'engager avant l'âge de la mobilisation obligatoire. Un programme pour les 18-24 ans lancé par l'armée ukrainienne pour tenter de pallier son manque récurrent de fantassins.De l'autre côté du front, la Russie continue de s'appuyer sur ses alliés, et notamment la Corée du Nord. Depuis la signature d'un pacte de défense mutuelle en octobre dernier, Pyongyang aurait fait parvenir à Moscou des millions d'obus, selon les services de renseignement sud-coréens. 13 000 soldats auraient également été envoyés sur le front pour aider l'armée russe à reconquérir la région de Koursk.LES EXPERTS : - Général Patrick DUTARTRE - Général de l'armée de l'Air et de l'Espace, ancien pilote de chasse- Élie TENENBAUM - Directeur du Centre des études de sécurité de l'Institut français des relations internationales- Isabelle LASSERRE - Correspondante diplomatique - Le Figaro, spécialiste des questions de stratégie et de géopolitique- Laura KAYALI - Journaliste Défense – POLITICO

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 unofficial coal exports to China support both formal and informal sectors and how military and economic cooperation with Moscow could shape the North's trajectory. He also weighs in on Japan's view of the emerging China-Russia-DPRK axis and what it could mean for Tokyo's future engagement with Pyongyang. Mitsuhiro Mimura is a leading Japanese expert on the North Korean economy and regional integration in Northeast Asia. Currently a professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute for Northeast Asia, University of Niigata Prefecture, he previously served as a senior research fellow at the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia.  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.

US forces launched bomb and missile strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, followed soon by an Iran-Israel ceasefire and the beginning of what could be a diplomatic realignment across the Middle East. The GoodFellows regulars and Hoover Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and former White House National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster discuss the collateral impact of the Trump administration's move against the Iranian regime. The fallout includes: a possible expansion of Abraham Accords participants (as the Gulf States help Iran pursue a more peaceful nuclear program); NATO members willing to invest more in military readiness; the media's second-guessing the effectiveness and wisdom of the B2 sorties; plus what message Trump's use of military might—as opposed to revolving-door diplomacy—sends to the world's various mischief-making capitals (Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang). Recorded on June 27, 2025. 

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 from near Pyongyang.  He also discusses his interview with retired Vice Adm. Suh Young-gil, who led South Korean naval forces at the First Battle of Yeonpyeong, to mark the 26th anniversary of the pivotal inter-Korean clash. 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.