Category: Others

The cost of a ticket on the subway in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang has nearly tripled, Radio Free Asia has learned, after international students revealed it on Chinese social media. The rate hike was revealed by Chinese international students studying at Kim Il Sung University, considered by North Koreans to be the country’s most prestigious educational institution. In posts on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, the students said they were surprised by the price increase upon returning to Pyongyang from China after summer break.…

Satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia shows rapid progress on a new road bridge connecting North Korea and Russia across the Tumen River, while construction is also accelerating on a long-delayed bridge linking North Korea and China. Experts told RFA the bridges will help expand Pyongyang’s economic and strategic options as it draws closer to Beijing and Moscow. The two bridges could also symbolize Pyongyang’s growing strategic leverage as cooperation among North Korea, China and Russia deepens, analysts said. “Now, through these two bridges, North Korea is gaining access…

Read a version of this story in Korean. A knockoff version of the popular smartphone game Clash of Clans is seemingly a hit with North Korean players, Radio Free Asia has learned. The game, given a name that could be translated as “Fortress Defense,” closely resembles earlier builds of the 2012 smash hit by Finland’s Supercell, which has been downloaded more than 500 million times worldwide. In Clash of Clans, users mine resources, build up their defenses and raid other users’ fortresses. The bootleg version is the latest confirmed example…

North Korea is close to completing a long-delayed new bridge to China, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia shows. Experts said that once the new bridge connecting Dandong in China with Sinuiju in North Korea is complete, trade volume will more than double, relieving pressure on the aging Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge – the only other connection between the two cities – considered the main artery between the two countries. Pyongyang and Beijing completed the structure of the New Yalu River Bridge in 2014, with the Chinese government footing the…

North Korea has constructed at least 21 identical drive-through structures near its border with South Korea that could potentially aid in the operation of truck-based missile or rocket weapons systems, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia suggests. The buildings, each roughly 52 meters (171 feet) long, began to appear in satellite imagery between 2023 and early 2025 at small North Korean Army bases south of Kaesong, just a few kilometers north of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, and only 52 kilometers (32 miles) from Seoul, the capital of South…

A North Korean city on the border with China is no longer completely dark at nighttime, satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts revealed. Experts told Radio Free Asia it is a sign that North Korea is turning to solar power to solve its chronic energy problems. “As recently as about ten years ago, vehicle traffic would stop around midnight, and lights were barely visible,” Park Jongchol, a professor at Gyeongsang National University in South Korea, told RFA. Park recently visited the Chinese city of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River…

North Korea is expanding shipyards in two key port cities, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia has revealed, an indication that experts say falls in line with a five-year plan announced earlier this year to modernize the country’s navy. Though the North Korean navy is one of the largest in the region, most of its fleet is made up of ships constructed in the Cold War era. The new five-year plan includes orders from the country’s leader Kim Jong Un to build two new destroyers per year, the state-run…

Satellite imagery has revealed that North Korea and Russia are scrambling to complete a new high-capacity road bridge across their Tumen River border, and experts told Radio Free Asia that the fervor for completing the project quickly is a sign of increased cooperation and warm relations between Pyongyang and Moscow. Until now, the only bridge connecting the two countries has been the Bridge of Friendship, a much smaller rail-only bridge that was built in 1959 and had been intended to be a temporary measure until a permanent bridge could be…

At North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex, heightened activity observed on satellite imagery indicates that Pyongyang is increasing its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, experts told Radio Free Asia. The imagery shows new buildings and plumes of steam in previously inactive areas of the complex, which lies roughly 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the capital. North Korea has long claimed that Yongbyon serves peaceful, civilian energy purposes, but the international community and monitoring organizations say that the complex produces fissile materials to produce nuclear weapons. The increased activity observed in…

Months after North Korea unveiled the country’s largest-ever greenhouse farm, analysts told Radio Free Asia that satellite imagery shows less than half of the farm is operational, likely due to power shortages. According to state media, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un personally guided the construction of the Sinuiju Greenhouse Farm Complex. It has been touted as a way to rejuvenate Wihwa, Mado and Kumdong islands in the Yalu River, near the border with China, which were leveled by flooding in 2024. At the farm complex’ dedication in February, Kim…