North Korea appears to be launching an unusual diplomatic marathon. Earlier this month, the South Korean daily, Joongang Daily, reported that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong plans to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week in New York. It will be the first time a North Korean foreign minister has attended the forum in 15 years, and only the third time ever Pyongyang’s top diplomat has attended the annual summit in the country’s history.

North Korea's use of captured or detained Americans to score propaganda points and extract political concessions from Washington has a long history stretching back to the Cold War, but analysts say the tactic may be wearing thin. The isolated state currently has three American citizens in detention -- Kenneth Bae, Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle.

While refugees poured across the border to China telling stories of starvation and torture, in the other direction — thanks to the merchants — came foreign films, television shows and music stored on DVDs and USBs, a link to the prosperity and ways of the outside world. These shifts gave rise to North Korea’s very own millennials, a generation born in the 1990s who are independent, pragmatic and less politically attached than their predecessors, says Park. They’re also known as the “Black Market Generation.”

"We're here to do something bigger and better," pro-wrestler Jon "Strongman" Anderson roars backstage.  He could also be alluding to the purpose of the trip, an attempt at "sports diplomacy" by Antonio Inoki, a Japanese former pro-wrestler turned politician.

Led by a Japanese pro wrestler-turned-politician, about 20 mixed martial artists from around the world — including a former NFL lineman — arrived in North Korea on Thursday to put on a series of exhibition matches this weekend.The exhibition will be the first major sports event with marquee foreigners in Pyongyang since former Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman and a team of former NBA players put on a basketball game in January that was widely criticized in the United States.

North Korea is arguably one of the world's most racist societies, so it's with no small measure of irony that the country's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday bashed the United States for the happenings in Ferguson, Missouri, which has been gripped by unrest following the death of a black teenager at the hands of a white police officer.

Crackdowns on foreign media in North Korea are a continuation of long-standing attempts by the government to suppress interest in foreign cultures.  Studies show that access to foreign media undermines state control on several levels.

A Japanese wrestler-turned-politician hopes his vision of "sports diplomacy" can repair his country's fraught relationship with North Korea, as he prepares to host an extraordinary sporting event in Pyongyang. And Kanji "Antonio" Inoki has form: he helped secure the release of Japanese hostages in Iraq in 1990 after impressing tyrant Saddam Hussein, and more recently used his old bouts with Pakistani wrestlers to foster goodwill between the South Asian country and his own.