On Friday, October 23, at 8 am PT, Pacific Council will host a book talk over breakfast, featuring Kathi Zellweger and Mike Chinoy, authors of Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea, a firsthand account of nearly three decades of humanitarian work inside one of the world's most closed and secretive states. For Zellweger, a Swiss national who served as North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and spent five years based in Pyongyang, the country was not an abstraction but a place of profound human suffering that demanded a response. 

Drawing on Zellweger's direct engagement with local doctors, nurses, and government officials, the book traces the painstaking process of building trust, overcoming institutional skepticism, and delivering food, medicine, and development assistance to populations largely overlooked by the international community. Co-authored by Mike Chinoy, a veteran CNN correspondent who made seventeen trips to North Korea and served as a senior fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy, Miss Kathi combines rigorous reportage with intimate testimony. Together, Zellweger and Chinoy offer a rare window into a country that remains profoundly misunderstood.

Why It's Important:

• North Korea remains effectively closed to international humanitarian workers. As of early 2025, UN staff and aid organization personnel have been unable to return to the country, and U.S. nongovernmental organizations face mounting bureaucratic and legal barriers to operating there. A March 2026 analysis by 38 North found that NGOs with decades of experience in North Korea are being denied or having their license applications delayed, severely limiting the reach of humanitarian assistance at a critical moment.
• In North Korea, approximately 10.7 million people are undernourished, and food insecurity has deepened amid government restrictions on private markets, rising prices, and the compounding effects of drought. According to ACAPS, children and people with disabilities are among the most vulnerable populations, precisely those Zellweger devoted her career to serving.
• Diplomatic prospects on the Korean Peninsula remain fragile and complicated by North Korea's accelerating nuclear program. A U.S. defense official testified in April 2026 that North Korea's nuclear forces are "increasingly capable of targeting the U.S. Homeland," while Pyongyang has declared its nuclear-weapon status "permanently fixed." As Chatham House observed, 2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for the Peninsula. 

About Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea

Miss Kathi chronicles the remarkable story of Kathi Zellweger, a native of Switzerland whose nearly three decades of engagement with secretive, isolated North Korea is unprecedented in its scope, access, and humanitarian impact. It is one of the first book-length accounts in English by an aid worker operating on the ground in North Korea: the story of a woman who has lived out her commitment to the poor and most vulnerable, undaunted by the tensions and threat of conflict perpetually looming over the Korean peninsula. For many North Koreans, Kathi was the first foreigner they had ever met or even seen. Playing a central role in the early years of international relief efforts in North Korea was a lonely job, as Kathi addressed the humanitarian needs of a suffering people largely ignored by the world because of their citizenship. She befriended local doctors, nurses, and caregivers; negotiated with suspicious government officials; overcame international doubts about the diversion of relief supplies to the military; and, over the years, spearheaded an effort to provide food, medicine, and development aid. Ultimately, her efforts saved the lives of thousands of people, most of them children.

Speakers include:

Kathi Zellweger, Senior Aid Manager & Author

Mike Chinoy, Nonresident Scholar, 21st Century China Center, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) & Author

Guest Speaker

Kathi Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over thirty years of field experience in Hong Kong, China, and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006–2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before joining SDC, from 1978 to 2006, Zellweger held a senior post with the Catholic Agency Caritas in Hong Kong, where she played a key role in pioneering Caritas's involvement in China and North Korea. 

She also managed the Hong Kong–based KorAid Limited, a nonprofit she established in 2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea. Zellweger is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University in California. She holds a master's degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. 

Guest Speaker

Mike Chinoy is a nonresident scholar at the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego. Previously, he was a nonresident senior fellow at the University of Southern California's US-China Institute. Before joining USC, he spent twenty-four years as a foreign correspondent for CNN. He was the network's first bureau chief in Beijing, bureau chief in Hong Kong, and senior Asia correspondent. He also worked for CBS News and NBC News in Hong Kong. 

Chinoy won Emmy, DuPont, Peabody, and ACE awards for his coverage of China and made seventeen trips to North Korea. After leaving CNN, he was a senior fellow at the Los Angeles–based Pacific Council on International Policy, focusing on security issues in North Korea, China, and Northeast Asia before joining the USC US-China Institute. He is the author of five other books. He has an MS degree from Columbia and a BA from Yale.