NEW YORK -- About a 30-minute walk from Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku Station, the neighborhood of Wakamatsucho marks one of the highest points in the capital's center. A building near the very top of the hill houses Radiopress, the wire service that monitors radio broadcasts from North Korea.
Its roots go back to 1941, when Japan's Foreign Ministry created a "radio room" to listen in on enemy chatter. Since becoming Radiopress in 1946, it has monitored radio and satellite broadcasts of mainly Communist countries, serving as a critical element of Japan's intelligence gathering.
