SEOUL – North Koreans are increasingly turning to outside radio broadcasts for news and information, following weeks of increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric produced by North Korean state media.

The seriousness with which outside observers took Pyongyang’s aggressive rhetoric notably declined as the “crisis” continued into April, fizzling out over the last few weeks and, according to reports by Seoul-based website the Daily NK, a similar process occurred domestically.

“No matter what the Party shouts about, the people just don’t believe a word of it. More and more people are listening to external radio and spreading word of its contents, and