What Is Happening In North Korea? -- News Updates January 4, 2009

North Koreans visit a statue of the former leader Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on New Year's Day.
Photograph: EPA

Inside The Hermit Kingdom -- Salon.com

A rare and fascinating glimpse of the lives of ordinary North Koreans.

The image that opens the first chapter of Barbara Demick's "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" is a satellite photograph of North and South Korea by night. The southern nation is spangled with electric lights, including the vast, solid blotch of brightness that is Seoul, while the north is entirely dark except for the tiny dot of the capital, Pyongyang. The Western view of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is mostly made up of freakish pictures like this one, official footage of goose-stepping soldiers and automaton-like crowds performing tributes to "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il, eerie samizdat video of crisply uniformed police directing nonexistent traffic on empty streets, the bizarre spectacle of the vacant Ryugyong Hotel (aka the "Hotel of Doom") towering over Pyongyang, and the ubiquitous socialist-realist kitsch seemingly beamed in from the middle of the previous century.

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More News On North Korea

What's behind North Korea's new 'peace offensive'? -- Christian Science Monitor
North Korea puts out policy blueprint -- The National
North Korea Airs Interest In Peace Talks -- Wall Street Journal
'Pyongyang Wants Inter-Korean Summit' -- Korea Times
North Korea calls for end to hostile relations with US -- The Guardian
North Korea calls for peace with United States -- Times Online
'NK Pilfered Equipment at Nuclear Reactor Site' -- Korea Times
North Korea Said to Be Looting Heavy Equipment -- New York Times
North Korea Seen Battling Wave of Flu - -Wall Street Journal
Contemplating Korean Reunification -- Peter Beck, Wall Street Journal