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North Korea, On Point
Monday, December 19, 2011
In this undated photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo Sunday, May 8, 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, wearing glasses, visits the Namhung youth chemical complex in Anju, North Korea. (AP)

In this undated photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo Sunday, May 8, 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, wearing glasses, visits the Namhung youth chemical complex in Anju, North Korea. (AP)

Over the years, we’ve done numerous shows on North Korea. Last year, we examined life inside the Hermit Kingdom, as the reclusive nation is known, and took the pulse of the country amidst one of its numerous crises with the outside world.

In 2003, On Point took a look at the country as it threatened to go nuclear. And in 2005, we took stock of the peninsula after North Korea announced that it had successfully built a nuclear weapon. We checked in again the next year, when they claimed to have fired a nuclear device. We returned again that month, as nuclear tensions mounted. In 2009, we delved into former President Bill Clinton’s mission to Pyongyang.

 

 
  • Masha

    My grandmother, who lived under Stalin’s regime, told me that amidst all of the paranoia, the people worried about Stalin’s safety because they felt that it was only he who stood between the people and the abyss; the horrors. How could they know the truth?

  • Anonymous

    Can your writers and our representatives like Sec. of State Hillary Clinton please stop referring to the DPRK as the “Hermit Kingdom.” It’s just wrong.

  • Josephferris76

    I recently played in the first Ultimate Frisbee tournament to be held in North Korea – If anyone is interested my photos from the trip are here:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephferris76/sets/72157627450542765/

    Along with my North Korea blog: 

    http://americaninnorthkorea.com/

  • Siciliano61

    I’m curious why in all the discussion of this vile regime, its open and blatant racism is completely ignored.  During the Apartheid era in South Africa we were told to divest and isolate that government.  Why are people visiting this place?

  • Hmpropmgr

    RE: North Korea. There is a book available at most libraries written by an American Korean veteran who defected ( by choice or chance?) and spent many years in the North. I am not sure if he is still alive but there might be some value in bringing in any of those who may have worked with or at least known this Army Deserter !

  • Sam Amelio

    I really enjoy your show since it has started to air in Pittsburgh on WESA.  Re the Marines urinating on bodies: Yes, it is horribly wrong to treat another human being’s body so disrespectfully. But the hypocritical  hand wringing of our politicians and some in the media is nauseating. Every soldier has to be taught that the enemy is “other” so that he/she may kill and still keep their own sanity.  These same service people have been shot at, lost best friends and, are subject to unrelenting stress  beyond the imagination of anyone who has not lived through it.  So let’s not be so quick to judge and condemn. Instead, let us realize that training for war can produce some ugly results.  This was not Viet Nam’s My Lai where innocents were killed. To pretend that it was, diminishes the horrors of real military atrocities.

  • Sam Amelio

    Sorry, the last comment got attached to the wrong story.

ONPOINT
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