Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...convince the isolated regime to end its controversial nuclear-weapons program and improve ties with its southern neighbor. But relations between the two Koreas have remained more or less unchanged. The stalemate on the peninsula that began after the Korean War of the early 1950s continues, with Pyongyang still regularly hurling threats and insults at the South. The North's stubbornness has left South Koreans feeling helpless and uncertain about what an effective North Korean policy might be. "We can't solve [the North-South conflict] with aid, we can't do it with a hard-line policy," complains...
...That kind of frustration has only intensified in recent days as tensions on the peninsula have escalated. In late May, Pyongyang earned global condemnation by undertaking a second nuclear test, and now Kim Jong Il may be preparing another test of a long-range missile. Seoul's response to Pyongyang's actions has been unusually tough. After the nuclear test, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak agreed to join a U.S.-led effort to crack down on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. North Korea called Lee's decision tantamount to a declaration of war. "Many [South Koreans...
...Some South Koreans place at least part of the blame for the deteriorating North-South relationship on their own conservative President. Lee's two predecessors pursued an agenda of engagement with Pyongyang called the "sunshine policy," in which Seoul gave North Korea aid and investment - including the development of an industrial park just north of the border - in the hopes of defusing tensions. The "sunshine policy" produced two North-South summits - in 2000 and 2007 - but Pyongyang offered Seoul no meaningful concessions in return for its help. Upon taking office last year, Lee changed course and linked further economic cooperation...
...years, we've been giving them things and now that they're not getting it, they're acting up," says Youn Bong Sug, 57. "If we give, they should know how to be grateful. The nature of those people is rotten." Some in Seoul have become annoyed that Pyongyang continued to spend money on its weapons programs even as South Korea donated large amounts of fertilizer and food to its much poorer Northern brethren. "What we're unhappy with is the fact that even if we send them aid, they don't use it for their people and instead spend...
...Malnourishment and beatings are common," says Kang Chol Hwan, author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, his account of the 10 years he spent as a prisoner in the North (Hwan's grandfather and other family members were also arrested by the security police in North Korea for "crimes" never delineated). The American journalists, employed by Current TV, a San Francisco-based TV network founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, were filming a report about North Korean refugees in China when they were seized by North Korean agents along the border between the two countries. The U.S. government immediately...