Word: seoul
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...famously said he "loathes" North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, is eager to raise the profile of human rights in North Korea. But to date, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has been unwilling to bring up the matter. His government fears that doing so could hurt Seoul's slowly improving relationship with Pyongyang-and conceivably divert attention from resolving the issue of the North's nuclear program...
...lucky ones. Kim told veteran American human-rights activist David Hawk that he escaped in 1999 by hiding in a coal train that delivered the miners' daily take to a nearby town. He eventually made his way across the border to China, and then to Seoul, where, along with other refugees from the camps, he has been able to tell his story. Constant hunger is a way of life for the prisoners-malnutrition and disease were rampant, well before famine plagued the nation in the 1990s according to former inmates. But if a detainee breaks the rules to get something...
...politically charged issue, and there have been few questions raised about the report's details or general conclusions since its publication a year ago. "If anything, when the history is eventually written, we'll probably find out things were worse than he described," says a senior diplomat in Seoul...
...increasingly worrisome misfit in the international arena, and there are signs that Kim is facing unprecedented challenges at home. He recently purged his brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, for trying to set up his own power base in the military, according to South Korean intelligence testimony to Seoul lawmakers last week. Jang may have been an obstacle to Kim's plans to some day hand power over to one of his three sons, according to the testimony. Kim himself inherited power from his father, Kim Il Sung, in the communist world's first dynastic succession. "Jang...
...phone system. That order came a month after a train mysteriously exploded in Ryongchon station, near the northern border, within hours of Kim's expected passage through the town on his way back from a trip to China. "Kim is still in control," said Peter Beck, head of the Seoul office of the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization that studies security issues. "But he is under pressure to navigate the regime through some very rough waters." One thing is for sure: for every cautious assessment such as that, the next few months will see just as many wild rumors...