There are serious contradictions in Pyongyang’s place in the world. On the one hand there is North Korea, part of US President George Bush’s ‘axis of evil’, often described as a ‘rogue state’, allegedly threatening the world with nuclear blackmail. At the same time, we have a country that has suffered a series of natural disasters made worse by its economic policies, but which is now apparently willing to change, albeit slowly, and to seek outside help.
North Korea: Suspicious and Cautious
The secretive world of North Korea has opened up remarkably in the last decade. Discovering how decisions are made there has not been so straightforward, but none were better placed to try than Jim Hoare who, as Britain’s man in Pyongyang, set up its embassy there.
