Free Republic

SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President George W. Bush is reading a North Korean defector's book revealing gruesome human rights abuses in the Stalinist country, according to a White House source contacted in Seoul over the weekend. "I am in the middle of reading 'the Aquariums of Pyongyang,'" the White House source quoted Bush as saying in a recent meeting with aides. The White House source, whose name is being withheld by the Yonhap News Agency for privacy, told a friend in Seoul that Bush "appeared to be very concerned" about the plight of the 23 million North...

A rare video footage of a North Korean labor camp for political prisoners was broadcast on Japan's Fuji Television on Friday. According to the Japanese TV network, the clip was obtained from a North Korean defector who secretly filmed the site and managed to smuggle it out of the country. This visual shows prisoners working on a snowy field dressed in drab uniforms. The Yodok 15 Prison located 100 kilometers north of Pyeongyang is known to be a camp for failed government officials or defectors. Political prisoners carry human excrement from homes of guards and security officials at Yodeok Political...