Elise Hu


























On the fifth floor of South Korea's sprawling National Library is a place far more fascinating than its name suggests: The North Korea Information Center.

Here you can read every edition of North Korea's national newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, dating to its first publication. Or peruse a collection of 100,000 North Korean books and videos — fiction, nonfiction and the complete teachings of the autocratic dynasty that runs the country.





On the South Korean side of its 151-mile border with North Korea, banks of loudspeakers are back on, blaring propaganda. It's the South's response to the North's nuclear test last week.

News of a North Korean nuclear test reached the rest of the world in short order, but days after the rogue nation claimed it tested a hydrogen bomb, 17-year-old Jinwoo Ha, in neighboring South Korea, said she hadn't heard.

"Mmmmm, sorry, but I don't quite know about the issue, so can you please explain that?" she said, after being asked for her reaction to the test.

Deciphering events in North Korea often seems more like long-distance psychoanalysis than reporting.

So it's not surprising there's a dearth of hard information about the country's latest nuclear test. In a statement heavy on propaganda and light on details, North Korea claimed it successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test Wednesday morning.

Japan has made progress recently in getting more women to join the workforce. The latest numbers show a greater percentage of Japanese women work outside the home than American women. But for a rapidly aging and shrinking population, that progress may not be fast enough.