Part 6 of 6 in our Inside the Hermit Kingdom series on the people and culture of North Korea. Worldfocus multimedia producer Ben Piven writes about the stark contrast between the stagnant North Korean economy and the booming economies of China and South Korea to the north and south.

Until the global recession, the former Soviet republic of Latvia was experiencing the kind of growth that some described as miraculous. Now, it has all tumbled down, with unemployment at 14.5 percent.