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.

Part 3 of 6 in our series on the people and culture of North Korea. Worldfocus multimedia producer Ben Piven writes about his encounter with North Korean Major Im Dong-chul while on the northern side of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry has requested funds to beef up its resettlement facilities for defectors from the North -- as the number of refugees arriving from its destitute neighbor keeps climbing. A Worldfocus contributing blogger discusses the chronic unemployment among 16,000 North Koreans now living in the South.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Jonas Parello-Plesner, a senior advisor with the Danish government on Asian affairs, discusses the rise of "KIA" -- a new acronym for Asia’s middle powers: (K)orea, (I)ndonesia, and (A)ustralia.