After World War II on August 15, 1948 the Republic of Korea (R.O.K.) South Korea, was established, with Syngman Rhee as the first President. On September 9, 1948 the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) North Korea, was established under Kim Il Sung.

South Korea's freedom from North Korea's invasion in 1950 was brought about and paid for by the blood of American soldiers fighting along side South Koreans for a democratic society.

North Korea has gotten plenty of press with their attempt at producing nuclear weapons, and the U.S. and U.N.'s efforts to stop a potentially deadly situation.

The decision by North Korea to initially shut down its nuclear facilities has been hailed as a diplomatic success story for the administration of President George W. Bush. However, as part of the deal, the United States agreed to the return of 25 million dollars to North Korea, which had been frozen in a bank in Macao. (China) The White House had called the funds as "ill-gotten gains" from arms sales and counterfeiting. So for 25 million dollars, North Korea agreed to stop doing what they weren't suppose to be doing anyway.

The divide between North and South Korea can cause some confusion when discussing trade, seeing as how clothing claims "made in Korea". You've got to wonder which one?

North Korea does not have "Normal Trade Relations" with the United States, so goods manufactured in North Korea have to pay a higher tariff upon entry to the United States.

BUT, South Korean trade with the North increased by 58 percent in the first three months of 2005 to $170 million, compared to the 1st quarter of 2004, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. Why would South Korea be trading with North Korea?

"We have lots of reasons for wanting to do business in North Korea; the labor costs are lower than in South Korea or China and a North Korean worker pretty much does what he is told," said Oh Jung Min, executive director of El Canto, a shoemaker that became one of the first South Korean companies to cross the border when it invested in a Pyongyang factory in 1997… he said. "The last thing we want is for them to be our enemies." - Washington Post

A North Korean working in a South Korean factory in the Kaesong zone is paid 1/10th to 1/20th what a North Korean would be paid for the same job, and the "paycheck" goes to the N. Korean agency that hired them, that distributes the pay as they see fit.

S.K. companies can use N.K. workers to price its products low enough to compete with those made in China. When asked about their wages, a young woman murmurs, "I cannot say anything," and another says only, "We get enough." N.K. workers live in decaying buildings outside the factory and have to enter and exit through a checkpoint guarded by N.K. Soldiers.

The U.S. deems the products made in the Kaesong zone to be "Made in N. Korea". For this we are thankful. Until South Korea ceases ties and trade with North Korea, if you don't want to support a mad man with nuclear ambitions, stop buying "Made in Korea" products.

Concentration camp/Gulags: Human-rights groups estimate that there are 200,000 political prisoners in North Korean concentration camps and that about 400,000 people have died in the camps since 1972.

"Both perceived wrongdoers and up to three generations of their extended families are "arrested," or, more accurately, abducted by police authorities and deposited in the kwan-li-so, POLITICAL PENAL-LABOR COLONIES without any judicial process or legal recourse whatsoever, for lifetime sentences of extremely hard labor in mining, timber-cutting, or farming enterprises. The prisoners live under brutal conditions in permanent situations of deliberately contrived semi-starvation."

"The kwan-li-so are also sometimes referred to as teuk-byeol- dok-je-dae-sang-gu-yeok, which translates as "zones under special dictatorship." The most strikingly abnormal feature of the kwan-li-so system is the philosophy of "collective responsibility," or "guilt by association" - yeon-jwa-je - whereby the mother and father, sisters and brothers, children and sometimes grandchildren of the offending political prisoner are imprisoned in a three-generation practice. Former prisoners and guards trace this practice to a 1972 statement by "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung: "Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations." According to the testimony of a former guard at Kwan-li-so No. 11 at Kyungsung, North Hamgyong Province, this slogan was carved in wood in the prison guards' headquarters building. According to the testimony of YOON Dae Il, a former police official, the number of family members abducted and sent to the lifetime labor camps depends on the severity of the presumed political offense." Hrnk.org
Entire report on N.K. Gulags available @ http://www.hrnk.org/HiddenGulag.pdf