DPRK North Korea

North Korea, officially Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Country, East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean peninsula. Area: 47,573 sq mi (123,214 sq km). Population: (2025 est.) 26,403,000. Capital: P’yŏngyang. Ethnically, the population is almost completely Korean. Language: Korean (official). Religions: Ch’ŏndogyo, traditional beliefs, Christianity, Buddhism. Foreign missionaries were expelled during World War II. Currency: won. North Korea’s land area largely consists of mountain ranges and uplands; its highest peak is Mount Paektu (9,022 ft [2,750 m]). North Korea has a centrally planned economy based on heavy industry (iron and steel, machinery, chemicals, and textiles) and agriculture. Cooperative farms raise crops such as rice, corn, barley, and vegetables. The country is rich in mineral resources, including coal, iron ore, and magnesite. It is a republic with one legislature; the head of state and government is the supreme leader and chairman of the National Defense Commission. After the Japanese were defeated in World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Korea north of latitude 38° N, and there the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established as a communist state in 1948. Seeking to unify the peninsula by force, it launched an invasion of South Korea in 1950, initiating the Korean War. UN troops intervened on the side of South Korea, and Chinese soldiers reinforced the North Korean army in the war, which ended with an armistice in 1953. Led by Kim Il-Sung, North Korea became one of the most harshly regimented societies in the world, with a state-owned economy that failed to produce adequate supplies of food and consumer goods for its citizens. Under his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, the country endured periods of severe food shortages from the late 1990s that caused widespread famine. Hopes that North Korea was seeking to end its long isolation—notably through meetings between Kim and the leaders of South Korea (2000) and Japan (2002)—were tempered by concerns over its nuclear weapons program. In the following years, efforts to improve relations between North and South Korea stalled and at times deteriorated markedly. Kim died in 2011 and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-Un.

Background soundtrack: "INCANTATION" by Scott Buckley

Stasi HQ Berlin

The Stasimuseum is located in House 1 on the former grounds of the headquarters of the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS). The building was erected in 1960/61 as the official residence of Erich Mielke, who served as Minister for State Security from 1957 to 1989. On 15 January 1990 demonstrators took over the Stasi headquarters. A week later, the Central Round Table, a committee made up of representatives of the SED dictatorship and civil rights groups, decided that a “memorial and research centre on GDR Stalinism” should be established in House 1. When nothing came of this declaration of intent, members of the Berlin citizens’ committee and other civil rights activists took action and began securing the historic site. In August they founded the association “Antistalinistische Aktion e.V.” (ASTAK). On 7 November 1990, it opened the Research Centre and Memorial at Normannenstrasse with an exhibition titled “Against the Sleep of Reason”. House 1, later named the Stasi Museum, has been open to the public ever since. The offices of Erich Mielke are preserved in their original condition and form the centrepiece of the historic site. Since 1990, ASTAK has shown different exhibitions, providing information about the State Security and how its activities affected the GDR population. The permanent exhibition “State Security in the SED Dictatorship,” which the association created jointly with the Stasi Records Agency.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben, and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question.

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Music by: Dandelion Meditation