"Mysterious." "Terrifying." "North Korea is the most isolated country on Earth." "Kim Jong Il, known as "the Dear Leader", rules as a god-king." "He controls the world's fourth largest army and plutonium for nuclear weapons." "Now, we'll penetrate North Korea with a man on a mission to help the blind see." "We'll find a world of absolute conformity full of government minders." "Tomorrow you are going out of our country." "And unimaginable horrors that people risk their lives to escape." "As we try to capture the real story of life inside North Korea." "1:45 a.m." "The 38th parallel." "Along the border of North and South Korea." "The 238 km-long border is the most heavily militarized in the world." "This joint South Korean-American platoon is on constant alert for infiltrators from the North." "Behind these fences, North Korea has a million-man army and now nuclear weapons which they could use or possibly give away to terrorists." "The soldiers can monitor every sound and movement close to the border." "But what makes this place so dangerous is the uncertainty of what lies on the other side of the divide." "North Korea is one of the most secretive countries on Earth." "It's regarded as an "intelligence black hole"." "But we know some basic facts:" "North Korea is roughly the size of Greece." "It has 23 million people, a showcase capital Pyongyang, and is completely controlled by Kim Jong Il." "The Dear Leader is an absolute dictator, worshipped in a personality cult perhaps more extreme than any other in history." "Kim Jong Il is the son of God in North Korea." "Author Michael Breen is an expert on North Korea." "Kim Jong Il is the state." "The notion of questioning his ability to rule or what he does doesn't enter into things." "Everyone is trained from birth to love the Dear Leader, and no outside sources of information are allowed." "Newspapers and television are controlled by the state." "There's no Internet, cell phones have been banned, and many don't even know a man has walked on the moon." "Joo Sung Il defected from North Korea." "There's no freedom." "It's a country run on tyranny and dictatorship." "I don't think anyone can understand North Korea until they experience it." "North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom because of its extreme isolation from the rest of the world." "But on the other side of Asia one man is literally planning to bring light to the darkness of North Korea." "Nepalese eye surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit travels the world setting up eye clinics in developing countries." "Dubbed a "miracle doctor" by the media," "Ruit trains local doctors in inexpensive and effective treatments for cataracts." "North Korea may be his biggest challenge yet." "Thousands of people go blind, due to a lack of even the most basic medical facilities." "The annual number of surgeries performed is just, just very little and the blindness magnitude is one of the highest in the world." "Ruit plans to travel from Nepal to North Korea to do more than 1000 surgeries in less than 10 days." "His mission is purely humanitarian." "But what the North Koreans don't know is that our camera crew is going with him." " So what do you think of the cameras so far, Dr. Ruit?" " I think it's big." " You think these cameras are big?" " Yes, it's big." "I'm Lisa Ling, a reporter for National Geographic." "Our camera crew is posing as members of Dr. Ruit's medical team." "We're going to document his work, and show the world what life is like inside North Korea." "This meeting in a Katmandu hotel room will be the last time our team can converse in private." " So there will be a North Korean man traveling with us the entire time?" " Yes." " From here to Pyongyang?" " From here to Pyongyang and back to Katmandu." "North Korean minders will meet us in Nepal and monitor every step until the trip is over." "Doctor Ruit knows our South African camera man Bryan and I will be watched very carefully." " Do you think Bryan and I will be followed?" " I am sure." "And he's concerned that the cameras will attract too much attention as we enter the country." "We can put the camera down there." "And wants to pack them more carefully, buried beneath the medical equipment." "Okay, and pack it with linens." "At the Katmandu Airport, a North Korean official checks our luggage." "And Dr. Ruit's plan for packing our cameras seems to work." "Everything's okay with the luggage." "Two North Korean minders are already keeping an eye on things." "And our team is on edge as we wait for our flight." "All of us will be watched very carefully." "I think you should shut the camera down now." "After hours in the air, we steal these shots as we approach North Korea." "Normally Americans are not welcome here." "And I'm told I'll be the only one in the entire country." "North Korean animosity toward the U.S. hasn't changed since the Korean War more than a half century ago." "They still view us as imperialists and hold us responsible for dividing the country between North and South." "On the ground, we get our first glimpses of the capital, Pyongyang and shoot undercover footage." "No easy task with minders in the car." "We pass 12 lane highways with hardly any cars." "And see images of the Great Leader everywhere." "Pyongyang is a city of the relatively privileged:" "The government rewards strong supporters by letting them live here." "And unless you're a high ranking official, you need a permit to travel anywhere in the country." "They've seized our cell phones." "Immediately, there's a feeling of being completely cut off from the outside world." "At the hospital, hundreds of blind people have already gathered for surgery." "Since the North Koreans know we're documenting Dr. Ruit's medical procedures, we're allowed to shoot inside." "Hopefully, this will let us see past the propaganda that's usually presented to outsiders." "This hospital is probably as fancy as it gets in North Korea." "Most of this cutting edge equipment was donated by other countries, but few doctors know how to use it." "This one is from America." "Iris." "The government has let Dr. Ruit and his team come because it's a way for Kim Jong il to get services to his people." "Our team has had to bring most of our equipment and supplies with us." "And because blackouts are common, even here in the capital, we've brought our own generator for power." "We can only stay for 10 days, but in that time, Dr. Ruit hopes to conduct more than 1000 operations to help the blind see." "And if the mission's to be a true success, he'll train North Korean surgeons to carry on his work after we leave." "With such a poor quality of surgery which is performed, we need to do a lot of training programs." "While we're anxious to get to work, first our minders want to take us to see their version of North Korea." "We're starting to get a sense of what it's like to be trapped under the iron grip of Kim Jong Il." "At our hotel, all of the books are by one author," "Kim Jong Il's father, the founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung." "I hope we can see what life's really like here, but Kim Jong Il controls everything." "And the rare times that he's granted foreigners access, they've only been shown idealized versions of the country." "Like in this Dutch documentary called "A day in the Life"." "In this scene, a mother sings nursery rhymes as she walks her child to school." "Sing along:" "The pathetic Americans kneel on the ground." "They beg for mercy." "Then she goes to work at the garment factory." "It's a worker's paradise." "We wish to follow our infinitely good hearted comrade Kim Jong Il for eternity, and honor him." "Finally, she returns home to a lavish meal." "Try some pancake." "And a little kimchi." "You should eat this pancake with the soy sauce." "The film shows only the cheerful facade, because here, image matters." "And North Korea goes to its extremes to show its best face to the outside world." "From North Korea you can see the South Korean border village of Tae Sung Dong" "It has a 100-meter tall flagpole towering over it." "But just 2.5 km across the border, the North Korean village of Kaesong dong, was not to be out-done." "They built a flagpole 160 meters high, the tallest in the world." "And the town itself is not what it might appear." "In this propaganda village, most of the buildings are merely facades." "Hollow on the inside," "They were built to entice South Koreans to defect to the paradise in the North." "It's a fitting metaphor." "In North Korea, thing aren't necessarily what they seem." "After letting us shoot inside the hospital for days, our minders take us for a walk in a park and allow us to bring our cameras." "Our cameraman comes across a bench." " So why is it in a glass box?" " Sorry?" " Why is it in a glass box?" " Our people want to preserve, no damage." " Oh, yes." "It's a special bench sat upon by none other than Kim Il Sung himself." "That's cool, Mr. Park." "Very cool." "Back on the streets of Pyongyang, our cameraman wants to take a photograph of a statue of the Great Leader." "It's huge, so he lies on the ground to make it fit in his shot." "But the minder lets us know this is a mistake." "A big one." "No." "There is no one, no foreigner, who just lie down in front of our Great Leader's statue." "I'm afraid." "Tomorrow, you are going out of our country." "The minder doesn't follow through on his threat to kick us out of the country." "We have the Great Leader in my heart." "In our heart!" "But it's clear that antagonism still exists between North Koreans and outsiders, more than 50 years after the fighting ended." "In 1910, Korea was colonized by Japan." "The brutal occupation ended more than 1000 years of Korea's reign asa sovereign nation, and was a major source of shame." "Japan lost Korea in World War II and the country was split between the American-backed South and the Russian-backed communist North, led by a young rebel named Kim Il Sung." "In 1950, Kim Il Sung invaded the South to unify the country, and the U.S. opposed Communist expansion at all costs." "As many as four million people died in the Korean War, which included some of the most brutal warfare the world has known." "In a four-month period alone, the U.S. dropped nearly one million gallons of napalm." "18 of 22 major cities in North Korea were at least half obliterated." "In 1953, after three years of fighting," "Korea remained divided in almost exactly the same place as it had been before the war began, the 38th parallel." "While most people think the war ended more than 50 years ago, there never was a peace treaty." "And more than 19,000 days later, the very, very long ceasefire continues today." "The joint security area on the border of South Korea is the one place where North Korean forces stand toe to toe with the rest of the world." "On one side of this concrete marker, is North Korea." "On the other, the joint American-South Korean forces." "Every flinch is monitored." "Neither side wants to blink, and nobody has for more than 50 years." "In this unique area, each side shows its best face." "The North puts only well-fed, top officers here." "And the South stacks their side with men who are at least 1 meter 77 or taller." "But only one side is worried that their soldiers might want to defect across the divide." "You can see on the North Korean side how they're set up." "They have two soldiers watching each other so neither of them defect." "And then they have their leader to the North making sure that no one else from the North will come down and defect." "At the DMZ everyone is considered the enemy." "Defector Joo Sung Il was a North Korean officer." "Whether you're a North Korean resident, or soldier or South Korean defector, we had to kill without question." "With everyone watching, no one can cross here." "And defecting anywhere else along the DMZ is nearly impossible." "The DMZ, or de-militarized zone, is a 4 km-wide buffer that runs 238 km along the border of North and South Korea." "With more than a million land mines, high voltage electric fences, and nearly two million soldiers, crossing over is almost certain suicide." "Above ground the DMZ is almost impenetrable divide." "But below ground the North Korea secretly dug at least 4 invasion tunnels into the South." "Carved solid bed rock, the tunnels are wide enough to allow 10,000 North Korean soldiers in an hour to snip behind the enemy lines," "some are even big enough to drive a tank through." "These tunnels were discovered before they were completed, but military officials think there maybe as many as 16 more scattered elsewhere along the DMZ." "The DMZ helps North Korea keep its own citizens inside the country and cut off from the rest of the world." " She's very blind, isn't she?" " She's totally blind." "At the hospital, more than 1000 blind patients from all walks of life have been picked by the government to see Dr. Ruit." "Waiting in line, we meet an older woman who's been blind for 7 years." "Her son-in-law has brought her today for her preliminary exam." "She is totally blind in the right eye, and can barely see at the other." "No?" "No hand movement?" "Dr. Ruit's team examines the patients to make sure cataracts are the source of their blindness." "A cataract is a clouding of the normally clear lens of the eye." "It's like a window that is frosted, or yellowed." "With the right equipment, it's easy enough to peel out the clouded lens, and replace it with a clear plastic one." "Dr. Ruit is ready to begin his surgery." "With his modern equipment and expertise, it's a quick and simple procedure." "It takes only minutes to replace each lens." "But with more than 1000 patients waiting," "Dr. Ruit's team needs to treat more than 100 people every day." "In the developed world, cataracts rarely get so bad, especially in young people, that they result in blindness." "But here, because of poor care and likely poor nutrition, the incidence is as much as 10 times higher than in the West, and afflicts young and old alike." "This woman is only 35, and her blindness has captured from marrying." "And this woman has been totally dependent on her husband for years." "The demand here is enormous." "But in North Korea, cataracts are only a small part of the humanitarian nightmare." "German physician and human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen worked for over a year in North Korea." "He shot pictures of the horrible medical conditions." "Bloody old operating tables, beer bottles for IVS no antibiotics or anesthesia." "Of course, the North Korean government will tell you everything is free in North Korea." "It's not true because it's not available." "There is no medicine." "There's no running water." "There's even no soap in the hospital." "But it was the lack of food and its effect on children that made the most lasting impression." "When I was a medical doctor in North Korea, I saw a lot of starving children." "I saw children dying under my hands when I was too late, when there was no more need for any emergency duty because the child was dying when I came into the room." "So I felt so helpless." "In the mid 1990s, natural disasters and government mismanagement, created a famine that killed up to three million people, about 10 percent of North Korea's population." "Taking place in the heart of prosperous East Asia, it was one of the worst famines of the century." "Today, nearly 40 percent of North Korean children remain chronically malnourished." "The average 7-year-old boy in North Korea is nearly 20 cm shorter and 10 kg lighter than his brother in South Korea." "I'd say the damage to his bones is permanent." "They're called "the stunted generation"." "It's a tragic situation and it's extraordinary because same race, same people, same basic diet." "That's all malnutrition." "Reluctant to ask for help from the outside world," "Kim Jong Il has expelled aid workers." "Over time, he has isolated the country from much of the world, even cutting off communications with his neighbors to the South." "This room on the DMZ is one of the few places set up for meetings between the North and South Koreans." "One door opens to the South, and the other to the North." "They hold hands to keep from being pulled over the border." "Both sides have access." "But despite only being separated by a pane of glass, a meeting is hard to come by." "Simply trying to get a message across the border, reveals how much relations have broken down." "Today, the joint U.S.-South Korean forces, have a message to pass to their counterparts only a few meter away in the North." "A telephone hotline is supposed to connect the two sides." "They use a 1962 Russian crank phone, contributed by the North Koreans in the 1980s, to ring up their neighbors to the North." "Apparently, it's not a good day to call North Korea." "But there is a fool-proof method to get their message across." "Pick up the phone!" "We have a message to pass." "We have a message to pass and we'll be reading it." "To:" "Senior Colonel Kwak Yong-Hun, Korean People's Army." "Subject: remains repatriation." "The South Korean forces have found the body of a North Korean soldier who was washed downstream after a recent storm." "...In accordance with paragraph, thirteen foxtrot..." "They want to repatriate this body along with more than 50 Korean War remains they believe belong to the North." "...you failed to respond to our proposals to meet on 26 July..." "They've tried once before to reach the North Koreans over this issue." "...I propose to meet you in the Military Armistice Commission Conference Room at 1400 hours to arrange the repatriation of all these remains." "Signed Colonel John W. Towers, Secretary of the United Nations..." "But today, again, the only response is silence." "Evidently, the North Koreans respond only when Kim Jong Il tells them to." "Making the case that it's part of our medical research," "I've been pushing our minders for a while to let us go to the home of a blind patient." "Much to my surprise, they suddenly agree." "The blind woman lives in a sixth floor apartment in the heart of Pyongyang." "Since I'm told I'm the only American in the country," "I feel lucky, but a bit surprised that the minders are willing to take me here." "Oh, what a beautiful home!" "There are six government officials watching our every move." "But it's still a rare chance to see inside a real North Korean home." "Like others in Pyongyang, this is a privileged family." "The woman lives here with four of her family members, including her two granddaughters." " How difficult is life for your mother without sight?" "The son-in-law answered without missing a beat." " The most difficult thing for my mother-in-law is not being able to see, Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader." " Why do you want to see this supreme leader so much, so bad?" " My children and I live happily due to the honor of the Great Leader," "so I want to see him, even a glimpse of him, so I can thank him." "She was obviously moved, but what surprised me was so was everyone else." "This party official is crying." "Even this government minder." "As I listened to her, I started to cry." "If our nation and leader didn't exist we might as well be dead." "My father was killed, so I was raised in the arms of our Dear Leader, and now I'm a Party Member." " North Korea is a very small country." "How did the Great Leader defend it against big powers like America?" " Even though North Korea is small, we serve the greatest leader in the world." "We have a strong arm of unity, which is stronger than America's atomic bombs." "America has no idea how to deal with us." "This is all because we have General Kim Jong-Il as the leader of our nation." " It helps to have nuclear weapons, doesn't it?" "As the conversation wound down," "I wondered where did North Korea's willingness to face down the entire world come from?" " Our country's unity is stronger than a nuclear weapon, so we're not afraid." "How did this powerful mindset take hold?" "North Korea's defiant stance toward the rest of the world stems from a philosophy created by Kim Il Sung, called Juche." "The Juche philosophy basically means "up yours" to the outside world." "We can make everything ourself, we don't need you." "And from an outsider's perspective, it's a peculiar thing." "Why make such a big deal out of being independent?" "Your people are starving, you've got no economy, you've got no trade." "But in the Korean context, it has a profound resonance, because Korean history is one of invasion and all sorts of abuse from major powers." "So the North Koreans turned this history around and said we're not going to take it anymore." "And for Koreans, there is a very profound thrill that somebody would have the guts to stand up and be like that." "Kim Il Sung used Juche ideology to run North Korea for half a century, and to transform himself into the father figure of the nation." "He ruled with an iron fist and wielded absolute power." "The Great Leader's hearse is approaching." "When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, he left behind a traumatized nation." "The Great Leader, is this true?" "Are you leaving without us?" "His son, Kim Jong Il, took power in the world's first communist dynastic handover." "Following in his father's footsteps," "Kim Jong Il rules by fear, and rarely listens to his own advisors." "Hwang Jang-yop was a high ranking party official." "When I proposed something, he would pretend to listen at first but in the end, he would never listen." "Over the years, Kim Jong Il has used the Juche philosophy to unify his people in opposition to all things foreign, especially during times of hardship, like famine." "But personally, he indulges in luxurious imports." "He has a 20,000-title private movie collection, a fleet of more than 100 imported limousines, and at one point was the largest single customer of Hennessy cognac in the world." "Glory to the People's Republic Army." "Still, he uses the Juche ideology of self-reliance to justify his rule and crush all dissent." "And one way he's held on to power is through the use of concentration camps to strike fear into the hearts of the people." "Places like this, a 50 km by 40 km-long work camp known simply as "number 22", are scattered throughout the country." "Camps can be the size of small cities." "Number 22 reportedly holds up to 50,000 people, and many who enter, don't leave alive." "Defector Ahn Myong Chol was a guard at number 22." "He escaped through China, and is one of the few guards to tell his story to the outside world." "Though satellites provide the only photographs of his camp" "Ahn remembers every detail." "When we were educated as guards, we were told not to think of the prisoners as humans." "The moment you enter a North Korean prison camp, you're no longer a human being." "If you think you're a human being, there's no way you can survive in the camps." "Ahn saw his fellow guards beat and even shoot prisoners for minor offenses, like searching for mice to eat." "Food was always scarce." "I remember seeing kids fighting over a corn kernel they found inside cow dung." "A cow had eaten corn and the children fought over it and eventually washed it in the water and ate it." "Camp 22 is a "family camp"." "The people there didn't actually commit crimes themselves, but were the family members of those who allegedly did." "road 20,000 worker mine" "If a North Korean citizen simply complained to a friend about that month's rations or did anything else that could be seen as questioning the regime, his entire extended family, children, parents, cousins, could end up in Camp 22 for life." "school for brainwashing interrogation room" "The people didn't know how or why they ended up there." "Camps, especially those like number 22, which house the families of the accused, keep people loyal to the regime." "And when someone tries to defect from the country, their family often faces death or imprisonment." "Despite the cost, many people are so desperate, they try to escape anyway." "Most go through China, which shares a long border with North Korea." "For years, especially after the famine in the late '90s, missionaries and paid smugglers have led desperate people out." "Tens of thousands of North Korean refugees have come through China." "Many are led out by Pastor Chun a South Korean living in Seoul, who risks his life bringing people to freedom." "Before the group makes its move, I tell them which parts are dangerous, or what to look at for." "They could potentially be thrown into prison camps, or executed." "So everyone is extremely nervous and frightened." "You can never tell when you are going to be arrested by the Chinese police, or if you are going to be shot, while crossing the border." "While some continue on to South Korea or elsewhere, those who remain in China live marginal existences, and are under constant threat of repatriation, back to North Korea." "Though thousands have snuck out of North Korea through China, only a handful has successfully crossed the DMZ into freedom." "One of the few to escape directly to South Korea is a 25-year-old student living in Seoul, Joo Sung Il." "I personally believe that I made it through with the guidance of an invisible hand, because of God's will." "Joo used to be a guard in charge of a propaganda broadcasting booth, on the North Korean side of the DMZ." "My position was not an easy one to get." "It required extremely strong loyalty and belief in the system." "And not one mistake would be tolerated." "One night a soldier working for Joo broadcast the wrong message:" "He told the enemy that the next day was a holiday in the North." "If I had stayed, I would have been under great threat from the North Korean government." "I believed my chances of survival were zero." "Before the authorities arrested him, Joo and his friend tried to escape the only way they could, across the DMZ." "They drugged their fellow guards and came to a series of deadly electric fences used to keep people inside North Korea." "Joo thought he had a plan to divert the current long enough for them to squeeze by." "But he wasn't sure it would work." "Even though I had worked on electric fences before," "I wasn't confident that I had mastered the skills, so I felt scared." "Joo assembles a special plastic pole he stole from the equipment shed." "He takes off his clothes so he can slip under the fence more easily and wraps the end of the pole, in case any electricity flows to the handle." "Joo needs to hook the pole onto the electric fences in order to temporarily divert the electricity into the ground." "One slip can be disastrous." "Once the electric flow is cut off, there's only about two to three minutes that it can hold." "After that, you can easily burn to death on the fences, so we had to be extremely careful." "He uses wooden stakes to push up the fence." "I could still hear the electric flow in the fence." "The pole a couple of meters in front of me sounded like it was crying out, almost as if it was going to burst soon, at any moment." "On the other side, he motions for his friend to join him." "My junior was very nervous and frightened, because he had no previous experience with electric fences." "At first, everything looks okay." "But halfway through, disaster." "Full power returns to the fence." "Joo can only watch." "Seeing someone who set out with you die in front of your eyes, is just a horrible thing." "It felt like my own body was breaking down." "That memory follows me around like a nightmare." "But Joo continued onward." "Step by step, he picked his way across one of the largest mine fields on the planet." "Finally, he crossed into South Korea and surrendered at a guard post." "For me, I had a privileged life in that society." "But I don't yearn for it anymore." "There's one core value that is missing there, which I think is freedom." "I can say that I don't miss the North, because it doesn't have freedom." "But there was a huge cost to be paid." "When asked what happened to his family as a result of his leaving North Korea, he replied ominously." "I'd rather not talk about it." "It's our final evening in North Korea and Dr. Ruit works late into the night to reach his goal of operating on 1000 patients." "He believes in humanitarian engagement with all the countries of the world, whatever their politics." "The North Korean people have two eyes, like you and me, they have a mouth, and they have teeth, you know." "And it's for the world in general to understand that in North Korea we have a lot of people who need our love." "If all goes well, tomorrow the patients will have their vision restored, but how they actually see the world may be different from what we expect." "At the hospital, the cataract patients are waiting for Dr. Ruit to remove their bandages." "He's achieved his goal of operating on more than 1000 patients." "But they still don't know if they'll be able to see." "Most have been blind for years, some in one eye, others in both." "Dr. Ruit is optimistic." "We did a little more than 1000 surgeries and all with very good results, no infections." "That aspect I feel okay." "If everything goes well, as soon as the bandages are removed, people will be able to see immediately." "The minder gives us one last warning to shoot only the full image of the Dear Leader." "The moment of truth comes first for a 23-year-old woman." "She's come with her father." "And has been completely blind for years." "Ask her to open her eyes." "Can she touch my nose?" "Ask her where is her father?" " Dad!" " Can you see?" " Yes!" "I can see very well." " It's all because of the Great General." "We must bow to our Great General for this." " Yes, Dad." " Thank you, Great General!" " I want to show my gratitude to our Great General!" "Thank you very, very much, our Great General Kim Jong Il." "Thank you very, very much our Great General Kim Jong Il." "We praise you!" "We praise you!" "We praise you!" "We praise you!" "Next is a 35-year-old woman, who was blind in both eyes." "Ask her to open her eyes, please." " Can you see?" " Yes, I can see." "Great General, I will work harder at the salt mines to get more salt to bring you more happiness." "Thank you very much!" "Now we spot the grandmother we had visited at home." "She's been waiting for years to see the Dear Leader." "And she's not disappointed." "Thank you!" "Thank you!" "Each time a patient regained their sight, we were amazed to see them direct their gratefulness toward the Dear Leader." "Great Leader, I wish you great health." "How kind you are to hold an old woman like me in your arms." "Despite the hardships, he receives credit for everything that happens here." "We praise you!" "As I watched hundreds of people do and say virtually the same thing over, and over," "and over again." "I wondered which people had genuine faith, and which were acting out of fear?" "I swear that my children will be faithful to our Great Leader and Great General for generations to come!" "And, finally, it hit me." "We praise you." "Here, after generations of absolute rule and complete indoctrination, there may not be a difference between true belief, and true fear." "With these eyes that I've received," "I will grab a gun and kill every one of the American enemies and terminate them from this earth!" "North Korea is a place ruled by an absolute dictator who now possesses nuclear weapons." "It's no longer possible to regard the country as an isolated anomaly." "What happens here in the Hermit Kingdom can directly touch everyone in the world." "Because you brought us the light and your greatness," "I swear that I will serve you and be faithful for generations to come!" "Great General Kim Jong Il," "We praise you!" "We praise you!" "We praise you!"