Reflection~ Korea Article

I have always known that Kim Jong Il, the dictator of North Korea, is notorious for being one of the worst leaders in the world. I have never really thoroughly studied about North Korea at all, but wow, this article came to me as a total shocker. Few cars and factories? What makes North Korea this way, while South Korea is becoming more and more modern? The island of Korea isn't too far from the PRC, or Japan; which are both prospering in technology. The few factories that are present in Japan, make mostly just military equipment. Poverty is still very prominent. Kim Jong Il is basically just focusing on making his nuclear power iron strong, and play "cat and mouse" with the west. Since the end of WWII, North Korea has barely progressed. When Japan was defeated in 1945, the 38th Parallel line was formed, spliting the Korean peninsula. It wasn't really supposed to last.. but then Kim Il Sung became obsessed with forming his own strong army, and being a dictator. What is it with people and their thirst for power?? Like many other leaders who became obsessed, he swung North Korea between his own type of democracy and authoritarianism. Building a strong military, North Korea managed to seize an American ship, the Pueblo, and imprisoned the crew for nearly a year. While America was trying to make peace with North Korea and make negotiations, North Korea wouldn't budge, pushing itself only further into solitude. That is how it didn't benefit from all the technological advances made in the many countries surrounding it. Not really paying much attention to how his country was lacking progress, Kim Jong Il, started paying all of his attention to nuclear weapons, and how much he can get his hands on. He started to reconsider his country's complete isolation when over 80% of his people were starving from the huge famine in mid-1990s. Today, conditions aren't much better for the North Korean people, as the Northerners and Southerners are technically still at war. So today, the new leader, Kim Jong Un has taken over. I don't get a very good feeling that he's going to do much for the country either...