Escapee Shin Don-hyuk talks about prison

CNN, in a taped interview, talked with escaped North Korean work camp prisoner, Shin Dong-hyuk. Shin's life began in near-hopeless circumstances in a NK prison camp. His parents, already interned there, were allowed a "reward marriage" for obedient behavior, but that didn't last. Shin tells how, at age 14, he witnessed his mother and brother being executed. View part of the interview here.

The media are finally catching on that North Korea is not just a lightweight freak show. It's a poisonously dangerous regime, and the world's leaders and journalists are, at last, waking up to this fact.

For more CNN reportage on the topic, go here.

New York Times stories:

Here's what the Yahoo website has:

The ABC News website:

And on BBC: