Thursday, May 28, 2009

Looking Inside North Korea   [Veronique de Rugy]

Some must-see work has been done by Curtis Melvin, a PhD student at George Mason University, to help get a closer look inside the very secretive North Korean regime.  

Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal featured his work on its front page.

Mr. Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches.

"It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin.

For more on his amazing work, and fascinating pictures, check out his website North Korea Economy Watch here. The Wall Street Journal piece is here. Also, you can watch his appearance (one of many in the last five days) last night on the Greta Van Susteren show here.

05/28 12:31 PMShare