...The four or five South Koreans in jail in China for helping refugees have received little help from their government. In contrast, Japan aggressively sought--and got--the release of two of its citizens arrested in China for helping refugees. It's a powerful deterrent for South Koreans who want to help to realize that their government won't come to their aid if they are arrested...

...Information doesn't readily make its way out of North Korea. But when it's useful to his purposes, Kim Jong Il makes sure certain news is delivered. And so the word has filtered back to Mr. Hwang in Seoul about the fate of the family he had left behind. His wife committed suicide. So too, the reports say, did one of his daughters. She is said to have jumped off a bridge to her death while being taken to a prison camp. Two other daughters and a son are lost in the gulag.

This is the reality of life in North Korea--and the truth that Mr. Hwang will be telling in Washington this week.