What is on my mind at the moment is the continual cat-and-mouse game the international community and North Korea have been playing.

Since last year, rhetoric and threats from North Korea have skyrocketed. Recently though, the U.S. has seen a decline in threats from North Korea. Unfortunately, things remain somewhat the same between North and South Korea amid the recent cancellations of the family reunions held for the North and South citizens who were separated by the Korean War, according to CNN.com.

Yet every time I watch CNN or view their website my eyes seem to catch a new or updated headline concerning North Korea and the damage it creates. Most recently I have been reading up on the Kenneth Bae situation.

Bae is an American citizen who was sentenced last November to 15 years of hard labor. The North Korean government claims that Bae participated in acts that were meant to bring down the North Korean government, according to CNN.com.

However, that is not the only thing I have been following coming out of the North Korean borders. Stories of defectors as well as the gruesome stories they have to tell have continued to emerge and continue to grip my attention. Additionally, further reports coming from CNN.com have said recently that as many as two-thirds of the country’s population have used methamphetamines due to China’s stricter border controls which are forcing North Korean suppliers to deal within the walls of the country.

This alone shines light on the harsh reality that the people in the North are living unstable lives under unstable conditions. It really bothers me to see human beings suppressed in this way — especially one of our own citizens. How could a family of leaders continue to mistreat their citizens for so long? That I do not have an answer for, and apparently neither does anyone else. North Korea has boxed its country out from the rest of the world — yet continues to blame the rest of the world for its isolation.

It is a cruel and dangerous world north of the border. While I am not exactly saying I believe the U.S. — or any other country for that matter — should wage war on the North, I will say that something within the international community needs to be done to help the citizens North Korean.

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