North Korea is commonly thought of as the most mysterious place in the world. The country is marked by its opacity and inaccessibility, its inner workings seen as impossible for outsiders to grasp. In this groundbreaking book, the leading scholar and practitioner Victor D. Cha shines a light into the “black box” of North Korea and draws critical lessons for the possible reunification of Korea after many decades of division. The Black Box demonstrates convincingly that North Korea, while far from transparent, is less inscrutable than is typically assumed. Using innovative research methods from data scraping to ethnography, including microsurveys of ordinary North Koreans, Cha unearths a trove of new information. Through these pioneering findings, and incorporating his experiences as a White House official negotiating with North Korean interlocutors and traveling to North Korea, he paints a vivid picture of this enigmatic country and develops a grounded account of its behavior. Cha explores the regime’s core tendencies, its policies toward the U.S.–South Korea alliance, cybersecurity threats, the potential for economic development, the growth of a nascent civil society, and pathways toward Korean unification, among other topics. The Black Box provides both an essential understanding of contemporary North Korea and an insightful guide to studying the country from one of the world’s most esteemed experts.

This publication is the fifth in a series of reports published every five years on environmental trends in the Asia and Pacific region. The 2005 report examines the pressures on the environment arising from the region's rapid economic growth given its relatively limited carrying capacity and changing consumption and production patterns. Findings include that although member governments have made progress in improving environmental performance (such as in relation to environmental governance policy and measures to control pollution), a greater focus on the eco-efficiency of production and consumption activity and investment in natural resources is needed to achieve real environmental sustainability. In line with the theme of 5th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development , held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, the publication elaborates on "green growth" policy measures as a key requirement for achieving MDG 7 (environmental sustainability) and MDG 1 (poverty reduction).