Champion North Korean boxer

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Christian human rights activists say an American missionary has illegally crossed the Chinese border into North Korea. On Christmas day, Robert Park carried with him a letter demanding that the Kim Jong il regime free political prisoners and has not been heard from since. While few enter North Korea at own their risk, still many more escape. But not all flee for political or human rights. There’s at least one refugee who defected for the love of boxing. Champion Choi Hyun Mi (pictured right) is now making a big name for herself in South Korea. Jason Strother has the story from Seoul. Download MP3 (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

• BBC: A Guide to North Korea
• North Korea: Secretive state

No go on Noko

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North Korean-made designer jeans were to go on sale over the weekend at a department store in Sweden. But the store changed its mind and says it wants to avoid courting controversy through ties with the closed communist nation. On today’s show, we talk with one of the NoKo Jeans entrepreneurs, Jacob Ohlsson who’s now left holding the jeans, eleven hundred pairs to be exact. Download MP3 Photo: (AP Photo/Scanpix/Jonas Ekstromer)

• Washington Post slideshow
• Noko Jeans