Officially tolerated smuggling buttresses the formal trade between them, while North Korea earns much-needed hard currency from thousands of North Koreans who work in northeast China and a similar number of Chinese tourists and advisers visiting the other side.

NPR: North Korea Nuke Test Could Test China's Patience

In recent weeks, military and intelligence analysts in the U.S. and South Korea, using satellite photography, have monitored increased activity at a missile-launch site in northeast North Korea.

WSJ: Clinton Praises China Stimulus, Has Hope for North Korea Relationship

Instead, Wales, the northeast, Northern Ireland and the north-west of England came out ahead.

BBC: Scottish independence: Braveheart or iPad?

In the mid-1990s I found myself the only non-North Korean in a class studying Chinese in northeast China.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Although the South suffers from weed and mold spore allergies in the fall, Gerald Kress, an executive with SDI Health, which operates Pollen.com, says the North and Northeast gets hit particularly hard by ragweed -- and 2009 is shaping up to be a banner year for ragweed pollen.

CNN: Southern deluge may help fall allergy sufferers