Korea's Dangerous Divide

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Camouflaged South Korean soldier near the DMZ.
Scanning for infiltrators from North Korea, South Korean soldiers defend the Demilitarized Zone, where escalating tensions keep troops on high alert.
A ten-foot-high barbed-wire fence marches along the southern side of the DMZ. Both nations maintain 148-mile-long barriers to protect their borders at the DMZ, which runs north of the 38th parallel.
A North Korean sentry shows his war face to an American officer, part of the United Nations Military Armistice Commision .
Helmeted UN guards assume a martial-arts stance as they stare across the border.
Though soldiers guarding the DMZ carry only handguns and rifles, the armies massed on either side of it hold enough firepower to raize the peninsula. Equipped with chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons, the North has targeted Seoul, South Korea's capital, with hundreds of artillery pieces. South Korean and U.S forces - with superior air and tank power - train constantly to repel an attack.
A villager harvests oysters from spiked beach fortifications on Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea.
American officers at a bonfire, drinking beers and telling war stories
In the remote military camps along the DMZ, South Korean conscripts spend free time building their body armour - and playing ping pong.
In the remote military camps along the DMZ, a typical day's training for South Korean conscripts includes a bout of hand-to-hand combat in a martial arts drill.
Smoke bombs and the sounds of artillery and sniper fire simulate battle as medics practice evacuating a soldier under barbed wire. Says a U.S officer: "We train on the ground we'll fight on. And it doesn't take two days to get ready." If called apon, he says, "we'll fight tonight."
On South Korean highway, camouflaged towers called tank traps are wired to explode and block the advance on North Korean tanks
In the kitchen of a family, residents of Daeseong-dong, South Korea's only village inside the DMZ.
North Korea's DMZ "town" called Propaganda Village, a facade built to feign prosperity.
Rare red-crowned cranes, migrants from Siberia and northeast China who arrive in winter to feed in the rice fields on the Cheorwon Plain, Korea.
Tourists visit the Third Tunnel, a North Korean infiltration route discovered in 1978 beneath the DMZ.
Korean man weeps for his family whom he has not seen in more than 55 years.
Tourists in a hot spa bathhouse, North Korea.
Tributes to the late Kim Il Sung, the first president of North Korea, appear nearly everywhere in the Mount Kumgang area. His image provides a political backdrop for visiting South Koreans.
Tributes to the late Kim Il Sung, the first president of North Korea, appear nearly everywhere in th Mount Kumgang area. A poem to the "Great Leader" decorates a hiking path.
South Korean protestors charge the gates of Camp Casey, a U.S. Army base.
Tanks on a training mission cross a river near Seoul, which North Korea has threatened to turn into a "lake of fire."
Both North and South Korea recently signed an agreement to reopen two railways across the border. To celebrate the pact, children representing the two Koreas embrace outside the South's DMZ fence.
Republic of Korea flag and the flag of the United Nations. Taesongdong.
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The heavily fortfied fence along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) divides the two Koreas.
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5th division soldiers at their guard post. Key Observatory.
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Marines with a cannon on manuevers. Baengnyeong Island.
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