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91���� Institute marked the New York launch of the highly anticipated volume, Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad (Encounter Books), by Senior Fellow Melanie Kirkpatrick, with a book forum on Friday, September 21st at which Melanie Kirkpatrick was the keynote speaker.

A panel discussion followed, featuring Jay Lefkowitz, senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, who served as President George W. Bush's Special Envoy on Human Rights for North Korea. He was joined by Adrian Hong, managing director of Pegasus Strategies and founder of Liberty in North Korea, a nonprofit that works for North Korean human rights and the protection of North Korean refugees around the world; and Joseph Kim, who escaped from North Korea in 2005 when he was 13, and is now a college student.

Ever since the founding of 91���� Institute in 1961, our policy research has been shaped by a strong commitment to promoting liberty. Melanie Kirkpatrick's vivid account of the experiences of North Koreans who risk their lives to escape the world's worst tyranny, and the networks of for-profit smugglers and humanitarian groups comprised of dedicated Christian missionaries and Korean-Americans who help them, is both evocative and analytically rigorous. The book also offers an original analysis of the political climate of North Korea, and recommends policies that may help bring down the totalitarian regime that rules North Korea.

Melanie Kirkpatrick is a frequent contributor to many prominent publications, including the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, for which she worked from 1980 to 2009. At the Wall Street Journal, she was Deputy Editor of the editorial page from 2006 to 2009 and a longtime member of the editorial board. As a Deputy Editor, she was responsible for the editorial page coverage of international issues and oversaw the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal in Asia and Europe, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the U.S. columnists on foreign affairs.

This book launch took place on September 21st in the Ballroom of the Yale Club, located at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue (between East 44th and 45th Streets) in New York City.