Terry Gross

Nicholas Kristof, editorial columnist for The New York Times, discusses the North Korea crisis. He has covered North and South Korea off and on since 1986. He's served as the Times bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. He was co-recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his coverage of the Chinese crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square. In a column which appeared in the Times on February 4, 2003, he wrote, "The North Korean nuclear crisis is far more perilous than many people realize.

He has just returned from several weeks in Afghanistan. His book, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, is now out in paperback. He's also the author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Rashid is a correspondent for The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph, reporting on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The author of 25th Hour. His book, about a former drug dealer in New York City out on the town on the eve of being sent to a penitentiary. It's the basis of the new Spike Lee film of the same name.