You're listening to the inquiry on the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton.

Each week we bring you four expert witnesses answering one pressing question from the news.

In the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, there's a building some call the hotel of doom,

shaped like a pyramid and built in a severe Soviet style, it's covered in green reflective glass.

It looks like something out of a superhero comic.

The hotel has been looming over the city center

for more than two decades, but so far,

no one's ever checked in for a stay.

At one hundred and five stories, the Hotel of Doom,

known officially as the Yugyung Hotel

is the tallest unfinished building in the world.

Why is it empty?

Most assume the North Korean regime ran out of money to finish off the building's 800

rooms or to provide power or water to future guests.

Others say the elevator shafts were built at an angle,

making them unusable, and there's no money to fix them.

Contrast that dismal story with this scene last year.

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un,

in front of ecstatic crowds at the opening of a new apartment complex,

located not far from the decaying hotel.

Piong Yang Skyline has been transformed under Kim the third, so much so that it's now

dubbed Piong Hatton. But those buildings too pose a bit of a

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