Wrong turn grants glimpse behind North Korean curtain | World news | guardian.co.uk
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/13/north-korea-real-life-press-bus
Ça c’est plutôt marrant. Le Bus des journalistes se trompe de route et soudain apparaît aux journalistes médusés, un pays qu’ils ne connaissent pas...
Wrong turn grants glimpse behind North Korean curtain
It’s hard to know what is real in North Korea, but foreign press got a chance to see life behind the facade by accident
Tim Sullivan, Associated Press in Pyongyang
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 April 2012
North Korea: real life on the streets
North Korean residents of the capital city mingle on the side of the street in Pyongyang Photograph: David Guttenfelder/AP
The press bus took a wrong turn - and suddenly, everything changed in the official showcase of North Korean achievement.
A cloud of dust swirled down deeply potholed streets, past concrete apartment buildings crumbling at the edges. Elderly people trudged along the pavement, some with handmade backpacks crafted from canvas bags. Two men in wheelchairs waited at a bus stop. There were shops with no lights, and unsurfaced sidestreets.
Ordinary North Koreans stared unabashedly at the 50 or so foreign reporters on a rare trip to this secretive, autocratic nation as it honoured its founder, heralded its new leader and prepared for Friday’s satellite launch - an apparent failure that Washington said was really a test of missile technology.