North Koreans Say Life Has Not Improved - NYTimes.com
►http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/asia/north-koreans-say-life-has-not-improved.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: October 14, 2012
Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, deals with fewer electricity shortages than other parts of the country.
DANDONG, China — On her weekly shopping trips to downtown Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, a 52-year-old pig farmer who gave her name as Mrs. Kim tries to ignore the dusting of prosperity that has begun to transform the city in recent years: the newly built apartment blocks, the increasing number of Mercedes-Benzes that zip along once-empty boulevards, the smartly dressed young women who conspicuously gab on their newly acquired cellphones. She has never been to the Rungna People’s Pleasure Ground, a new amusement park where children of the elite howled with delight this summer as they shot down a waterslide.