Mobile phones help weaken North Korean isolation
Posted in: Mobile & Wireless at 02/05/2012 18:57
Every week, Mrs Ri, a North Korean defector now living in Seoul, receives a call from her family back home. For her it is a chance to catch up with loved ones. For them, it is potentially a matter of life and death.
To make the calls, Mrs Ri's relatives must run an elaborate gauntlet to call abroad on a Chinese mobile phone, smuggled in over the border. Fearing they could be shot if it is found in their home, they wrap the device in a plastic bag and bury it on a dusty hillside, digging it out to speak only at pre-arranged times.
To read this Financial Times report in full, see:
www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9605fb7a-893b-11e1-bed0-00144feab49a.html
