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Glimpse of World Shatters North Koreans' Illusions By HOWARD W. FRENCH ANJI, China - Sitting on a bare floor in a chilly one-room apartment, Lee Hae Jon and her younger sister, Hae Sun, struggled recently for words to describe their lives since they clandestinely made their way here from North Korea five years ago. Their mother married a Chinese man and disappeared from their lives without a trace. Since then, a Chinese widow of Korean descent has taken the girls into her apartment and kept them clothed and fed. But for five years, the teenage sisters have not dared to...

THE GREAT DIVIDE | RURAL WASTELANDS UANGMENGYING, China - Wang Lincheng began his accounting at the brick hut of a farmer. Dead of cancer, he said flatly, his dress shoes sinking in the mud. Dead of cancer, he repeated, glancing at another vacant house. Mr. Wang, head of the Communist Party in this village, ignored a June rain and trudged past mud-brick houses, ticking off other deaths, other empty homes. He did not seem to notice a small cornfield where someone had dug a burial mound of fresh red dirt. Finally, he stopped at the door of a sickened young...

Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- Workers and office employees of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are enjoying summer holidays at rest homes together with their families. Nearly twenty reconstructed rest homes in Sokam, Lake Sohung, Onpho, Kuam and other scenic spots have received holiday-makers. The holiday-makers at the Onpho Rest Home in Kyongsong County, North Hamgyong Province, and the Majon Rest Home in Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province, are playing various kinds of sports games and amusements and swimming and boating in the sea. The Kuam Rest Home in Hwayang-ri, Chongdan County, South Hwanghae Province, has also opened the...