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Outlook: A Woman Inside North Korea's Army

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A Woman Inside North Korea's Army

28/09/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - Outlook, A Woman Inside North Korea's Army

Former soldier Lee So Yeon was trained to hate the USA but now she supports Donald Trump

Former soldier Lee So Yeon served 10 years in North Korea's Army before defecting to the South. She describes witnessing abuse and starvation.

Lee So Yeon gives us an extraordinary insight into what it's like to be a female soldier in the North Korean army. She now lives in South Korea where she helps other women who have defected settle into their new lives. But in the 1990s she was still living in North Korea and she signed up for military service, hoping it could lead to a career working for the government.  

Dan Parker is determined to become the fastest blind man alive. He used to be a professional drag racer, driving cars at up to 245mph on racetracks all over the USA. But in March 2012 a horrific crash left him blind.

In the early 1970s Suzi Ronson was leading a quiet life as a hairdresser in Beckenham, a suburb in South London. But a fortuitous encounter set her life on a completely different path. This is the story of how she became David Bowie's hairstylist after creating the iconic haircut for his flamboyant alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Her story has recently been published in a book called 'The Moth - All These Wonders'.

Mehrunnisa and Tarannum Shokat Ali are two Muslim sisters who work as nightclub bouncers in New Delhi. They have become famous for bringing order and protection to the clubbers of the city. Outlook's reporter Sumiran Preet Kaur went to meet them.


Image: A Woman Inside North Korea's Army 
Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

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