North Korea
Pedro Ugarte & Ed Jones / Agence France-Presse

North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, invited hundreds of foreign journalists to witness celebrations in April to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of leader Kim Il-Sung, and the launch of a rocket considered by the US and its allies to be a cover for a ballistic missile test. Pedro Ugarte and Ed Jones described their experience of the hard-line communist state as “traveling back in time.”

Pedro Ugarte
Pedro Ugarte, 41 (in August), was born in Chile, but raised in Mexico where his parents went into exile following the 1973 military coup against the government of Salvador Allende.
He returned to Chili in 1987 to work for an opposition newspaper, and joined AFP as a freelance photographer in 1991 while in Nicaragua.
He has worked in much of Central and Latin America, covering stories such as the 126-day siege of the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima where members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took hundreds of hostages during a reception in December 1996.
In 2001 he moved to Nairobi as chief photographer for East Africa, before taking over in Jerusalem as chief photographer for Israel and the Palestinian territories and then, in New Delhi, as chief photographer for South East Asia.
Pedro, who has also covered the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Sydney, and Peking, is now based in Hong Kong where he is photo director for Asia.

Ed Jones
Ed Jones joined AFP in 2007 as a freelance photographer based in Scotland.
He has worked in Paris and Hong Kong, and in December moved to Beijing which he describes as “busy, noisy and extremely interesting.”
The 30-year-old Briton is currently learning Chinese, but reckons he still needs at least a year before showing real progress!

North Korea - Pedro Ugarte & Ed Jones / Agence France-Presse
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