JAPAN & N. KOREA: Fee row shines spotlight on Japan's pro-North Korean schools

The framed portraits of North Korea's past and present leaders, the "two Kims", gaze down solemnly from the wall as 30 pupils hunch over their desks in a slightly decrepit classroom. The boys are dressed in dark blue school blazers, and the girls in traditional chima chogori costumes. A map of the Korean peninsula hangs on the wall, and the teacher talks about its troubled history. At first glance, this school could be in Pyongyang. In fact, it is in Japan, where a row over school funding has put a spotlight on this Tokyo school and nine others like it, operated by Chongryon, the pro-Pyongyang organisation that serves as North Korea's de facto embassy. (AFP)