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BBC Mistakes Taiwan National Day Celebration for North Korean Military Parade

BBC Mistakes Taiwan National Day Celebration for North Korean Military Parade
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By Staff, Agencies

BBC World News was left red-faced after it accidentally broadcast footage of National Day celebrations in Taiwan while claiming they were actually a military display marking the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s ruling party.

Relatively, North Korea held a massive celebratory military display on October 10, a date which the North Korean anniversary shares with Taiwan's national day, Sputnik reported.

While narrating the event in North Korea, a BBC News report showed an image of a Taiwanese parade on Saturday that took place outside the Presidential Office in Taipei.

Despite the observable presence of Republic of China [Taiwan] flags in the footage as well as prominent buildings in Taipei and soldiers dressed in distinctive Taiwanese uniforms, the BBC report still had “Live Pyongyang” emblazoned on the screen.

Several users identified the mistake and criticized the BBC over the confusion. The UK broadcaster followed up with an apology and corrected the news item, according to Liberty Times.

Japanese Twitter user Rei Sudo pointed out the erroneous BBC World News report showing the 109th October 10th National Celebration of the Republic of China in place of the Workers' Party anniversary.

Others noted how the North Korean parade was held at night, while in Taiwan soldiers had marched under blue skies earlier in the day.

In North Korea the event is knowns as 'Party Foundation Day'; on 10 October 1945 the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of North Korea was established, prior to the division of the Korean peninsula into two separate countries.

The committee would later become the 'Workers' Party of North Korea' a year later before merging with its southern counterpart to become 'the Workers' Party of Korea' in 1949.

The National Day of the Republic of China, or Double Ten Day, is celebrated in Taipei in honor of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising, which led to the overthrow of China's Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the ROC, which now only controls Taiwan, having lost mainland China to the forces of Mao Zedong in 1949.

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