Assured of a trip free of protests, the Olympic torch made its first-ever relay run yesterday in North Korea.
An attentive and peaceful crowd of thousands watched the start of the relay in Pyongyang, some waving Chinese flags, footage from broadcaster APTN showed. The event was presided over by the head of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, Kim Yong-nam, who often acts as a ceremonial state leader.
North Korea, an ally of neighbor China, has been critical of disruptions of the torch relay elsewhere and has supported Beijing in its crackdown against violent protests in Tibet.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was not seen at the event but was “paying great interest to the success of the Olympic torch relay,” said Pak Hak-son, chairman of the North’s Olympic committee, a report by Japan’s Kyodo News agency from Pyongyang said.
The relay began from beneath the large sculpted flame that tops the obelisk of the Juche Tower, which commemorates the national ideology of “self-reliance.”
At the start of the run, Kim Yong-nam passed the torch to Pak Du-ik, who played on North Korea’s 1966 World Cup soccer team that made it to the quarter-finals. As he began the 20km route through Pyongyang, thousands more cheering people lined city streets waving pink paper flowers and small flags with the Beijing Olympics logo and chanting “Welcome! Welcome!”
Other torch bearers were also seen running through a Pyongyang street, escorted by several people in training suits and some vehicles and motorcycles, but there was notably lighter security than seen on other torch relay stops.
The relay finished at Kim Il-sung Stadium, which was filled with tens of thousands of people, Xinhua said.
defector
Meanwhile, a North Korean officer fled across the heavily armed border with the South, the first officer to do so in about 10 years, a South Korean military official said yesterday.
A Joint Chiefs of Staff official said the defection took place on Sunday. Yonhap news agency quoted a government official as saying it had occured near the Panmunjom truce village set up in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that has divided the peninsula for more than 50 years.
The officer was only identified by his family name Ri. Seoul usually keeps high-profile defectors under wraps for months or years as it debriefs them.
Yonhap news agency quoted a military official as saying that the North Korean was the first commissioned officer to defect to South Korea across the border since 1998.
The two Koreas, which are still technically at war, have more than 1 million troops positioned on either side of the razor-wired and mine-strewn border.
There are no fences in the Panmunjom truce village, which straddles the border and is within the 4km-wide DMZ.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)