NORTH KOREA
Kim’s yacht sails to burial
Pyongyang has put Kim Jong-il’s yacht in the family mausoleum and had to build a railway to get it there, a report said yesterday, as the nation prepares to mark one year since the late leader’s death. The reclusive state has been putting together a collection of some of Kim’s possessions at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, which houses the preserved body of his father, Kim Il-sung, Yonhap news agency said. Quoting unidentified South Korean officials, Yonhap said that the embalming of Kim Jong-il’s body, which is eventually expected to be laid next to that of his father in the imposing structure, is almost complete. To get to the palace, the yacht was sailed from the eastern port of Wonsan 1,500 nautical miles (2,778km) around the Korean Peninsula to the western port of Nampo, from where it was towed 44km inland to Pyongyang. Power lines had to be taken down, a temporary rail track was laid and part of the wall of the mausoleum knocked down to get the boat inside, the report said. The North has reportedly set Dec. 1 to 20 as a mourning period for Kim Jong-il, who died of a heart attack on Dec. 17.
AUSTRALIA
Phones to light up harbor
Sydney’s world-famous New Year’s Eve fireworks will go interactive with a smartphone-powered light show, officials announced on Thursday. The light show, described by City of Sydney officials as a “world first,” will run through an app on iPhone and Android smartphones that will illuminate the screens with color at scheduled intervals leading up to midnight. The city is hoping to attract more than 1 million people to the harbor foreshore to witness the fireworks, and organizers want the crowds to hold their phones aloft to form a synchronized wave of color. “In a city of great diversity we come together at New Year’s Eve to embrace the future and celebrate all that we are and the potential that tomorrow holds,” Kylie Minogue, the event’s creative ambassador, said in a video message at the official launch.
INDONESIA
Mafia boss caught in Bali
Italian police have arrested a fugitive Mafia boss living in a luxury home on the island of Bali in a joint operation with Indonesian authorities, police said yesterday. Antonino Messicati Vitale has served 10 years in prison in the past for Mafia association and is wanted on new charges of extortion. He is believed to be head of the Sicilian Mafia clan of Villabate, which was at the center of a bloody gang war in the 1990s. Messicati Vitale, whose father Pietro was gunned down in 1988, was one of the most high-profile Mafia bosses still on the run. Investigators tracked Messicati Vitale by bugging and wiretapping his family and allies and then tracking a group of his relatives who traveled to Bali.
GUATEMALA
McAfee out of hospital
US Internet security guru John McAfee was discharged from a Guatemalan police hospital on Thursday after being admitted with what his lawyer called “heart problems,” a hospital official said. The official, Oscar Gonzalez, told reporters that tests showed McAfee was likely suffering from “anxiety and high blood pressure” but did not reveal any cardiac malfunction. McAfee is to be deported to Belize over a murder probe. McAfee, who had been on the run for weeks from Belizean authorities, was taken back to a detention facility in Guatemala City once doctors determined the 67-year-old American’s life was not in danger, Gonzalez said. The software pioneer applied for asylum in Guatemala after fleeing across the border over the weekend, but that request was rejected. He is wanted for questioning over the murder last month of his US expatriate neighbor in Belize.
VENEZUELA
New fears for Hugo’s health
The rumor mill over the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is again spinning wildly as cancer-related treatment has forced the leftist anti-US firebrand to skip another international summit. Chavez, 58, has repeatedly claimed to have beaten an unspecified cancer in his pelvic region that was diagnosed in 2011 and shrugged off his illness to see off a unified opposition and secure another six-year term on Oct. 7. Weeks after his hard-fought re-election, Chavez said that “God willing” he would attend yesterday’s Mercosur summit and preside over Venezuela’s hotly anticipated debut outing as part of the group, which it joined in July. However, on Thursday, hosts Brazil announced that the bombastic and once-omnipresent Venezuelan leader would have to forego the gathering as he is still in Cuba receiving treatment. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, who was also promoted to vice president after the election, was due to take Chavez’s place alongside the leaders of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in the meeting of the South American trading bloc.
UNITED STATES
Defense goods man charged
A New York man has been criminally charged with illegally exporting defense articles and goods with military applications to Taiwan and China, one day after prosecutors announced charges against four people over exports to China and Iran. Mark Henry was accused of trying to ship military-grade material used to coat rocket nozzles to Taiwan, and microwave amplifiers that have military applications to China, without first getting licenses from US government agencies. Henry, 49, operated an export company known as Dahua Electronics Corp from April 2009 to September this year.
AUSTRIA
Bus driver finds US$500,000
Vienna’s transport authority says a city bus driver checking a bag left behind by a passenger had the surprise of his life — 390,000 euros (US$504,000) in neatly stacked 500-euro bills. Transit authority spokeswoman Anna-Maria Reich says the driver handed the stash to police, who tracked down the owner, an unidentified elderly woman. However, the driver has nothing to show for his honesty beyond praise from superiors. Weeks later, the owner has not contacted him to offer a reward. The incident happened last month and Reich confirmed details first reported on Thursday by several Austrian tabloids. It was unclear why the woman was carrying so much cash.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was