SEOUL: The head of a hugely popular North Korean girl band crossed the heavily fortified border into South Korea on Sunday to check preparations for rare performances by an art troupe she also leads during next month’s Winter Olympics.
Appearing live on South Korean television, Hyon Song Wol didn’t speak when she walked past a crowd of reporters, onlookers and a barrage of camera flashes before boarding an express train at Seoul’s railway station for the eastern city of Gangneung, where her art troupe is to perform during the Pyeongchang Olympics.
She is the leader of Pyongyang’s all-female Moranbong Band, which was hand-picked by leader Kim Jong Un. She’s been the subject of intense South Korean media attention since she attended last week’s talks at the border that struck an agreement on the 140-memer Samjiyon art troupe’s two performances — one in Seoul and the other in Gangneung, where some of the games will take place. After the talks, North Korea said Hyon would also lead the Samjiyon art troupe, whose performances would be the first by a North Korean group in South Korea since 2002.
With no official media access given to Hyon, TV stations broadcast live footage of her bus moving on Seoul’s roads before arriving at the railway station, where hundreds of police officers were mobilized to maintain order. Photos showed a smiling Hyon shaking heads with a South Korean official upon arrival at the border. Later Sunday, wearing a dark winter coat and fur scarf and with half her hair tied to the back, she looked more serious with an expressionless face.
Hyon’s arrival came hours after the International Olympic Committee allowed 22 North Korean athletes to take part in the Olympics in exceptional entries given to the North. Among the 22 are 12 women who will join South Korea’s female hockey team in the Koreas’ first-ever unified Olympic team. The other sports events the North Koreans will compete in are figure skating, short track speed skating, Alpine skiing and cross-country skiing.
The 22 North Korean athletes will march together with South Korean players under a single “unification flag” depicting their peninsula during the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang. “Such an agreement would have seemed impossible only a few weeks ago,” IOC chief Thomas Bach said in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The current mood of reconciliation between the Koreas flared after Kim abruptly expressed his willingness to improve ties and send a delegation to the Olympics during his annual New Year’s address. Outside critics dismissed Kim’s overture as a tactic to use improved ties with Seoul to weaken US-led international sanctions over North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programs.
Hyon, who is also an alternate member of the ruling party’s Central Committee, is traveling with six other North Koreans. Her delegation had been expected in South Korea on Saturday, but North Korea canceled that plan on Friday night before it proposed a two-day trip starting Sunday. It wasn’t clear why the visit was rescheduled.
Hyon’s advance team is to inspect a venue for her art troupe’s performance in Gangnenug later Sunday. The team is expected to stay overnight at Gangneung before returning to Seoul to check another venue in the capital on Monday, according to Yonhap news agency.
The Samjiyon art troupe, which comprises orchestra members, singers and dancers, is part of North Korea’s Olympic delegation that also includes athletes, officials, journalists and a taekwondo demonstration team.
North Korea on Sunday offered to send another advance team across the border on Thursday to look at accommodation facilities, a press center and the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. South Korea is to send its own advance team to North Korea on Tuesday to review logistics for a joint cultural event at the North’s Diamond Mountain and their non-Olympic skiers’ joint practices at the North’s Masik ski resort, the ministry said.
Hyon was a popular singer before she was appointed to lead the Moranbong Band, which serves as the “soft” public face of the Kim government. Its members in short skirts and high heels or stylish military uniforms sing and dance odes to Kim. There is speculation that some of the Moranbong members may also appear in the Samjiyon art troupe, which observers say was likely hastily formed ahead of Olympics-related talks with South Korea.
Under a deal with South Korea, the Samjiyon group is to play folk songs and classic masterpieces that are well-known to both Koreas and fit in with the theme of unification. An attempt by the group to perform any propaganda piece would trigger protests from conservatives in South Korea. The Moranbong Band canceled its planned 2015 performance in Beijing at the last minutes after Beijing wanted to replace a missile launch scene from the background of the stage, according to South Korea media.
Hugely popular pop star leads North Korean team to South Korea
Hugely popular pop star leads North Korean team to South Korea
A British TV art expert who sold works to a suspected Hezbollah financier is sentenced to prison
- Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53, had pleaded guilty to eight offenses under the Terrorism Act 2000
- Ojiri, who also appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip, faced a possible sentence of five years in prison in the hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court
LONDON: An art expert who appeared on the BBC’s Bargain Hunt show was sentenced Friday to two and a half years in prison for failing to report his sale of pricey works to a suspected financier of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.
At a previous hearing, Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53, had pleaded guilty to eight offenses under the Terrorism Act 2000. The art sales for about 140,000 pounds ($185,000) to Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer sanctioned by the UK and US as a Hezbollah financier, took place between October 2020 and December 2021.
The sanctions were designed to prevent anyone in the UK or US from trading with Ahmad or his businesses.
Ojiri, who also appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip, faced a possible sentence of five years in prison in the hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court, which is better known as the Old Bailey.
In addition to the prison term, Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Ojiri faces an additional year on license — a period of time after a prison sentence ends when an offender must stay out of trouble or risk going back to prison.
She told Ojiri he had been involved in a commercial relationship “for prestige and profit” and that until his involvement with Ahmad, he was “someone to be admired.”
“You knew about Ahmad’s suspected involvement in financing terrorism and the way the art market can be exploited by someone like him,” she said. “This is the nadir — there is one direction your life can go and I am confident that you will not be in front of the courts again.”
The Met’s investigation into Ojiri was carried out alongside Homeland Security in the US, which is conducting a wider investigation into alleged money laundering by Ahmad using shell companies.
“This prosecution, using specific Terrorism Act legislation, is the first of its kind and should act as a warning to all art dealers that we can, and will, pursue those who knowingly do business with people identified as funders of terrorist groups,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Ahmad was sanctioned in 2019 by the US Treasury, which said he was a prominent Lebanon-based money launderer involved in smuggling blood diamonds, which are mined in conflict zones and sold to finance violence.
Two years ago, the UK Treasury froze Ahmad’s assets because he financed Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militant organization that has been designated an international terrorist group.
Following Ojiri’s arrest in April 2023, the Met obtained a warrant to seize a number of artworks, including a Picasso and Andy Warhol paintings, belonging to Ahmad and held in two warehouses in the UK
The collection, valued at almost 1 million pounds, is due to be sold with the funds to be reinvested back into the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office.
Five things to know about the St Catherine monastery in Egypt's Sinai
- The monastery was founded by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century at the biblical site of the burning bush at the foot of Mount Sinai
- According to UNESCO, "the entire area is of immense spiritual significance" to Christianity, Islam and Judaism
CAIRO: Nestled in the Sinai mountains, the ancient St Catherine's Monastery has been the centre of recent tensions after an Egyptian court ruled last week that it sat on state-owned land.
Dating back to the sixth century BC, the UNESCO World Heritage Site is the world's oldest continuously inhabited monastery, attracting hundreds of pilgrims and tourists every year.
Following warnings from the authorities and Orthodox Church in Greece that the ruling threatens the monastery's status, a government delegation is travelling from Athens to Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the situation.
The monastery was founded by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century at the biblical site of the burning bush at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses was believed to have received the 10 commandments, according to the world's three major monotheistic religions.
It was named for Saint Catherine of Alexandria, whose remains are housed in the church, along with rare iconography and manuscripts.
It is headed by the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu, under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
According to UNESCO, "the entire area is of immense spiritual significance" to Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
The organisation says the monastery is "the property of the Greek Orthodox Church and belongs to the Archdiocese of Sinai".
Last Wednesday, an Egyptian appeals court ruled that the monastery "is entitled to use" the land and the archaeological religious sites dotting the area, all of which "the state owns as public property".
The ruling, only a brief of which has been published by Egyptian media, has drawn criticism from the Orthodox patriarchates in Athens, Jerusalem and Istanbul.
Archbishop Ieronymos, head of the Greek Orthodox church in Athens, warned the monastery's property could now be "seized and confiscated".
Egypt has defended the court ruling, saying it "consolidates" the site's sacred status.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt was "fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine's monastery", in a phone call with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis meanwhile emphasised the importance of "preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery".
The delegation from Athens is expected to lay out its position on Wednesday.
According to Greece's state news agency, that position "is supported by a UNESCO document, which proves that Egypt had acknowledged in writing since 2002 that the ownership of the land and buildings belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church and the Archdiocese of Sinai".
Construction began in March 2021 in the Saint Catherine area, which includes the eponymous town and a nature reserve, for a government megaproject known as the 'Great Transfiguration' of Saint Catherine.
The project aims to bring upwards of a million tourists a year to the serene mountain village.
Its many construction projects include an events hall, hundreds of hotel rooms and a new residential area housing hundreds of units.
Observers say the project has harmed the reserve's ecosystem and threatened both the monastery and the local community.
According to a report by World Heritage Watch, the project has "destroyed the integrity of this historical and biblical landscape".
UNESCO in 2023 requested that Egypt "halt the implementation of any further development projects", conduct an impact evaluation and develop a conservation plan.
The government, which is campaigning for former tourism and antiquities minister Khaled al-Enany to head UNESCO from October, said in January that 90 percent of the project was complete.
The peaks and valleys around Saint Catherine attract large groups of hikers, peaking at 2,000 visitors to Mount Sinai in a single day last December, local authorities reported.
The area, 1.5 kilometres (one mile) above sea level, is particularly popular with both Egyptians and foreign tourists seeking a reprieve from overcrowded Red Sea resorts elsewhere in Sinai.
The area is home to the Jabaliya tribe, whose name derives from the Arabic word for "mountain".
Said to be the descendants of the Roman soldiers who came to guard the monastery in its early days, they maintain a close connection to Saint Catherine, with many working as tour guides today.
For decades, they have been calling for better infrastructure, including reliable water supply, emergency services and telecommunications coverage to improve their work and daily life.
According to World Heritage Watch, they are currently outnumbered by the thousands of labourers building the megaproject.
A falling tree in Venice injures a dozen people, including foreign tourists
MILAN: Foreign tourists were among a dozen people injured when a 50-year-old tree fell next to a bus stop in the Italian lagoon city of Venice on Monday, authorities said.
The oak tree fell on a group of people waiting in a shaded area at Piazzale Roma, the last stop for buses and taxis ferrying visitors to and from the lagoon city from the mainland, city officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear why the tree fell.
The most seriously injured was a 30-year-old Italian woman, who was sitting on a wall near the tree with her two small children when the tree fell, Italian media reported. The woman was in critical condition with abdominal injuries, while her children weren’t seriously injured and placed under psychological care, according to hospital officials.
Another Italian woman in her 50s also was in critical condition after suffering chest injuries.
A video from the scene showed the tree had snapped at the trunk, just above the roots.
“The tree was apparently healthy,” Francesca Zaccariotto, the city’s top public works official, told the news agency ANSA. She added that the tree was monitored along with others in the city, and there had been no signs indicating a possible collapse.
A 60-year-old American was under observation for a head injury, a 70-year-old American suffered facial injuries, and two tourists from Eastern Europe suffered multiple bruises. Four other Italians were slightly injured.
Strauss’ ‘Blue Danube’ is beamed into space as Vienna celebrates with a concert
- The European Space Agency’s big radio antenna in Spain beamed the waltz into the cosmos Saturday
- Operators aimed the dish at Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft more than 24 billion kilometers away
VIENNA: Strauss’ “Blue Danube” waltz has finally made it into space, nearly a half-century after missing a ride on NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft.
The European Space Agency’s big radio antenna in Spain beamed the waltz into the cosmos Saturday. Operators aimed the dish at Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away. Traveling at the speed of light, the music was expected to overtake Voyager 1 within 23 hours.
The Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed the “Blue Danube” during the space transmission, which actually sent up a version from rehearsal. It’s part of the yearlong celebration marking the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, who was born in Vienna in 1825. The Strauss space send-off also honors the 50th anniversary of ESA’s founding.
Launched in 1977 and now in interstellar space, each of the two Voyagers carries a Golden Record full of music but nothing from the waltz king. His “Blue Danube” holds special meaning for space fans: It’s featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Bee alert: US police warn after 250 million insects escape
- Roads in the region, which nestles the border with Canada and is just 30 miles from Vancouver, have been closed as bee experts help with the clean-up
LOS ANGELES, United States: A truck crash that set 250 million bees free has sparked warnings in the western US, with police telling people to avoid swarms of the stinging insects.
The accident happened in Washington state in the far northwest of the country, when a semi trailer carrying a load of hives overturned.
“250 million bees are now loose,” wrote Whatcom County Sheriff on its social media page.
“AVOID THE AREA due to the potential of bee escaping and swarming.”
Roads in the region, which nestles the border with Canada and is just 30 miles from Vancouver, have been closed as bee experts help with the clean-up.
While some beekeepers aim only to produce honey, many others rent out their hives to farmers who need the insects to pollinate their crops.
