North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, wife, watch S.Korean K-pop stars perform in Pyongyang

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Members of K-pop girlband "Red Velvet" pose for a photo after a rehearsal for a rare concert at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theatre in Pyongyang on April 1, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 02 April 2018
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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, wife, watch S.Korean K-pop stars perform in Pyongyang

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, were among the hundreds in Pyongyang on Sunday watching South Korean K-pop singers perform in the North for the first time in more than a decade as tensions between the two countries thaw.
It was the first time a North Korean leader had attended a South Korean performance in the capital. Kim was seen clapping in tune to some of the songs and later took photographs with the performers after the show.
“Our dear leader comrade said his heart swelled and he was moved by the sight of his people deepen their understanding of South Korean popular culture and cheer with sincerity,” said the North’s state media.
The North Korean audience clapped, cheered, sang along to some of the songs and later presented the South Korean performers with flower bouquets.
“(Kim Jong Un) showed much interest during the show and asked questions about the songs and lyrics,” Culture Minister Do Jong-whan told reporters after the show.
Sunday’s concert was held under the title “Spring is Coming” at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, performed by an elite lineup of South Korean artists including veteran vocalists Cho Yong-pil, Lee Sun-hee, rock star Yoon Do-hyun, singer Baek Ji-young as well as K-pop girl band Red Velvet.
Like the concert title, the performance had brought a “spring of peace” to the two Koreas, Kim Jong Un was also cited as saying by the North’s central news agency, and expressed wishes for a “prosperous autumn.”
The North Korean leader’s face was slightly flushed in a group photograph with the performers distributed by North Korean state media, while in another, he was seen directly addressing members of Red Velvet, which commands more than 4.6 million followers on Instagram.

THAW
Sunday’s two-hour concert in Pyongyang, along with a separate taekwondo performance earlier in the day, came as South Korea’s engagement with North Korea has continued to grow since Kim expressed his willingness for more contact between the two countries.
Athletes from North and South Korea marched under a unified peninsula flag at the opening ceremony at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February and the significant thaw in the inter-Korean relations has led them to set a date for their first summit in more than a decade on April 27.
The two Koreas are technically still at war after the 1950-1953 conflict ended with a cease-fire rather than a peace agreement.
The South Korean delegation included artists, concert staff, taekwondo demonstrators, reporters and government officials. They traveled to Pyongyang on Saturday in a reciprocal cultural visit after North Korea sent performers to the South in February, the South’s Culture Ministry said.
In addition to the concert, a team of South Korean taekwondo demonstrators performed on Sunday at the Pyongyang Taekwondo Hall, drawing more than 2,300 North Koreans, including Choe Hwi, chairman of the National Sports Guidance Committee.
Seohyun, a female vocalist and actress currently with South Korean girl group Girls’ Generation, sang a North Korean pop song called “Blue Willow Tree.” She had performed with the North’s Samjiyon Orchestra in Seoul in February.
Cho Yong-pil, a 68-year-old singer, sang a string of hits including “The Cafe in the Winter,” “Short Hair” and “Let’s Go on a Trip.” Cho held a solo concert in Pyongyang in 2005 — the last concert by a South Korean artist in the North before Sunday’s performance.
The same South Korean singers will hold a joint concert with North Korean performers on Tuesday at the Ryukyung Chung Ju Yung Gymnasium, a joint project between the North and South named after Hyundai Group billionaire founder Chung Ju-yung who had long advocated inter-Korean cultural and economic exchange.
Kim Jong Un had been planning to attend the Tuesday performance but decided to watch Sunday’s show due to “political schedules,” KCNA and South Korean officials there said.


Gender not main factor in attacks on Egyptian woman pharaoh: study

Updated 24 June 2025
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Gender not main factor in attacks on Egyptian woman pharaoh: study

  • Earlier scholars believed Queen Hatshepsut’s stepson Thutmose III unleashed a posthumous campaign of defilement against her out of revenge and hatred, including because he wanted to purge any notion that a woman could successfully rule

TORONTO, Canada: She was one of ancient Egypt’s most successful rulers, a rare female pharaoh who preceded Cleopatra by 1,500 years, but Queen Hatshepsut’s legacy was systematically erased by her stepson successor after her death.
The question of why her impressive reign was so methodically scrubbed has attracted significant debate, but in new research published Monday, University of Toronto scholar Jun Wong argues far too much emphasis has been placed on her gender.
“It’s quite a romantic question: why was this pharaoh attacked after her death?” Wong told AFP, explaining his interest in a monarch who steered ancient Egypt through a period of extraordinary prosperity.
Earlier scholars believed Queen Hatshepsut’s stepson Thutmose III unleashed a posthumous campaign of defilement against her out of revenge and hatred, including because he wanted to purge any notion that a woman could successfully rule.
“The way in which (Hatshepsut’s) reign has been understood has always been colored by her gender,” Wong said, referencing beliefs that Thutmose III may have viewed her as “a kind of an evil stepmother.”
His research, which builds on other recent scholarship and is being published in the journal Antiquity, argues Thutmose III’s motivations were far more nuanced, casting further doubt on the theory of backlash against a woman in charge.
Hatshepsut ruled Egypt roughly 3,500 years ago, taking over following the death of her husband Thutmose II.
She first served as regent to her stepson, the king-in-waiting, but successfully consolidated power in her own right, establishing herself as a female pharaoh.
Experts say she expanded trade routes and commissioned extraordinary structures, including an unparallelled mortuary in the Valley of the Kings on the Nile’s west bank.
Wong reassessed a range of material from damaged statues uncovered during excavations from 1922 to 1928.
He said there is no doubt Thutmose III worked to eliminate evidence of Hatshepsut’s achievements, but his efforts were “perhaps driven by ritual necessity rather than outright antipathy,” Wong said.
Thutmose III may have been trying to neutralize the power of his predecessor in a practical and common way, not out of malice.
He also found that some of the statues depicting Hatshepsut were likely damaged because later generations wanted to reuse them as building materials.
“For a long time, it has been assumed that Hatshepsut’s statuary sustained a vindictive attack,” Wong said, arguing that a fresh look at the archives suggests “this is not the case.”

 


Crash dummies used in car safety tests are still modeled after men despite higher risks for women

Updated 23 June 2025
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Crash dummies used in car safety tests are still modeled after men despite higher risks for women

  • Maria Weston Kuhn, a survivor of a near-fatal accident, created a nonprofit to help change that
  • Her organization is asking members of Congress to sign onto a bill that would mandate the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to upgrade the standards

Maria Weston Kuhn had one lingering question about the car crash that forced her to have emergency surgery during a vacation in Ireland: Why did she and her mother sustain serious injuries while her father and brother, who sat in the front, emerge unscathed?
“It was a head-on crash and they were closest to the point of contact,” said Kuhn, now 25, who missed a semester of college to recover from the 2019 collision that caused her seat belt to slide off her hips and rupture her intestines by pinning them against her spine. “That was an early clue that something else was going on.”
When Kuhn returned home to Maine, she found an article her grandma had clipped from Consumer Reports and left on her bed. Women are 73 percent more likely to be injured in a frontal crash, she learned, yet the dummy used in vehicle tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dates back to the 1970s and is still modeled almost entirely off the body of a man.
A survivor becomes an activist
Kuhn, who is starting law school at New York University this fall, took action and founded the nonprofit Drive US Forward. Its aim was to raise public awareness and eventually encourage members of Congress to sign onto a bill that would require NHTSA to incorporate a more advanced female dummy into its testing.
The agency has the final word on whether cars get pulled from the market, and the kind of dummy used in its safety tests could impact which ones receive coveted five-star ratings.
“It seems like we have an easy solution here where we can have crash test dummies that reflect an average woman as well as a man,” Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican who has introduced the legislation the past two sessions, told The Associated Press.
Senators from both parties have signed onto Fischer’s “She Drives Act,” and the transportation secretaries from the past two presidential administrations have expressed support for updating the rules.
But for various reasons, the push for new safety requirements has been moving at a sluggish pace. That’s particularly true in the US, where much of the research is happening and where around 40,000 people are killed each year in car crashes.
Evolution of a crash test dummy
The crash test dummy currently used in NHTSA five-star testing is called the Hybrid III, which was developed in 1978 and modeled after a 5-foot-9, 171-pound man (the average size in the 1970s but about 29 pounds lighter than today’s average). What’s known as the female dummy is essentially a much smaller version of the male model with a rubber jacket to represent breasts. It’s routinely tested in the passenger seat or the back seat but seldom in the driver’s seat, even though the majority of licensed drivers are women.
“What they didn’t do is design a crash test dummy that has all the sensors in the areas where a woman would be injured differently than a man,” said Christopher O’Connor, president and CEO of the Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Humanetics Group, which has spent more than a decade developing and refining one.
A female dummy from Humanetics equipped with all of the available sensors costs around $1 million, about twice the cost of the Hybrid used now.
But, O’Connor says, the more expensive dummy far more accurately reflects the anatomical differences between the sexes — including in the shape of the neck, collarbone, pelvis, and legs, which one NHTSA study found account for about 80 percent more injuries by women in a car crash compared to men.
Such physical dummies will always be needed for vehicle safety tests, and to verify the accuracy of virtual tests, O’Connor said.
Europe incorporated the more advanced male dummy developed by Humanetics’ engineers, the THOR 50M (based on a 50th percentile man), into its testing procedures soon after Kuhn’s 2019 crash in Ireland. Several other countries, including China and Japan, have adopted it as well.
But that model and the female version the company uses for comparison, the THOR 5F (based on a 5th percentile woman), have been met with skepticism from some American automakers who argue the more sophisticated devices may exaggerate injury risks and undercut the value of some safety features such as seat belts and airbags.
A debate over whether more sensors mean more safety
Bridget Walchesky, 19, had to be flown to a hospital, where she required eight surgeries over a month, after a 2022 crash near her home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that killed her friend, who was driving. While acknowledging the seat belt likely saved her life, Walchesky said some of the injuries — including her broken collarbone — were the result of it pinning her too tightly, which she views as something better safety testing focused on women could improve.
“Seat belts aren’t really built for bodies on females,” Walchesky said. “Some of my injuries, the way the force hit me, they were probably worsened.”
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group, said in a statement to the AP that the better way to ensure safety — which it called its top priority — is through upgrades to the existing Hybrid dummy rather than mandating a new one.
“This can happen on a faster timeline and lead to quicker safety improvements than requiring NHTSA to adopt unproven crash test dummy technology,” the alliance said.
Humanetics’ THOR dummies received high marks in the vehicle safety agency’s early tests. Using cadavers from actual crashes to compare the results, NHTSA found they outperformed the existing Hybrid in predicting almost all injuries — including to the head, neck, shoulders, abdomen and legs.
A separate review by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research arm funded by auto insurers, was far more critical of the dummy’s ability to predict chest injuries in a frontal crash. Despite the vast expansion in the number of sensors, the insurance institute’s testing found, the male THOR dummy was less accurate than the current Hybrid dummies, which also had limitations.
“More isn’t necessarily better,” said Jessica Jermakian, senior vice president for vehicle research at IIHS. “You also have to be confident that the data is telling you the right things about how a real person would fare in that crash.”
The slow pace of changing the rules
NHTSA’s budget plan commits to developing the female THOR 5F version with the ultimate goal of incorporating it into the testing. But there could be a long wait considering the THOR’s male version adopted by other countries is still awaiting final approval in the US
A 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office, which conducts research for Congress, cited numerous “missed milestones” in NHTSA’s development of various crash dummy enhancements — including in the THOR models.
Kuhn acknowledges being frustrated by the slow process of trying to change the regulations. She says she understands why there’s reluctance from auto companies if they fear being forced to make widespread design changes with more consideration for women’s safety.
“Fortunately, they have very skilled engineers and they’ll figure it out,” she said.


Couples tie the knot during a festival on an Amsterdam ring road

Updated 21 June 2025
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Couples tie the knot during a festival on an Amsterdam ring road

  • “It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said
  • “It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli

AMSTERDAM: Securing a coveted slot to exchange wedding rings on Amsterdam’s usually traffic-choked ring road seemed like a good omen for Zuzanna Lisowska and Yuri Iozzelli’s future life together.

“It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said. “And, you know, statistics were on our side. There were 400 couples who wanted to do it, so we feel really lucky to have been chosen.”

Friends and total strangers cheered and clapped as they told each other “I do!” as part of a day-long festival on parts of the A10 highway that circles the Dutch capital closed to traffic for the day.

“It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli.

Their only regret was not being able to bring their pet rabbit. “It was too hot,” Lisowska said after exchanging rings with Iozzelli.

The city that is known for partying said that some 600,000 people tried to get access to the ring road festival last month when more than 200,000 free tickets were made available.

Curious city folk, from parents pushing strollers to students and grandparents, stopped to watch the weddings and enjoyed the one-off opportunity to see the road without the usual cacophony of cars.

Among them was communications student Kyra Smit.

“It’s really fun because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” she said. “It’s so fun that you can say to people, wow, I’m married on the rings, so I really like this.”

The day was packed with events from music performances to readings, meetups and a fun run, shortened because of the heat. Organizers even placed a temporary forest of more than 8,000 trees on the blacktop.

The municipality laid on extra water taps and places where revellers could slap on sun block as temperatures soared to 30 degrees Celsius (86F) and upwards on the road surface.

The city’s official birthday is Oct. 27, reflecting the first time a variant of its name was used in an official document, and is staging celebratory events in the year leading up to that date. The festival on the ring road is the biggest so far and gave Amsterdam residents a new view of their ring road.

“It’s quite strange because normally you drive here and now you’re walking, so that’s a totally different situation,” said Marjolein de Bruijne, who works close to the A10.


Indians stretch, breathe and balance to mark International Day of Yoga

Updated 21 June 2025
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Indians stretch, breathe and balance to mark International Day of Yoga

  • Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood

NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of people across India stretched in public parks and on sandy beaches Saturday to mark the 11th International Day of Yoga.
The mass yoga sessions were held in many Indian states, where crowds attempted various poses and practiced breathing exercises. Indian military personnel also performed yoga in the icy heights of Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas and on naval ships anchored in the Bay of Bengal.
Similar sessions were planned in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.
“I feel that yoga keeps us spiritually fit, mentally fit and helps us manage stress. That’s why I feel that people should take out at least 30 minutes every day for yoga to keep themselves fit,” said Rajiv Ranjan, who participated in an event in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood. It has also been enlisted for diplomacy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has harnessed it for cultural soft power as the country takes on a larger role in world affairs.
Modi persuaded the UN to designate the annual International Day of Yoga in 2014. The theme this year was “Yoga for One Earth, One Health.”
Modi performed yoga among a seaside crowd in the southern city of Visakhapatnam city, and said “Yoga leads us on a journey toward oneness with world.” Amid a checkerboard of yoga mats covering the beach, Modi took his spot on a mat and did breathing exercises, backbends and other poses.
“Let this Yoga Day mark the beginning of Yoga for humanity 2.0, where inner peace becomes global policy,” he said.
As Modi has pushed yoga, ministers, government officials and Indian military personnel have gone on social media to show themselves folding in different poses.
In capital New Delhi, scores of people from all walks of life and age groups gathered at the sprawling Lodhi Gardens, following an instructor on stage.
“Yoga for me is like balancing between inner world and outer world,” said Siddharth Maheshwari, a startup manager who joined the event.


Netherlands returns 119 looted artifacts known as Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Updated 20 June 2025
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Netherlands returns 119 looted artifacts known as Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria: The Netherlands on Thursday returned 119 artifacts looted from Nigeria, including human and animal figures, plaques, royal regalia and a bell.
The artifacts, known as the Benin Bronzes and mostly housed in a museum in the city of Leiden, were looted in the late 19th century by British soldiers.
In recent years, museums across Europe and North America have moved to address ownership disputes over artifacts looted during the colonial era. They were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
During the handover ceremony in Edo State, Oba Ewuare II, the monarch and custodian of Benin culture, described the return of the artifacts as a “divine intervention.” The Benin Bronzes were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
The restitution is a testament to the power of prayer and determination, the monarch said.
The Dutch government is committed to returning artifacts that do not belong to the country, said Marieke Van Bommel, director of the Wereld Museum.
Olugbile Holloway, the commission’s director, said the return of 119 artifacts marks the largest single repatriation to date and that his organization is working hard to recover more items looted during colonial times.
Nigeria formally requested the return of hundreds of objects from museums around the world in 2022. Some 72 objects were returned from a London museum that year while 31 were returned from a museum in Rhode Island.
The Benin Bronzes were stolen in 1897 when British forces under the command of Sir Henry Rawson sacked the Benin kingdom and forced Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, the monarch at the time, into a six-month exile. Benin is located in modern-day southern Nigeria.