US vows no let-up on N. Korea ahead of historic Trump-Kim summit

Yahoo – AFP, Andrew BEATTY, 9 March 2018

The White House confirmed President Donald Trump would accept the invitation
to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un "at a place and time to be determined"

The United States vowed Friday there would be no let-up of pressure on North Korea until it takes concrete steps to end its nuclear program after Donald Trump agreed to meet Kim Jong Un in a stunning diplomatic gamble.

A day after the bombshell announcement that the US and North Korean leaders would meet before the end of May, Trump's Vice President Mike Pence said Washington's efforts to isolate Kim had been vindicated.

While there was no reaction from Kim's regime, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said news of the summit -- announced by his national security advisor on a visit to Washington -- was "like a miracle".

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the two leaders to begin talks as "soon as possible" and praised Trump's "positive aspiration" during a phone call with his US counterpart, according to state media.

China has long been North Korea's most important ally but has been on board with the program of sanctions agreed at the UN.

The announcement triggered a rise in global stock markets while world leaders voiced hope that the summit would deflate tensions that had been building dramatically in recent months.

While some observers questioned the US president's wisdom in granting Kim a long-standing wish for a summit after only agreeing a temporary halt to its nuclear tests, others said his gamble could be a game changer.

Trump has previously ridiculed Kim as "Little Rocket Man", slapping wideranging bilateral sanctions on the Pyongyang regime and also leading a drive for international sanctions through the UN.

"North Korea's desire to meet to discuss denuclearization -- while suspending all ballistic missile and nuclear testing -- is evidence that President Trump's strategy to isolate the Kim regime is working," Pence said in a statement.

Chronology of diplomatic tensions between the US and North Korea

The North Koreans "are coming to the table despite the United States making zero concessions and, in close coordination with our allies, we have consistently increased the pressure on the Kim regime.

"Our resolve is undeterred and our policy remains the same: all sanctions remain in place and the maximum pressure campaign will continue until North Korea takes concrete, permanent, and verifiable steps to end their nuclear program."

Standing in front of the White House on Thursday night, Moon's National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong announced the first ever meeting between a US president and a North Korean leader would take place by May.

Chung had recently returned from Pyongyang, where he met Kim who, he said, "expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible."

Sanctions remain

In a notably restrained tweet, Trump hailed "great progress" in the push to persuade Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program, adding that "sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was among the world leaders to hail the announcement as a "glimmer of hope," saying North Korea's nuclear drive "has been a source of great concern for all of us."

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the UN's nuclear watchdog, voiced hope that the summit would produce "concrete progress" and a resumption of nuclear inspections which have been suspended for years.

"The IAEA is closely following the recent developments related to the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," the Vienna-based UN body said in a statement.

Pyongyang's long race to develop a nuclear weapon capable has proved a problem for successive US administrations.

But the alarm bells have been ringing even louder since last July when Pyongyang conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, declaring that the entire United States was now within its range.

'Fire and Fury'

Trump then threatened "fire and fury" if Pyongyang continued to threaten the United States only for North Korea to carry out its sixth nuclear test while Kim derided Trump as "mentally deranged".

The United States and North Korea were foes throughout the Cold War and fought on opposite sides of a bloody war in the 1950s.

In the last two decades, they have been engaged in what is perhaps the world's most dangerous nuclear standoff, with 30,000 US military personnel stationed just over the border in the South.

On multiple occasions, Kim's father Kim Jong Il dangled the prospect of talks and denuclearization as a means of buying time, easing sanctions and dividing South Korea from its allies.

Trump agrees to historic first meeting with North Korea's Kim - a stunning development in high-stakes nuclear standoff https://t.co/x66wEpGZL9 pic.twitter.com/BNy1lga88a

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 9, 2018

Related Article:

"Quantum Patterns" - Jan 23 - 24, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... The Darkness Can't See Beyond Itself

I want to give you proof yet again of something unusual and very telling of the way low vibration works. Within the first channel of the year [2016], I spoke about the young North Korean leader. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it again as a profound example of how low consciousness cannot see above itself. That means that it can only work with what it sees and knows. As powerful, as smart, as intellectual as it thinks it is, it can't get out of its own circle.

The former leader of North Korea was a classic egotist. When he died, his son took over and could do anything he wanted. This boy had watched his father for decades and knew he would take over someday. Naturally, he inherited the attributes his father taught him of self-importance, and he also became egotistically driven to the max. When he took power, he had the choice to make changes that would allow him to be even greater than his father. He wanted something that would elevate his name and his position to the highest egotistic place imaginable. His father was the model, and now he could do anything he wanted to be even more famous. What happened is classic. He completely missed the greatest opportunity that any man has had to become the most famous and beloved person on the earth. The idea never occurred to him. Even though he had been educated in the western world, he missed it.

If he had considered the high road and included the earth instead of a restricted population of his own country, he could have been the most famous and beloved leader on Earth, all of his life. At the moment he took over, all he had to do was to think beyond his circle. He was in the unique position to be a "wild card" and do something amazing - unify North an South Korea, drop the zone of death that was between those countries, bring families together after generations, stop nuclear programs that he really never needed other than to look important and, thereby, give his people abundance, food for all and peace in his region. All of Korea would worship him and the earth would give a sigh of relief in thanks for his wisdom and courage.

He would have received standing ovations upon entering the United Nations great room and they would bow before him and give him the highest peace prizes. He would have his ego stroked and stroked and stroked and stroked and be far greater than his father had ever been. But it never occurred to him. Instead, he perpetuated the dark box he inherited, and now he presides over the lowest energy possible, representing the most dangerous renegade energy on the planet. At the expense of keeping his people poor and impoverished and creating instability in his region, he gets to be a powerful and famous person for a moment in time from a small population. He will not last long. He can't see that what he is doing has no support within the majority of the planet's population, and he will lose everything. Isn't it interesting how strong the circle is that keeps a low vibration low. All of this is beginning to change, dear ones. If you examine individual people and the way they act, you're going to see this coming. You're going to recognize it.  ..."

South Korean envoys in historic trip to North, meet Kim

Yahoo – AFP, Sunghee Hwang, March 5, 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has sought to use the Pyeongchang
Games to open dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang (AFP Photo)

Seoul (AFP) - The most senior South Koreans to travel to North Korea for more than a decade met leader Kim Jong Un Monday, a Seoul official said, the latest step in an Olympics-driven rapprochement on the divided peninsula.

The delegation, representing the South's President Moon Jae-in, is pushing for talks between the nuclear-armed regime and the United States, after Kim sent his sister Kim Yo Jong to the Winter Games in the South.

"Chairman Kim Jong Un is currently hosting a dinner for the special envoys," Moon's spokesman told a press briefing Monday evening, Yonhap news agency reported.

Kim Yo Jong's trip was the first visit to the South by a member of the North's ruling dynasty since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and her appearance at the Games' opening ceremony -- where athletes from the two Koreas marched together -- made global headlines.

Moon has sought to use the Pyeongchang Games to open dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang in hopes of easing a nuclear standoff that has heightened fears over global security.

In Seoul, Kim Yo Jong invited him to a summit in Pyongyang on her brother's behalf. But Moon did not immediately accept, saying the right conditions were necessary first.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, the South's national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said: "We plan to hold in-depth discussions for ways to continue not only inter-Korean talks but dialogue between North Korea and the international community including the United States."

It is a challenging task -- in defiance of UN sanctions, the isolated and impoverished North last year staged its most powerful nuclear test and test-fired several missiles, some of them capable of reaching the US mainland.

US President Donald Trump dubbed Kim "Little Rocket Man" and boasted about the size of his own nuclear button, while the North Korean leader called Trump a "mentally deranged US dotard".

They traded threats of war and sent tensions soaring before a thaw in the run-up to the Winter Olympics.

"We will deliver President Moon's firm resolution to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and to create sincere and lasting peace," delegation leader Chung told reporters.

Chung is one of five senior officials who flew to Pyongyang on Monday.

It was the first ministerial-level South Korean visit to the North since December 2007, when Seoul's then-intelligence chief travelled to Pyongyang.

Conservative Lee Myung-bak was elected the South's president the following day and took a markedly harder line on relations with the North.

Washington connection

Monday's delegation included spy chief Suh Hoon, who is a veteran in dealings with the North. He is known to have been deeply involved in negotiations to arrange two previous inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency also announced their impending visit in a one-paragraph dispatch.

The 10-member group -- five top delegates and five supporting officials -- will return to Seoul on Tuesday.

Other members include Suh's deputy at the National Intelligence Service as well as Chun Hae-sung, the vice minister in Seoul's unification ministry which handles cross-border affairs.

The delegation will fly to the US on Wednesday to explain the result of the two-day trip to officials in Washington, according to the South's presidential office.

Moon, who advocates dialogue with the North's nuclear-armed regime, said last week that Washington needs to "lower the threshold for talks" with Pyongyang.

But the US has ruled out any possibility of talks before the North takes steps towards denuclearisation, and imposed what Trump hailed as the "toughest ever" sanctions on Kim's regime late last month.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with South Korean chief delegate Chung Eui-yong in Pyongyang pic.twitter.com/w0FtgJd7zA

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 6, 2018

China urges North and South Korea to "seize the current opportunity" to denuclearise peninsula at historic summit https://t.co/2P8JD15lKT pic.twitter.com/3Y0FQNcAOG

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 7, 2018

Tibetans greet new year with giant Buddhas, dancing and lamb carcasses

Yahoo – AFP, Becky Davis, 4 March 2018

Monks dressed as deities took part in the religious ritual wrapping up Losar,
the Tibetan new year in China's northwestern province of Qinghai

Despite a few elbows to the face, Tsering pushed through the broil of Tibetan worshippers and lifted her bawling two-year-old over the mad crush, briefly pressing the girl's forehead to a passing sacred scroll.

Scores of monks and men heaved the enormous thangka -- an image of Buddha painted on silk, rolled up in a tight cylinder while in transit -- through the packed streets around Rongwo Monastery in China's northwestern province of Qinghai for a religious ritual wrapping up Losar, the Tibetan new year.

"It's good luck, especially for children," said Tsering, breathless and flushed with success, before whirling away to search rather fruitlessly for her daughter's missing right shoe.

China has long been accused of trying to eradicate Tibetan culture through political and religious repression. Beijing insists that Tibetans enjoy extensive freedoms.

Rebkong county is a major centre of traditional Tibetan culture and the Gelug -- or "Yellow Hat" -- sect of the exiled Dalai Lama. It has witnessed numerous self-immolation protests against Chinese rule since 2009.

Tibetan Buddhist monks unveiled the huge thangka -- an image of Buddha 

painted on silk -- during the festivities

Police were a constant presence throughout the new year celebrations, watching over the various ceremonies, stopping all cars entering the county seat and checking the few hotels allowed to receive foreigners.

But Losar passed without incident in a riot of colour and celebration.

Like the Chinese lunar new year, the first few days are dominated by family and feasting.

The climax for the Gelug sect is the annual "sunning of the Buddha", as it is known in Chinese, where a colossal thangka painting multiple stories tall is paraded through the streets and briefly displayed.

Dancing and exorcisms

Under crisp blue skies men flailed ceremonial scarves as a procession left the Rongwo monastery, beating away an endless stream of frantic hopefuls aggressively pushing to touch the painting.

On a steep hillside outside the monastery, the thangka was unrolled in a splendour of rich pinks, greens, and blues to the sound of firecrackers and the wail of conch shells.

"The thangka is an offering to Buddha, but it must be big so all living creatures can see it -- people, but also birds and insects. That way, all beings will have a chance at a better existence in their next life," a monk told AFP.

Beijing insists that Tibetans enjoy extensive freedoms

The thangka's size flaunts its monastery's wealth and power, said Anna Sehnalova, a Tibetologist at Oxford University.

"It's a way to show sponsors that something is happening with their money. Tibetans love to see rituals performed for them."

At a much smaller monastery in Gartse town families gathered in their finest clothes -- off-the-shoulder robes of jewel-toned brocades and sheepskin -- to watch the cham dances, ritual performances by masked monks thought to purge the new year of negativity from the previous.

"It's an exorcism, to get rid of bad things and dishonest practices. If we don't do this today, there will be bad consequences for everyone," said a dancer.

Two young monks in skull masks, reminders of life's impermanence, waggled their heads in a slow pas-de-deux as children licked purple-topped ice creams.

Another pair of dancers raised their swords and flung the skinned, shriveled carcasses of two tiny baby lambs over the heads of the crowd.

"To be honest, I don't know what it means," said a student named Tenzin, echoing the sentiments of many baffled but delighted spectators in the crowd.

WATCH: Tibetan monks heave the thangka -- an enormous image of Buddha painted on silk -- through the packed streets around Rongwo Monastery in China's northwestern province of Qinghai for a religious ritual wrapping up Losar, the Tibetan new year. pic.twitter.com/1rWqKo1yr4

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 4, 2018

Sydney's Mardi Gras turns a colourful 40

Yahoo – AFP, Daniel DE CARTERET, 3 March 2018

Sydney's Mardi Gras turns a colourful 40

Rainbow colours beamed from faces and floats parading through Sydney Saturday as hundreds of thousands of partygoers celebrated 40 years of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Organisers predicted close to half a million people would witness the glittery spectacle as some 200 floats and 12,500 participants -- including police, politicians, indigenous groups and celebrities -- made their way down Oxford Street, Sydney's gay hub.

The flamboyant displays included an over-the-top dinner party, featuring Mardi Gras costumes from the past four decades, and a giant champagne bottle that erupted, spraying confetti over onlookers.

The event grew out of a brutal and bloody police crackdown of gay and lesbian activists in 1978 and is now one of the biggest street parties in the world.

"This year we look back on the Mardi Gras' 40 years and we acknowledge that we are built on the backs of so many that have come before us," said Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras chief executive Terese Casu.

"Those incredible activists, the protestors, our artists, our creators, our volunteers -- all those people that have bought us to Mardi Gras."

Last year, after more than a decade of political wrangling and months of heated debate, Australia legalised gay marriage.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy marched through the parade route before it kicked off, and he told reporters this edition carried extra gravity in the wake of the same-sex marriage vote.

"This is a huge affirmation of respect and love. It is so worth it. The vote gave same-sex couples a huge hug," he said.

Casu said it had been a difficult year for the LGBTQI -- lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, intersex -- community, "but it showed our strength, our courage and indeed our grace."

"For many, equality has been a long, hard journey and this year we celebrate. We look back, we dance with our partners, in fact our new wives, our husbands and we celebrate 40 years of Mardi Gras," she said.

'Freedom to express myself'

Among the floats was one featuring dozens of giant red, glittering "remembrance butterflies" in tribute to those lost to AIDS-related illnesses, while another showcasing hundreds of sparkling silver and pink hearts was dedicated to volunteers.

A special Sydney Opera House float had giant replicas of the building's famous sails.

Lebanese-Australian Carlos Lopez, 28, was on a float highlighting diversity in the gay community.

"I feel like this is a really important platform for me to show myself as a Middle Eastern Australian and show a different side of myself, for the people that don't have my freedom," he said, referring to more conservative places in the world.

Asked what 40 years of Mardi Gras meant to him, he replied: "The freedom to be who I want to be. The freedom to express myself."

The growing popularity of the event attracted newcomers including Ronya Touk, who was at the Mardi Gras for the first time.

"It's amazing, overwhelming," said Touk.

"I'm 43 and I've never been and I've heard so much hype about it. I've got a few friends that have come out this year (as gay), so I thought it's a good opportunity to see what it's all about."

American pop superstar and LGBTQI icon Cher was the headline act at the after-parade party.

Sydney celebrates 40 years of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which has become one of the biggest street parties in the world pic.twitter.com/ZlxrJaOgJF

— AFP news agency (@AFP) March 3, 2018

Driving not 'be all' of Saudi women's rights: princess

Yahoo – AFP, February 28, 2018

Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud told the Atlantic Council in Washington,DC,
on February 28, 2018, that domestic violence is a critical issue the kingdom is
working on as it moves to advance women's rights (AFP Photo/IAN TIMBERLAKE)

Washington (AFP) - Saudi Arabia is working to address deeper issues on the path to women's rights after allowing them to drive and attend soccer matches, one of the kingdom's top female officials said Wednesday.

"These are things that are quick wins, we know we can do them, women in stadium, women driving, that's great, but women driving is not the end all, be all of women's rights," Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud told the Atlantic Council in Washington.

As part of a wide-ranging social and economic reform initiative in the face of fallen oil revenue, King Salman announced in September that Saudi women would be allowed to drive from June this year.

The kingdom, the world's only country where women cannot get behind the wheel, then tackled the male bastion of soccer, letting women into stadiums to watch matches for the first time in January.

Saud, a vice-president at the General Sports Authority of Saudi Arabia, said deeper issues are still being worked on including "a woman feeling safe in her home" and having any career path open to her in a traditionally male-dominated society.

"Those are things that will be more dynamic in moving the conversation for women's rights than just getting her driving," said Saud, who in 2016 became the first woman named to a senior post in the Authority, which is the equivalent of a ministry.

"Domestic violence is so critical. I promise you we really are working on it."

The Sports Authority is trying to get more Saudis exercising as part of efforts to build a healthier population.

Saudi women traditionally cover themselves from head-to-toe in black robes, known as abayas, but Saud said the attire will be no hindrance to women's exercise.

She said she knows of three companies making abayas for running and two more that have robes designed for cycling.

"Innovation will come. It has to come," she said.

"Guess what, I'm wearing trousers today," added the princess, also dressed in a sparkling silver shoes, purple, black and grey flowing sleeves, and with a blue scarf around her head.

The kingdom sent four women as "wild cards" to the 2016 Olympics but Saud told AFP on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council event that she will be happy when one gets to a future Olympics "on her own merit ... however long it takes."

'Wake up' and stop Rohingya abuses: Nobel laureates to Suu Kyi

Yahoo – AFP, 26 February 2018

Aung San Suu Kyi has seen her reputation among the international community
crumble over her handling of the Rohingya crisis

Three Nobel Peace Prize winners Monday urged fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out about violence against the Rohingya minority, warning she otherwise risks prosecution for "genocide".

The trio -- Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire -- implored the embattled Myanmar leader to "wake up" to the atrocities after visiting squalid camps in Bangladesh home to nearly one million Rohingya refugees.

"This is clearly, clearly, clearly genocide that is going on by the Burmese government and military against the Rohingya people," Maguire said Monday, using another name for Myanmar.

"We refuse this genocide policy of the Burmese government. They will be taken to the ICC (International Criminal Court) and those who are committing genocide will be held responsible."

The UN has described the systematic violence by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state as possible genocide and ethnic cleansing, but has stopped short of outright accusing the army of war crimes.

Suu Kyi, once a global rights icon, has witnessed her reputation among the international community crumble over her handling of the Rohingya crisis.

Critics have called for the Nobel prize she won under house arrest in 1991 to be revoked.

Her fellow three female laureates issued a personal appeal to the beleaguered leader as they toured the overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar district on Sunday and Monday, hearing firsthand stories of rape and murder against the Muslim minority.

Nobel Peace Laureates Mairead Maguire (C) from Northern Ireland and Tawakkol 

Karman (L) from Yemen walk during their visit to Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia

Karman, a Yemeni rights activist, warned Suu Kyi that she risked being hauled to the ICC if she did not intervene.

"If she will continue her silence, she will be one of them," said Karman, fighting back tears, after meeting Rohingya refugees.

"It's an appeal to our sister Aung San Suu Kyi to wake up, otherwise she will be betrayed (as) one of the perpetrators of this crime."

Myanmar has staunchly denied the charges and blocked UN investigators from the conflict zone in Rakhine state, souring relations with a host of western allies.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have sought sanctuary in Cox's Bazar after fleeing a Myanmar army crackdown launched last August, sparking a humanitarian emergency in the Bangladesh border district.

Critics have accused Suu Kyi of adopting a siege mentality as global condemnation has mounted.

Myanmar considers the Rohingya illegal "Bengali" immigrants but has signed an agreement with Bangladesh to repatriate some 750,000 refugees back across the border.

The process has stalled, as the UN warns any returns must be voluntary and rights groups warn Rohingya could be forced into ghettoes once in Myanmar.

Xi poised to extend power as China set to lift term limits

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick BAERT, 25 February 2018

Xi is seen as China's most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong

Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader for decades, could stay in office indefinitely after the Communist Party called for the removal of presidential term limits.

Xi, who is also party chief and seen as the country's most formidable ruler since Mao Zedong, has been president since 2013 and the 64-year-old leader would have to step down in 2023 under the current system.

But the party's Central Committee proposed deleting from the constitution the stipulation that a president "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms" of five years, the official Xinhua news agency reported Sunday.

"I think he will become emperor for life and the Mao Zedong of the 21st century", Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP.

"If his health permits, he wants to serve 20 years, which would mean until 2032 as secretary general of the party, and 2033 as state president," Lam said.

The proposed change, which would also apply to the vice-president, will be submitted to legislators at the annual full session of the rubber-stamp National People's Congress starting March 5. Xi is expected to be given a second term in office during the two-week-long session.

Xi has been chipping away at the collective model of leadership that was promoted by Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the country's economic reforms in the 1980s.

Xi's two predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, both served two five-year terms, but he has signalled bigger ambitions.

Name in constitution

At the 19th five-yearly Communist Party congress last October, Xi unveiled a new seven-member Politburo Standing Committee -- its top ruling body -- that lacked any clear heir apparent to him. He was also given the customary second term as party general secretary, a job which does not have a formal term limit.

Xi also saw his eponymous political philosophy -- Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era -- included in the party's charter, an honour only accorded to one previous leader, Mao, during his lifetime.

The Central Committee also proposed adding Xi's "thought" to the national constitution, joining Mao again.

Since taking over as party general secretary in late 2012, Xi has waged a remorseless battle against corruption, which has seen more than one million people punished. Some also see the campaign as a means for him to eradicate internal opposition.

A major outcome of the 19th Party Congress was the decision to establish a new anti-graft agency, the National Supervisory Commission, that will coordinate investigations at all levels of government and expand its remit to include non-party members.

The Central Committee proposed listing the commission as a new state organ in the constitution.

'Without opposition'

Xi told party officials on Saturday the constitution was key to building a moderately prosperous society, building a modern socialist country and realising the "Chinese dream of national rejuvenation" -- his slogan to restore the nation to its former glory.

"No organisation or individual has the privilege to overstep the constitution or the law," Xinhua quoted him as saying.

Xi is keeping a key ally by his side as he cements power.

The feared former head of the anti-graft agency, Wang Qishan, stepped down from the Standing Committee last October because at 69, he had reached the traditional retirement age.

But Wang was selected earlier this year as a deputy to the upcoming National People's Congress annual session, fuelling speculation that he could become Xi's vice-president or gain some other influential role.

Another ally and new Standing Committee member, Li Zhanshu, could become head of the National People's Congress.

"(Xi) would then ensure that his constitutional reform is adopted without opposition," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, China politics specialist at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Xi's presidency has been marked by the return of a personality cult and a major crackdown on democracy and human rights.

Earlier this year the party mouthpiece People's Daily further cemented his elevation by publishing an article that for the first time referred to him as "lingxiu" -- a Mao-era honorific with more reverential and spiritual connotations than the ordinary terms.

Myanmar bulldozed scores of Rohingya villages since November: HRW

Channel NewAsia - AFP, 23 February 2018

A satellite image taken by DigitalGlobe on Feb 19, 2018 and released by Human
Rights Watch on Feb 23, 2018 allegedly shows ongoing demolition of Rohingya
villages in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State. (Photo: AFP/Handout)

YANGON: Satellite imagery shows Myanmar authorities have bulldozed at least 55 Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine in recent months, Human Rights Watch said Friday (Feb 23), condemning the government for erasing evidence at sites where troops are accused of atrocities.

Northern Rakhine has been nearly emptied of its Rohingya population since last August, when a military crackdown drove some 700,000 of the persecuted group across the border to Bangladesh.

The UN has accused Myanmar of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Muslim minority, who face acute discrimination in the mainly Buddhist nation.

Myanmar denies the charge but has blocked UN investigators from investigating an area where thousands of Rohingya are believed to have been killed.

Hundreds of Rohingya villages were already damaged by fire during the initial months of violence last year, when soldiers and Buddhist vigilantes terrorised communities with arson, gunfire and rape, according to refugees.

Since November, Myanmar authorities have further demolished at least 55 villages with heavy machinery, clearing out all structures and vegetation, satellite images obtained by Human Rights Watch showed.

At least two of the flattened villages were previously undamaged by fires, the watchdog said.

"Many of these villages were scenes of atrocities against Rohingya and should be preserved so that the experts appointed by the UN to document these abuses can properly evaluate the evidence to identify those responsible," said HRW's Asia director Brad Adams.

"Bulldozing these areas threatens to erase both the memory and the legal claims of the Rohingya who lived there," he added.

Haunting images of levelled villages first circulated on social media earlier this month after they were posted by an EU diplomat.

At the time Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told AFP the demolition was part of a plan to "build back" villages to a higher standard than before.

Myanmar has trumpeted a government effort to rebuild violence-gutted Rakhine and welcome back refugees under a repatriation agreement with Dhaka that was supposed to commence in January.

But many Rohingya refuse to return without the guarantee of basic rights and safety.

Analysts have also sounded the alarm over the government's rehabilitation projects, calling the sweeping destruction of villages, mosques and property only the latest move to erase the Rohingya's ties to their ancestral lands, and prevent them returning.

Members of the Muslim minority have been systematically stripped of their legal rights in Myanmar in recent decades.

They have also been targeted by bouts of violence and corralled into grim displacement camps in other parts of Rakhine state.

Myanmar's army says its August crackdown was a proportionate counterstrike against Rohingya rebels who attacked police posts in late August, killing around a dozen officials.

Many in the Buddhist majority revile the Rohingya and brand the group as foreign interlopers, despite their having lived in Rakhine for generations.

Myanmar authorities have bulldozed at least 55 Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine in recent months, according to satellite imagery seen by HRW https://t.co/wLl8sSrEBA pic.twitter.com/GWsUid8O3I

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 23, 2018

S. Korea's Moon watches concert with Kim Jong Un's sister

Yahoo – AFP, Jung Hawon, February 11, 2018

South Korea's Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon (R) shakes hands with North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong (L) as North Korea's ceremonial head of
state Kim Yong Nam (C) looks on during their meeting at a hotel in Seoul (AFP Photo)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in sat next to the powerful sister of the North's leader Kim Jong Un at a concert in Seoul by musicians from Pyongyang, as conservative protesters burned the North's national flag outside Sunday.

The show was the final set-piece element of the North Korean delegation's landmark visit, the diplomatic highlight of the Olympics-driven rapprochement between the two halves of the peninsula.

Related Searches

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They have shared kimchi and soju, sat in the same box at the Olympics opening ceremony and cheered a unified women's ice hockey team.

Kim on Saturday invited Moon to a summit in the North, an offer extended by his sister and special envoy Kim Yo Jong, who made history as the first member of the North's ruling dynasty to visit the South since the Korean War.

Pictures showed Yo Jong seated between Moon and the North's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam, who is officially leading the North's delegation, and applauding at Sunday's concert.

The show was given by some 140 members of Pyongyang's Samjiyon Orchestra as part of a cross-border deal in which the isolated nuclear-armed North sent hundreds of athletes, cheerleaders and others to the Pyeongchang Winter Games in the South.

At a dinner beforehand with senior Seoul officials, Yo Jong said she found the two Koreas still had much in common despite decades of separation.

Before flying south, she said, she had expected "things would be very different and unfamiliar", according to a statement from Moon's office.

"But it turned out that there were many things similar and in common," she went on. "I hope that the day we become one will be brought forward."

But the rapprochement pushed by the dovish Moon has angered conservatives, who accuse him of being a North Korea sympathiser and undermining the security alliance with the US.

"Having these red communists in the heart of Seoul is an utter humilation!" one shouted near the venue as dozens of others waved banners condemning both Moon and Kim Jong Un.

"We are against the ugly political Olympics!" read one banner.

South Korean protesters hold pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un 

during an anti-North Korea rally in Seoul (AFP Photo)

Some set a North Korean flag on fire before police intervened, and others chanted "Let's tear Kim Jong Un to death!" as they ripped up posters bearing his portrait.

The North's presence has dominated the headlines in the early days of the Olympics, with all eyes turning to Swiss-educated Kim Yo Jong, believed to be 30, who is among her brother's closest confidantes.

Political divide

Sunday's concert -- the orchestra's second and final show -- was expected to feature South Korean pop songs as well as North Korean music, with the diplomatic delegation due to fly home afterwards.

Public interest in the show was huge, with nearly 120,000 people applying for just 1,000 tickets.

Civilian contact is strictly banned between the two Koreas, which have been divided by the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

Tensions soared last year as the North staged a series of nuclear and missile tests in violation of UN resolutions, while leader Kim and US President Donald Trump traded colourful insults and threats of war.

Moon has long sought engagement with the North to bring it to the negotiating table, and for months has promoted Pyeongchang as a "peace Olympics".

But controversy over the North's participation -- particularly the formation of a unified women's ice hockey team, seen as unfairly denying Seoul's own citizens a chance to compete on the Olympic stage -- has hit his approval ratings.

Many older South Koreans on both sides of the political divide harbour a nostalgic longing for some form of reunification -- conservatives through the North's collapse, liberals through a more amicable arrangement.

But younger South Koreans -- many of whom voted for Moon in May -- have spent their adult lives in a culturally vibrant democracy regularly menaced and occasionally attacked by Pyongyang. They have far less interest in unification and fear its social and economic consequences.

A poll last year found almost 50 percent of over-60s believed the two Koreas can be reunified, while just 20.5 percent of those in their 20s agreed.

N. Korea's ceremonial head of state to visit South

Yahoo – AFP, Jung Ha-Won, 4 February 2018

The trip by Kim Yong-Nam will be the diplomatic high point of the rapprochement
between the two Koreas triggered by the Pyeongchang Games

North Korea's ceremonial head of state will visit the South this week in connection with the Winter Olympics, Seoul said late Sunday.

Kim Yong-Nam will be the highest-level official from the North for years to travel to the other side of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.

His trip will be the diplomatic high point of the rapprochement between the two Koreas triggered by the Pyeongchang Olympics in the South, which have their opening ceremony on Friday -- although analysts warn that their newly warmed relations may not last long beyond the Games.

Tensions spiralled last year as the North carried out multiple weapons tests, including intercontinental ballistic missiles it says are capable of reaching the mainland United States, and its most powerful nuclear blast to date.

For months, it ignored Seoul's entreaties to take part in a "peace Olympics", until leader Kim Jong-Un indicated his willingness to do so in his New Year speech.

That set off a rapid series of meetings which saw the two agree to march together at the opening ceremony and form a unified women's ice hockey team, their first for 27 years.

The North's Olympic participation would include a visit by a high-level delegation, they agreed.

It will be led by Kim Yong-Nam, who is leader of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, the North's ruling-party-controlled parliament, Seoul's unification ministry said in a statement.

Kim -- who is not a close blood relative of leader Kim Jong-Un -- will arrive on Friday for a three-day visit, accompanied by three other officials and 18 support staff, the ministry said it had been told by Pyongyang.

The South Korean ministry did not explicitly say whether Kim would go to the Pyeongchang opening ceremony -- which will be attended by the US Vice President Mike Pence.

Head of state

Kim Yong-Nam will be the highest-level Northern official to visit the South since 2014.

But it may be seen as disappointing by some if he proves to be the most important member of the delegation, as he is largely considered a figurehead whose public diplomatic role leaves it unclear how much political power he really has.

He is regarded as the ceremonial head of state, but does not hold the title of national president -- and nor does Kim Jong-Un.

Instead it is retained by Kim Jong-Un's grandfather, the North's founder Kim Il-Sung, who remains Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- the country's official name -- despite dying in 1994.

Speculation about who could lead the delegation had been rife in the South for weeks, with some analysts pointing to Choe Ryong-Hae, who is the vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party and seen as Kim Jong-Un's right-hand man.

Others had even suggested the leader's younger sister Kim Yo-Jong, who was recently promoted to a senior political position.

Choe was one of three senior Pyongyang officials who made a surprise visit to the South during the 2014 Asian Games along with former military chief Hwang Pyong-So and Kim Yang-Gon, a top official on inter-Korea affairs who died in a car crash in 2015.

They did not meet any senior officials of the government in Seoul, but it may be different on this occasion.

The South's new President Moon Jae-In has long argued for engagement to bring the North to the negotiating table over its nuclear ambitions, which have seen it subjected to multiple sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Seoul and Washington have agreed to delay annual large-scale joint military exercises which always infuriate Pyongyang, but only until the end of the Paralympics in late March.