Saturday, March 31, 2018
South Korean Biggest Singers Fly To Pyongyang For Rare Concerts
From aging crooners to bubbly K-Pop starlets, some of South Korea's biggest pop stars flew to North Korea on Saturday for rare performances that highlight the sudden thaw in inter-Korean ties after years of tensions over the North's nuclear ambitions.
The concerts in Pyongyang on Sunday and Tuesday come ahead of a historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a border village on April 27. The meeting, which will precede a planned summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in May, could prove to be significant in the global diplomatic push to resolve the standoff over the North's nuclear weapons and missiles program.
The 120-member group that flew to Pyongyang also included government officials, reporters and a taekwondo demonstration team that will perform in Pyongyang on Sunday and Monday. Another team of 70 South Korean technicians went to Pyongyang on Thursday to set up equipment.
A look at the singers who made the trip and a certain horse-dancing specialist who didn't:
THE LEGEND
North Korea during stormier times had described the South's society and culture as a "corrupt bourgeois lifestyle." Still, the Pyongyang concerts wouldn't be the first time southern pop singers have performed across the border.
It's the second trip for the iconic Cho Yong-pil, perhaps South Korea's most influential musician of the past 50 years. He staged a solo concert in Pyongyang in 2005 during a previous era of rapprochement between the rivals.
"It will be comfortable performing in the North as it is to perform in the South," the 68-year-old singer said in a news conference at South Korea's Gimpo Airport on Saturday. "There's no reason for me or other singers to be nervous. We all finished rehearsing and will have a fun and comfortable time showing our music."
Seoul hasn't officially announced the titles of the songs by the South Korean artists. Cho's "Dear Friend," a ballad about a long-lost friend that reportedly drew an enthusiastic response from the Pyongyang crowd 13 years ago, will almost certainly be one of them.
It would be the third North Korean performances for each female balladeers Choi Jin-hee and Lee Sun-hee, who are relatively well-known in the North.
The 61-year-old Choi will likely sing her biggest hit, "Maze of Love," which is rumored to have been a favorite of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the late father of current leader Kim. Lee, who at 53 still might have the best pipes in the business, may sing "To J," which was one of several South Korean songs North Korean musicians performed during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
"I hope we can create a stage where we can make an emotional connection and convey the warm feelings between the South and North," Choi said at the airport.
THE GIRL
SIt won't be all slow ballads in Pyongyang. It'll be interesting to see how the North Koreans reacts to girl band Red Velvet, currently one of the most popular acts in the highly-competitive K-Pop scene.
The genre, which has a huge following across Asia, has been defined by synthesized music, powerful visuals and dance moves and teasing sexuality. South Korea's military in recent years has used K-pop for psychological warfare, blaring it from loudspeakers along the heavily-armored border between the rivals.
"Happiness! Hello, it's Red Velvet!" band member Seulgi cheerfully shouted at the airport. "We're the `maknae' (youngest of the group), so we will make sure to deliver our bright energy to the North," said the 24-year-old.
K-Pop groups have performed before in North Korea. The now-disbanded Sechs Kies and Fin.K.L sang and danced in Pyongyang in 1999, as did boy band Shinhwa in 2003. Some of the artists later said the reaction from the audience was awkward and quiet.
Red Velvet may find a better reception more than a decade later as cultural tastes change, even in isolated North Korea. The North's most popular music act is Kim Jong Un's hand-picked Moranbong girl band, whose members often perform suggestive shimmies in short skirts with electric guitars.
Park Hyeong-il, an official at South Korea's Unification Ministry, said North Korean officials didn't show any discomfort about Red Velvet and also didn't take issue with the "red" in the band's name.
Red Velvet is originally a five-member band, but only four made the trip to Pyongyang _ 22-year-old Joy stayed in South Korea to film a soap opera.
NO 'GANGNAM STYLE' PLEASE
Despite constant questioning from reporters, South Korean officials aren't offering a clear explanation on why PSY, the singer of "Gangnam Style," was left out of the concert lineup.
South Korea's culture ministry spokesman Hwang Seong-un said without specifying that the YouTube rapper had been initially considered for the Pyongyang events before being excluded. He said he couldn't confirm a media report that North Korean officials had rejected PSY.
"What I can say is that we explored ways to include him, but it didn't work out," Hwang said. "We hope there will be better opportunities for him in the future."
It's possible that officials from either the North or South concluded that PSY's bizarre humor and highly sexualized music would be too provocative for the North Korean public.
It's not that North Korea had entirely ignored the global Gangnam Style craze. In September 2012, the North posted a video on its Uriminzokkiri website of a horse-dancing PSY character that had a photo of conservative South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye's face transposed on it. The lyrics had the character satirically defending Park's late father, staunch anti-communist dictator Park Chung-hee.
Park went on to win the presidential race, only to be ousted from office and jailed over a corruption scandal in March last year.
WILL KIM JONG UN ATTEND?
The South Korean singers will perform at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater on Sunday and then take part in a joint concert with North Korean artists on Tuesday at the 12,000-seat Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong Gymnasium.
It's unclear whether North Korean leader Kim will show up in any of these performances. His presence would be seen in the South as a proper response to Moon's attending the North Korean performances in February. But Kim also was accused by Seoul in previous years for harshly punishing, and even executing, North Korean officials and people who were caught privately consuming South Korean popular culture.
South Korea's spy agency in 2014 told lawmakers that North Korea used firing squads to execute 10 officials that year for taking bribes or watching South Korean television dramas.
Family, Friends And Colleagues Bid Farewell To Stephen Hawking
Hawking, who died on March 14 at the age of 76, was famously an atheist but his children Lucy, Robert and Tim chose St Mary the Great, the church of Cambridge's prestigious university, to say their farewell.
"Our father's life and work meant many things to many people, both religious and non-religious. So, the service will be both inclusive and traditional, reflecting the breadth and diversity of his life," they said.
Tributes poured in from around the world upon Hawking's death, from Queen Elizabeth II to NASA, reflecting his huge impact as a physicist and an inspiration, in his refusal to give up in the face of his crippling motor neurone disease.
The funeral service -- being held a short distance from Gonville and Caius College where Hawking worked for more than 50 years -- was only open to around 500 guests who knew him.
A private reception was to follow at Trinity College.
A wider audience will attend a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey in London on June 15, when Hawking's remains will be buried near the grave of another legendary scientist, Isaac Newton.
Actor Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the 2014 biographical drama "The Theory of Everything", was to give a reading from the Bible, followed by a reading by Martin Rees, Britain's astronomer royal.
Eulogies were to be delivered by Robert Hawking, the physicist's eldest child, and Professor Fay Dowker, one of Hawking's former students.
An arrangement of white lilies, to represent the universe, and another of white roses as the polar star were to be placed on Hawking's solid oak coffin.
The church bell was to toll 76 times, once for each year of Hawking's life, when his coffin arrives.
Ahead of the funeral, Gonville and Caius College released new black and white photographs of Hawking taken in 1961 at a summer school for young astrophysicists at a castle in Sussex, southern England, when he was 19.
They showed him playing croquet and in a sailing dinghy, two years before he began experiencing the first symptoms of the motor neurone disease that would later leave him almost completely paralysed.
Fellow students contacted by the college recalled his left-wing views and his mischievous sense of humour.
Hawking defied predictions that he would only live for a few years, although his rare condition -- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) -- gradually robbed him of mobility.
He was confined to a wheelchair, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser.
But the illness did nothing to dull his mind, and Hawking became one of the world's best-known and most inspiring scientists, known for his brilliance and his wit.
His work focused on bringing together relativity -- the nature of space and time -- and quantum theory -- how the smallest particles behave -- to explain the creation of the Universe and how it is governed.
But he was also a global star -- his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time" was an unlikely worldwide bestseller, and he appeared as himself in television shows from "The Simpsons" to "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
Born on January 8, 1942, Hawking died in his home in Cambridge.
After taking his undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford, he moved to Cambridge for his doctorate and stayed there for the rest of his career.
Hawking's family has asked six college porters, many of whom provided support for Hawking when he visited for dinners and other events, to carry his coffin.
14.7 Million Visitors To Us Face Social Media Screening
In September, the Trump administration announced that applicants for immigrant visas would be asked for social-media data, a plan that would affect 710,000 people or so a year. The new proposal would vastly expand that order to cover some 14 million people each year who apply for non-immigrant visas.
The proposal covers 20 social media platforms. Most of them are based in the United States: Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Myspace, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Vine and YouTube. But several are based overseas: the Chinese sites Douban, QQ, Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo and Youku; the Russian social network VK; Twoo, which was created in Belgium; and Ask.fm, a question-and-answer platform based in Latvia.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump promised “extreme vetting” of people seeking to enter the United States, and last March, the State Department directed consular officers around the world to step up scrutiny of visa applicants.
But the new proposal would add a tangible new requirement for millions of people who apply to visit the United States for business or pleasure, including citizens of such countries as Brazil, China, India and Mexico.
Citizens of roughly 40 countries to which the United States ordinarily grants visa-free travel will not be affected by the requirement. Those countries include major allies like Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea.In addition, visitors traveling on diplomatic and official visas will mostly be exempted.
As news of the plan emerged Friday, so did criticism.
“This attempt to collect a massive amount of information on the social media activity of millions of visa applicants is yet another ineffective and deeply problematic Trump administration plan,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “It will infringe on the rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens by chilling freedom of speech and association, particularly because people will now have to wonder if what they say online will be misconstrued or misunderstood by a government official.”
Anil Kalhan, an associate professor of law at Drexel University who works on immigration and international human rights, wrote on Twitter, “This is unnecessarily intrusive and beyond ridiculous.”
Facebook said its position had not changed since last year, when it said: “We oppose any efforts to force travelers at the border to turn over their private account information, including passwords.”
Along with the social-media information, visa applicants will be asked for past passport numbers, phone numbers and email addresses; for records of international travel; whether they have been deported or removed, or violated immigration law, in the past; and whether relatives have been involved in terrorist activities.
“Maintaining robust screening standards for visa applicants is a dynamic practice that must adapt to emerging threats,” the State Department said in a statement. “We already request limited contact information, travel history, family member information and previous addresses from all visa applicants. Collecting this additional information from visa applicants will strengthen our process for vetting these applicants and confirming their identity.”
Millions of people each year complete the online application for a non-immigrant visa, known as the DS-160. It takes about 90 minutes to fill out, according to the department.
The San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack in 2015, which killed 14 people, focused attention on immigrants’ social-media use after officials acknowledged they had missed signs of online radicalization in an online-messaging platform used by the husband and wife who carried out the attack.
Last year, John F. Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security and is now Trump’s chief of staff, told members of Congress that his department was considering asking visitors for passwords and access to online accounts.
“We want to get on their social media, with passwords,” Kelly told members of the House Homeland Security Committee. “If they don’t want to cooperate, then you don’t come in.”
So far, the government has stopped short of demanding passwords, though travelers have reported being asked for them, on a sporadic basis, at airports and other ports of entry.
By some measures, the number of international visitors to the United States has begun to slip, although foreign tourism to New York City set a record last year.
The new State Department requirements will not take effect immediately. The proposal set off a 60-day period for public comment, which ends May 29.
On Sina Weibo, one of China’s largest social-media platforms, several users were critical of the plan.
“Does it mean someone’s visa application will likely be rejected if he/she has been critical of the US?” one wrote. “What about your sacred ‘freedom of speech?'”
Another user wrote: “We Chinese have learned well enough the lessons to be drawn from isolation. Now it’s America’s turn.”
Malala Yousafzai Visits Pak Hometown In Swat Valley
Amid tight security, she along with her parents arrived in Swat district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on a day-long visit, sources said.
She has been put up in Circuit House. The venue had been surrounded by the law enforcers.
She will be visiting her ancestral home in Makan Bagh in Mingora, her school besides inaugurating a girls school in Shangla district, the sources added.
In an interview to Geo News yesterday, Malala said that she plans to return to Pakistan permanently once her studies are completed.
"My plan is to return to Pakistan as this is my country. I have the same right on the country as any another Pakistani," Malala said.
She reiterated her joy of being in Pakistan and her mission of providing education to children.
"We want to work for the education of children and make it possible that every girl in Pakistan receives a high-level education and she can fulfill her dreams and become a part of society."
Malala, now 20, was shot by a gunman for campaigning for female education in 2012 in Pakistan's Swat Valley.
Severely wounded, Malala was taken by helicopter from one military hospital in Pakistan to another, where doctors placed her in a medically induced coma so an air ambulance could fly her to Great Britain for treatment.
After she was attacked, the Taliban released a statement saying that they would target her again if she survived.
At age 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her education advocacy.
She shared the coveted prize with India's social activist Kailash Satyarthi.
Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, Malala moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.
She is currently studying at Oxford University.
Malala began her campaign aged just 11, when she started writing a blog for the BBC's Urdu service in 2009 about life under the Taliban in Swat, where they were banning girls' education.
In 2007, the Islamist militants had taken over the area and imposed a brutal rule.
Opponents were murdered, people were publicly flogged for supposed breaches of sharia law, women were banned from going to market, and girls were stopped from going to school.
The Taliban, who are opposed to the education of girls, have destroyed hundreds of schools in Pakistan.
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