Giant dome collapses in Indonesia mosque fire

The grand mosque, located inside an Islamic centre complex, was undergoing renovation. “We have discussed the possibility of continuing the renovation… the most important (thing) is we can use it (the mosque) again soon,” Jakarta’s acting governor Heru Budi Hartono told Metro TV Thursday. The cause of the fire, whichContinue Reading

N Koreans risk life and limb to consume foreign media

SEOUL – North Koreans are so keen to consume overseas media that they take life-threatening risks to do so, a survey clandestinely conducted among respondents in the deeply isolated state and published this week has found.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the ongoing ultra-tight border closure instituted as a result of Covid-19, North Koreans want to learn about the wider world and are coming up with ingenious technological countermeasures to access external information, the survey notes.

The survey was conducted from June to August this year among 50 North Koreans who live in different parts of the country by the Unification Media Group, or UMG. UMG operates Seoul-based Daily NK, a niche media outlet whose reporters obtain on-the-ground information from sources inside North Korea and secretly smuggle it out on smartphones.

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