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Historic concert in North Korea brings violinist to tears

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — An American orchestra performed a historic concert Tuesday in the communist state of North Korea — one of the most secretive societies in the world. A group of 105 musicians made the journey to Pyongyang, but for one of them this trip was not just about music. It was about family history.

35-year old Michelle Kim is a violinist with the New York Philharmonic, which performed a nearly two-hour concert in Pyongyang. Watch highlights of today’s historic concert

Kim’s parents were born in the North and fled the country during the Korean War. For Kim, the concert was an opportunity to see the land where her parents were born and where they suffered before leaving the country forever.

Kim’s father, Chung Kil-Kim was only 5 years old when the war broke out in 1950, but what he experienced was so horrific that he said he would never forget it.

I still clearly remember that so many people were dying around me, and I walked over dead bodies. Chung Kil said.

Chung Kil’s family was under tight supervision because his uncle was a minister, he said.

There is no organized religion in North Korea, other than the worship of the country’s founder and what they call their Eternal President, Kim Il Sung.

Chung Kil remembers one day after the war started, his uncle went to his church to pray. North Korean soldiers came to the church, locked everyone inside and set it on fire. Everyone, including Chung Kil’s uncle, died, he said.

After Chung Kil’s uncle was killed, his family decided it was too dangerous to remain in the North so they abandoned their home and fled to the South.

Kim’s mother, Kyung Ja-Kim, also fled with her family from the North during the war. Kyung Ja’s mother carried the then-1-year-old on her back the entire way.

Kim’s parents eventually met and married in Seoul, where Kim was born. They moved to the United States and settled in California when she was 16. She already was gaining attention as a talented musician and won an international music competition, which led to an unusual invitation to perform in Pyongyang for President Kim Il Sung’s birthday.

At the time, Chung Kil and Kyung Ja were too scared to let her go. They were afraid their daughter would be abducted and forced to stay in the North, her father said.

Their attitude changed, he said, because this time she would be traveling not only with the Philharmonic, but also with an American press corps. Her father said in his heart, he felt it was time for her to go.

I still have a grudge against the Korean War, however I understand the people in North Korea are not to blame, Chung Kil said. This is a really good opportunity for my Michelle to go to the North and give them an opportunity to open their door to our culture.

Kim said her first emotion when she arrived in Pyongyang was a sense of awe. Seeing the North Koreans makes her feel sad that the country has been divided, she said.

North Koreans, South Koreans, we’re just Koreans. They’re the exact same people as I am. We have the exact same culture. We have the exact same songs.

Tuesday’s concert ended with the Korean folk song Arirang, which is a love song about reunion. The song brought back memories of Michelle’s childhood in South Korea.

A lot of us actually stood out on the stage and just waved to them. Many people had tears in their eyes. And, of course, all of us were crying, the Korean- Americans were crying.

The New York Philharmonic leaves North Korea Wednesday, and Kim is taking a lot of pictures to show her family when she gets home. She is the eyes and ears for her parents, she said, and hopes the pictures and her experiences will allow her parents to see North Korea in a new way — a better way than they did when they fled more than 50 years ago. E-mail to a friend

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Pakistan lifts block on YouTube

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s telecoms regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on the YouTube Web site that led to the knocking out of access to the popular video-sharing site in many other countries for a few hours over the weekend.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 domestic Internet service providers to restore access to the site after removal of what government officials had deemed a blasphemous video clip.

Pakistan ordered YouTube blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence. As a result, most of the world’s Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours on Sunday.

While a number of other videos featuring the politician, Geert Wilders, would remain visible to Pakistani Internet users, the one which was removed had been totally anti-Quranic … very blasphemous, said Pakistan Telecommunication authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood.

She said it promoted Wilders’ upcoming movie, but provided no details of its content.

An Internet expert said Sunday’s problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a black hole. So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

The problem was that the company also accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world’s fastest route to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc. That led requests from across the Internet to the black hole.

Mahmood said the Pakistani regulator was not responsible for technical hitches that may have lead to problems elsewhere. She said it was not clear how those occurred.

The authority, which aimed to restrict the site only in Pakistan, posted a complaint through the Web site but had not been in contact with the administrators of YouTube.

The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet’s vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

Pakistani officials do not want a repeat of the violent anti-Western protests in early 2006 after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad regarded by many Muslims as offensive.

Danish editors reignited the controversy earlier this month by reprinting a cartoon that shows the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

On Tuesday, some 300 students rallied at a university in Multan, carrying banners denouncing Denmark, the United States and President Pervez Musharraf — the latest in a series of small protests held by Islamic students in Pakistan.

Umer Abbasi, a leader of the protest, urged all Muslim countries to follow Pakistan in blocking offensive material on the Internet.

If you look deeply, America can be seen behind all anti-Muslim moves around the world, Abbasi told the crowd, which later burned Danish and American flags.

Authorities wanted to prevent Islamic hard-liners from seizing on the Wilders clips, said Abdullah Riar, Pakistan’s minister for information technology and telecommunications.

We are already in the spotlight on the issue of intolerance and extremism and terrorism, Riar said, and this is something that somebody is doing by design to excite and insinuate Islamic sentiments.
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Sharapova unfit for Dubai tournament

DUBAI — Maria Sharapova has dropped out of this week’s Dubai Championships because of a viral illness.

The Russian is unbeaten this year after winning the Qatar Open title on Sunday, following her triumph in January’s Australian Open

The world number five’s first match was scheduled for Tuesday’s evening session but she said: Unfortunately I have been battling a virus for several days and it’s reached a point where I’m unable to compete.

I flew to Dubai right after my final in Doha and woke up on Monday feeling really fatigued and stuffed up with a cough.

After trying to hit a little bit in the evening, I came to the conclusion that I’m realistically not going to be ready to play five matches in five days.

It’s been such a great and healthy start to the year, and I don’t want to jeopardize that by making the wrong decisions, as I have in the past.

This is really disappointing to me, but I do intend to come back to Dubai next year and hopefully have a great tournament.

She played through the Doha tournament with the same virus, she claims, and felt worse when she woke up in Dubai Monday.

I think it’s a lot of flying which has done it, she said. I have done a lot of traveling in the last few weeks - going from Australia to Israel, then home, with no rest at all, practising for Doha and going there.

I have to be smart about my decisions and I have made some wrong ones in the past - getting injured and getting sick, and going out there and not being 100 percent. Then you are liable to hurt yourself. I have a long year.

If you are not 110 percent mentally and physically you owe it to the fans not to go out there and play half fit.

Realistically, thinking about it, I didn’t think I could play five matches here, and as an athlete you have to be mentally and physically ready. After a few really long weeks you need a rest.

She is planning a vacation at her home in Florida. It will be somewhere where there is a limited amount of people around, and I’ll have a book in front of me and read. Which will give me a fresh frame of mind for the next tournament.

Sharapova expects to compete next at the WTA Tour event in Indian Wells, starting on March 16, and to follow it by playing the following fortnight in Miami.

Sharapova will be replaced in the Dubai draw by lucky loser Akiko Morigami, the world number 50 from Japan. E-mail to a friend

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Spain’s leaders clash in rare election debate

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Spain’s prime minister and the opposition leader clashed on the economy, Basque separatism and immigration Monday night as they staged a rare election debate — a potential momentum-builder in a race that is now a dead heat.

Socialist Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy deluged each other with statistics Monday on everything from the price of eggs to funding for university scholarships while arguing over the state of this deeply polarized country as it heads toward a general election on March 9.

In Spain’s first such debate in 15 years, the two men interrupted each other often, did a lot of head-shaking and at one point engaged in what verged on a shouting match over failed peace talks with the armed Basque group ETA.

But there were no personal insults, and neither committed a major gaffe or scored a knockout punch.

The debate was important because the two men’s parties are neck-and-neck and polls suggest there is an enticing number of undecided voters.

Rajoy attacked Zapatero repeatedly over his failed peace talks with ETA, saying Zapatero had raised the possibility of making concessions to the group — a taboo for any Spanish government. Rajoy also assailed Zapatero’s recent admission that the government had been in contact with ETA even after it broke a cease-fire in 2006 and killed two people in a car bombing.

You lied. You fooled all the Spanish people, Rajoy said. You toyed with the law.

Zapatero hit back saying You were the ones who lied, alluding to the March 2004 Islamic terrorist attacks in Madrid, which Rajoy’s party, in power at the time, initially blamed on ETA, even as evidence of Islamic involvement emerged.

Spanish voters ousted Rajoy’s Popular Party in elections held three days after the attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Spain’s leaders clash in rare election debate

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Spain’s prime minister and the opposition leader clashed on the economy, Basque separatism and immigration Monday night as they staged a rare election debate — a potential momentum-builder in a race that is now a dead heat.

Socialist Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy deluged each other with statistics Monday on everything from the price of eggs to funding for university scholarships while arguing over the state of this deeply polarized country as it heads toward a general election on March 9.

In Spain’s first such debate in 15 years, the two men interrupted each other often, did a lot of head-shaking and at one point engaged in what verged on a shouting match over failed peace talks with the armed Basque group ETA.

But there were no personal insults, and neither committed a major gaffe or scored a knockout punch.

The debate was important because the two men’s parties are neck-and-neck and polls suggest there is an enticing number of undecided voters.

Rajoy attacked Zapatero repeatedly over his failed peace talks with ETA, saying Zapatero had raised the possibility of making concessions to the group — a taboo for any Spanish government. Rajoy also assailed Zapatero’s recent admission that the government had been in contact with ETA even after it broke a cease-fire in 2006 and killed two people in a car bombing.

You lied. You fooled all the Spanish people, Rajoy said. You toyed with the law.

Zapatero hit back saying You were the ones who lied, alluding to the March 2004 Islamic terrorist attacks in Madrid, which Rajoy’s party, in power at the time, initially blamed on ETA, even as evidence of Islamic involvement emerged.

Spanish voters ousted Rajoy’s Popular Party in elections held three days after the attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

found here.