NORTH KOREA SPENDS MILLIONS ON KIM CULT
SEOUL: North Korea spent $41.5 million dollars this year promoting the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, a South Korean government report said on Thursday.

A cool $9.5 million was dropped on new statues of founder Kim Il-Sung and his late son Kim Jong-Il in six separate places, the Unification Ministry said, citing calculations from South Korean civilian experts. Some $32 million went on giant frescoes of the two leaders that were painted in halls in 400 different locations during the year, the report said. Pictures of the two Kims hang inside every North Korean home, while their bronze likenesses can be seen everywhere across the impoverished nation.

INTERNET GURU MCAFEE ARRESTED IN GUATEMALA
GUATEMALA CITY: US Internet security guru John McAfee, on the run from authorities in Belize over a murder probe, has been arrested in Guatemala for illegally entering the country, police said. The arrest of the eccentric 67-year-old entrepreneur-turned-adventurer marks the latest twist in a novel-like tale of intrigue involving a murdered American expatriate and allegations of drug-fueled escapades with guns and prostitutes. The arrest came just hours after McAfee formally requested political asylum from Guatemala, with his attorney Telesforo Guerra claiming his client was a “victim of persecution and harassment” from the Belizean government. The former Silicon Valley entrepreneur had been in hiding for more than three weeks until he crossed the border into Guatemala on Monday with his girlfriend Sam Vanegas, 20, after devising elaborate ruses to confuse police.

CHINESE WORKERS STAGE NEW PROTEST IN SINGAPORE
SINGAPORE: Two crane operators staged a high-rise protest at a construction site in Singapore on Thursday, its second industrial incident involving mainland Chinese workers in less than two weeks. The workers, reportedly demanding payment of back wages before their return to China, perched themselves on top of separate cranes before agreeing to come down after hours of negotiations with rescuers. The crane protest came 10 days after a work stoppage by Chinese bus drivers erupted at a transport firm—Singapore’s first industrial strike since 1986.

CANNIBALISM MYSTERY AS RUSSIANS FOUND IN WILDERNESS
MOSCOW: Russian investigators have opened a murder case after two fishermen were rescued following three months lost in a remote Far East forest amid fears the pair could have eaten a companion to stay alive, officials said. Four men disappeared in August on a river-fishing expedition to the vast Yakutia region in the Russian Far East, one of the most remote and inhospitable places in the world. Rescuers finally found two of the men this month by the Sutam River but without two companions. The men claimed their group had split up and said that the others were likely still alive, as they were used to living in the open. But a murder probe was opened after a team of top investigators from the regional capital Yakutsk found fragments of a human corpse close to the place where the pair was found. AFP