SEOUL: Two people were killed and hundreds left homeless after heavy rains pounded North Korea over the past three days, state media said yesterday. “Flood damage occurred in the central DPRK,” (North Korea) the Korean Central News Agency said, citing preliminary tallies compiled as of late Friday. Large swathes of farmland were flooded in the provinces of South Hamkyong, North Hwanghae and Kangwon, KCNA said.
Ban on lady secretaries
JAKARTA: The governor of an Indonesian province yesterday said he had ordered his top staff to replace their female secretaries with men following a string of extra-marital affairs. “I received inputs that many government office heads here are involved in extra-marital affairs with their female secretaries,” Rusli Habibie, the governor of Gorontalo province on northern Sulawesi island said.
Late artist’s wife hid assets
TOKYO: The wife of the late Japanese painter Ikuo Hirayama concealed around $3m worth of her husband’s assets to avoid a hefty tax bill, reports said yesterday. Hirayama, a Unesco goodwill ambassador who campaigned for the preservation of the world’s cultural heritage, died in 2009, leaving assets worth more than 1bn yen ($10m) mostly in the form of works of art, newspapers said.
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