Thousands of North Koreans gather for Kim Jong Il memorial

Source: CNN

Huge crowds assembled in Pyongyang on Thursday at a national memorial service for the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the second day of state-orchestrated ceremonies to mourn the dictator who died earlier this month.

The authoritarian regime used a mixture of somber music, hyperbolic speeches, booming artillery fire and blaring horns to honor the man who oversaw 17 years of despotic rule in the secretive nation.

The ceremony took place a day after a funeral procession for Kim spent three hours winding through the snow-laden streets of Pyongyang lined with thousands of wailing mourners.

Once again, the regime placed Kim Jong Un, the son and chosen successor of Kim Jong Il, at the center of proceedings, proclaiming him the "supreme leader" of North Korea -- a fresh indication that the leadership transition is progressing smoothly.

The footage broadcast Thursday by North Korean state television showed thick rectangular blocks of people gathered in the snowy expanse of Kim Il Sung Square -- named after Kim Jong Il's father, the founder of North Korea.

Kim Jong Un and other senior members of the regime stood solemnly on a viewing platform overlooking the square.

During the ceremony, a string of top officials took to the microphone to praise Kim Jong Il's life and reinforce Kim Jong Un's leadership credentials.

North Korean TV shows tens of thousands at the memorial for Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang Thursday.

"Kim Jong Un is the supreme leader who has inherited Kim Jong Il's beliefs, leadership, courage and guts," said Kim Yong Nam, the president of the North Korean parliament.

Read about the funeral for Kim Jong Il

"Kim Jong Il's great achievements will shine forever," said Kim Ki Nam, a senior official in the powerful Worker's Party. "Following our party's supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, we are converting our sadness to courage and we will achieve great things."

Under Kim Jong Il, the country suffered a devastating famine even as it built up its million-strong army, expanded its arsenal of ballistic missiles and became the world's eighth declared nuclear power.

He died on December 17, reportedly from a heart attack. News of his death, announced two days later, put the region on edge and set off speculation around the world about the country's stability and future direction.

For the time being, Kim Jong Un appears to be rallying support within the regime, despite his young age -- he is thought to be in his late 20s -- and relative inexperience.

After the speeches Thursday, a row of heavy guns fired off a salute. Then, a cacophony of horns and sirens went off, drawing the service -- and the last day of official mourning -- to a close.

cnn.com

Peaceful Moc Chau before the spring

The mountainous district of Moc Chau in Son La Province has been an ideal destination for those who seek for peace or romantic getaways.

Surrounded by hills planted with tea, Moc Chau, which is 190 kilometres northwest of Hanoi, looks charming in the fog and the cold of the forest.

Many believe that this is the best time of year to visit the area, with the Tet holiday soon to come and favourable conditions.

Napa cabbage flowers along side peach trees

Immense fields of napa cabbage flowers

Mong people’s houses dwarfed amid boundless fields of flowers

Path to Thong Cuong High School

‘Little house on the plateau’

Visitors marvel at the mountains

Inspired by romantic scene

Thong Cuong Village surrounded by immense fields of napa cabbage

A stop at a pristine site

Mong children surprised to see visitors

Early blossoms on a plum tree

Little girl from Hanoi happy with a new ‘playground’

White plum flowers

Peach trees add colour to mountains in Long Luong

dtinews.vn

New domestic coach possible, says VFF

The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) will employ a domestic coach if it sacks the German coach, Falko Goetz, said VFF Chairman Nguyen Trong Hy.

“Malaysia and Indonesia have become very successful with their domestic trainers,” he said, adding that domestic trainers in V-league clubs have obtained more achievement than their foreign colleagues".

“VFF has preferred to choose a foreign coach for the national squad. However, it is now high time the federation hired domestic coaches for both national and U23 teams,” Hy said.

If this happens, it will be the first time after 16 years that Vietnam has looked for a domestic coach.

The national team used to be led by domestic coaches known as Vu Van Tu, Nguyen Sy Hien and Tran Duy Long, but it was defeated right in the first round of the SEA Games in 1991 and 1993.

The failure then forced VFF to change its mind and looked for the first foreign coach, Karl Heinz Weigang from German. Under his guidance the team easily won a silver medal in SEA Games just two years later.

VFF had employed 8 other foreign coaches later since until 2004 when it replaced Brazilian trainer Edson Tavares by Vietnamese coach Tran Van Khanh after the team failed to qualify for the second round of Tiger Cup 2004. Khanh only instructed the team in one match, then handed it over to the Austrian coach, Alfred Riedl.

Three years later, VFF employed a Vietnamese coach to replace the Austrian colleague after the U23 team was defeated by Myanmar in the semi-final. Coach Mai Duc Trung, however, could not turn the tide and Vietnam was thrashed 0-5 by Singapore in the match for the third place.

When Portuguese coach resigned in March 2011, VFF considered choosing three domestic coaches for the post, namely Le Huynh Duc from SHB Danang, Phan Thanh Hung from Hanoi T&T and Mai Duc Chung from Navibank Saigon. However, they all refused. VFF finally invited Falko Goetz from Germany.

Domestic coaches are unwilling to work with VFF for many reasons. They are not treated on the same par with their foreign partners, not to mention the fact that they are paid only VND10 million per month, much lower than what they normally earn in their own clubs.

Therefore it is very difficult for VFF to choose a suitable domestic coach for the national squad.

dtinews.vn

2011 – Year for live shows of foreign stars in Vietnam

Vietnamese music fans welcomed 10 well-known foreign singers and bands this year, from renowned names like Bob Dyland, Backstreet Boys and Westlife to boybands and girlbands which are at their peak of career like Super Junior and 2NE1.

Backstreet Boys

Vietnam is a small music market so it is not a favorite destination of world famous singers. In the 1990s, a number of foreign singers and bands called on the country during their Asian tours, such as Bryan Adams, Michael Learns To Rock, Boney M, Air Supply, Sting and The Moffatts.

However, the showbiz industry in Vietnam has made great leap this year when it successfully organised nearly 10 shows of foreign stars.

The Backstreet Boy from the US opened the year with its “This Is Us” tour. The band chose Vietnam as its final destination, with two shows in Hanoi and HCM City. Despite some errors in organizing tasks, the two shows by Backstreet Boys were the spectacular opening for 2011.

Only two weeks after Backstreet Boys’ live show, senior star Bob Dylan came to Vietnam to perform at a small concert, held at RMIT University in HCM City.

In early summer, tens of thousands of teens throughout the country flocked to Go Dau Stadium in the southern province of Binh Duong to enjoy Super Show 2 by Super Junior, one of the most favorite Korean bands in Vietnam and many Asian countries. After that, two other Korean bands, 2AM and JYJ, were invited to Vietnam in June.

Vietnamese fans then welcomed three music idols, David Cook (American Idol 2008), Alexandra Burke (The X Factor 2008 winner) in the H-Artistry show and David Archuleta, the runner-up of American Idol 2008 in Idol Music Event. Both programs were held in summer.

In the fall, fans had a chance to see Westlife, one of the most famous boybands in the world, in the only one show in Hanoi on October 1.

In late November, Korean leading girlband 2NE1 closed the year by ‘Going Together Concert in Vietnam with 2NE1.

Korean girlband 2NE1

Bob Dylan

dtinews.vn

Vietnamese beauty enters top 20 tourism queen international

Le Huynh Thuy Ngan has entered the top 20 of the Miss Tourism Queen International beauty pageant, being held in Xi’an, China from December 13-29.

This is mainly thanks to the highest number of online votes that she has received (28,810) to top the “Internet Popularity Queen” event.

Born in 1991, Ngan is now 1.73m tall and has the enviable measurements of 90-62-93.

While studying at Ho Chi Minh City University of Theater and Cinema and has acted in a number of films.

Miss Tourism Queen International was founded by Charlie See. Since 1949, and more than 80 countries have joined its events.

The world final competitions have taken place in Sri Lanka, the US Russia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and many other countries, particularly in China for six consecutive years from 2004 to 2009.

dtinews.vn

Bollywood rediscovered heroes in 2011

Bollywood struck gold in 2011, revving up lacklustre box offices in India with help from its leading men who wooed audiences back to cinemas after a dismal 2010.

Bollywood actor Salman Khan (R) reacts on the green carpet for the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards in Colombo June 5, 2010

Domestic revenues hit 19.25 billion rupees ($363.2 million) this year, up from 14.5 billion rupees in 2010, and an unprecedented four films crossed the billion rupee milestone. Two of those blockbusters starred actor Salman Khan.

The solid performance contrasted sharply to the previous year when there were hardly any hits.

"Audiences and filmmakers have gone back and discovered stories that are close to our Indian roots," said Sanjeev Lamba, Chief executive of Reliance Entertainment, which produced two of the year's biggest blockbusters -- "Bodyguard" and "Singham".

"Bodyguard", in which Khan plays a personal security guard to a rich man's daughter and ends up falling in love with her, was the most successful Bollywood film, raking in more than 1.5 billion rupees ($28 million) at domestic box offices.

"Singham" told the story of a right-minded police officer who stands up to a corrupt politician and was accompanied by romance, drama and high-octane action.

Both "Bodyguard" and "Singham" were panned by critics but loved by audiences. And both featured strong central characters, harkening back to the 1980s and early '90s in Bollywood when films were centred on the hero and his defeat of a villain in a battle of good versus evil.

"Audiences have always loved the dilemmas of the hero, a little bit of action, some drama and some romance," Lamba said. "We had a lot of that this year."

Other themes were successful, too.

Offbeat films like "The Dirty Picture", based on the life of a soft-core porn star, proved to be sleeper hits and took industry analysts by surprise. Together with the likes of "Singham" and "Bodyguard", these smaller films proved audiences have an appetite for both mass market and niche-oriented work.

"It is not that more people are watching movies, but that the same audience is watching more movies," said Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a firm that specialises in film market research.

"Harry Potter" hot; "Ra.One" not

But widely-hyped movies like superhero film "Ra.One" were a let-down.

In spite of a publicity blitzkrieg, actor Shah Rukh Khan's film did not live up to expectations with around 1.2 billion rupees ($22 million) in net box office. That was just a bit more than its official budget of a billion rupees. Industry estimates put the film's cost at over 1.5 billion rupees.

Aside from that, for the most part, Bollywood managed to keep its purse strings in check, with production houses learning that budgeting a film right is half the battle.

"Balaji Motion Pictures made 'The Dirty Picture' at a budget of less than 300 million rupees but have chosen themes and subjects which are interesting, and (they) publicised their films so well that audiences have felt compelled to watch them," said industry analyst Vajir Singh.

Big studios like Reliance and UTV also have changed their business models, preferring to co-produce films rather than acquire them after completion. Last year, Reliance suffered losses after two big-ticket acquisitions, Mani Ratnam's "Raavan" and Hrithik Roshan-starrer "Kites" flopped at box offices.

"This year, all our films have been co-productions or our own productions and we have seen the successes," Lamba said.

"We prefer to be creatively involved from the beginning of the project rather than coming in at the end in an acquisition scenario."

Indian audiences also warmed up to Hollywood blockbusters including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" and "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" -- something that wasn't seen until just a few years ago due mainly to Bollywood's dominance of the box office.

"These days, the box office collections of good Hollywood films can rival those of a Bollywood film," said Sunil Punjabi, chief executive of the Cinemax chain of multiplexes.

"The Adventures of Tintin," which was released along with Ranbir Kapoor's "Rockstar" in November, made more than 70 million rupees its opening weekend.

dtinews.vn

Actress receives wide acclaim

Vietnamese actress Minh Huong who starred in the film Dung Dot (Don't Burn) as Doctor Dang Thuy Tram won the best actress award at the 8th International Festival of Military Patriotic Films "Volokolamsk Line" held in Russia.

Accolade: Actress Minh Huong won the best actress award at the International Festival of Military and Patriotic Films in Russia for her role in Dung Dot. — File Photo

Head of the organising board Professor Sergey Lazaruk from the Russian National Movies University said that Dung Dot did not dwell on fierce fighting but referred to human relations. The jury showed a special interest in Huong's professional skills in the film.

The event held early this month attracted the participation of a wide range of entries from Russia, Vietnam, Georgia, Spain, the US and Germany.

Directed by Dang Nhat Minh and produced in 2008, Dung Dot is based on a diary written by liberation army doctor Dang Thuy Tram during the most violent period of the war in the central province of Quang Ngai from 1968 to 1970.

Tram fell on the battlefield at the age of 27, but her diary was found by a US soldier who persevered it for 35 years before returning it to Tram's family.

In 2010, Huong received Best Actress for the role at the Vietnam Cinematography Association's Golden Kite award.

Dung Dot also won a number of international awards including the Best Picture at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in 2009.

dtinews.vn