King everywhere else, a ‘princess's fruit' in North Korea

The Star

12-05-2025

Compiled by RAHIMY RAHIM AND C.ARUNO
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is said to have containers of durian delivered via China, believed to be for his daughter, Nanyang Siang Pau reported.
Apparently, this has led the durian to be dubbed the ­'princess's fruit'.
According to a research centre in South Korea, the durian arrived in North Korea in March, having been shipped from Dandong, a port-city in China's Liaoning province.
A businessman who often tra­vels between the two countries claimed he witnessed several containers of durian being sent by rail from China to his home country.
He said it was widely known that the durian is Kim's daughter's favourite fruit.
According to South Korean newspaper Daily NK, some fruits commonly grown in the North are apples, oranges and persimmons.
> A man was killed by a stray bullet during the 1969 riots while his wife was four months' pregnant.
For the past five decades, his family often wondered about his final resting place, China Press reported.
Now they finally have closure.
The man's son, who wanted to be known only as Saw, found his father's gravestone at a burial ground in Sungai Buloh, Selangor, after watching Snow in Midsummer, a film centred on the aftermath of the tragedy.
Directed by Chong Keat Aun, the award-winning film was released in Malaysia last year.
It was reported earlier that the burial site was a mass grave which contained the remains of more than 100 victims who died during the May 13 riots.
Chong said he met Saw recently and that the man took him to see a tombstone which simply read 'Saw Kok Hong', followed by a second line stating 'Died 15.5.1969'.
'We hugged and cried. I understood the pain he and his mother had to endure for over half a century,' Chong said.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)