欧米人が観光旅行にアジアを選んだとする。日本か中国か選択を迫られたらどっち。こういう記事を見ていると、スケールの大きな中国の古代遺跡や近代化が進められている中国の都市を見学に行きたくなる。それを凌ぐ日本の見所はなにか。観光に力を入れている日本にとって、中国はアジアの大きなライバルである。
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China’s Overwhelming Demand for Resources
By Daniel Gross
Fri, Nov 4, 2011 12:28 PM EDT
Xi'An, China -- There's nothing like a visit to China to get you in touch with your inner Thomas Malthus. The 18th century British scholar is known, centuries after his death, for pessimism about the capacity of the earth and its inhabitants to produce enough food, energy and other resources to sustain the rising population of humans.
The last few centuries, in which rising living standards coincided with population growth, have debunked Malthus. But spend some time in China — and in particular in China's interior — and you'll start to think otherwise.
Shanghai has long been one of the world's large, great cities. To a longtime resident of New York, the amalgamation of skyscrapers is readily comprehensible. Yes, the scale and the pace of growth is impressive, even shocking. But if New York works without overly stressing the planet, so should Shanghai.
The anxiety picks up when you leave the comparatively well-trodden coasts for the interior. Here, you'll find cities that you've likely never heard of, that are as big and sprawling as any in America, and getting larger by leaps and bounds. Like Xi'an, which I visited this week along with a group of journalists.
Xi'an is best known as the location of the astonishing terra cotta warriors. Unearthed in 1974, they lie at the core of the vast burial grounds of Qin Shi Huang, founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. (On which more later).
Xi'an today is a huge city (population about eight million and growing) that each year pulls in hundreds of thousands of Chinese from the impoverished countryside. Bumping through the traffic, we passed endless blocks of apartment buildings, office complexes, factories and lower-slung districts destined for development.
When Americans think of industrial parks, we tend to think of a dozen-odd office buildings set along a winding road, or a bunch of low-slung industrial sheds. Here in Xi'an, the parks are themselves the size of cities. We visited the Xi'An National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base (XCAIB), which is in effect a new city a few miles southeast of the ancient city center. Here, office buildings and soaring residential complexes are sprouting from the soil of the 86-square kilometer zone.
Our destination in the afternoon, the Xi'an Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone, was even larger. It took 25 minutes to drive from one section of the zone to the Software Park. Each zone features an imposing headquarters with soaring lobbies, cavernous meeting rooms filled with overstuffed chairs, and immense scale models of the area.
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The scale isn't simply a sign of China's rising wealth and self-image. It's planning for the necessary work of moving tens and hundreds of millions still-impoverished peasants from rural villages into areas where they can find work and higher living standards. Ensuring that the majority of its population ultimately benefits from the economy's modernization is the government's overriding goal.
China seeks to impress visitors with size and abundance. But you begin to wonder. Where will all the cement come from? The steel? The water? If the cities continue to expand at their current pace, who will provide all the meat, noodles and vegetables that cause Lazy Susans to buckle? And, above all, where will the energy come from?
China talks a great game when it comes to alternative energy. Every major city has subway systems and extensive public transport. The country's industrial policy encourages energy efficiency. The XCAIB district wants to become a center for LED lighting, and has mandated its use through the zone. At the Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone, we visited an Applied Materials facility, where researchers are figuring out ways to improve the efficiency of solar panels. There are signs and billboards for the solar industry all over the place. (A strange thing, given that, between the clouds, rain, and pollution, you can easily go a week in China without seeing the sun.)
And yet China's impressive, frequently astonishing growth is powered almost exclusively by non-renewable fossil fuels. A note in the brochure for the Xi'An National Civil Aerospace industrial Base says it plans "to build 6 high-temperature coal-fired boilers with total heating supply of 696 MW." (That's enough to power about 70,000 U.S. homes)
In economies like China's, electricity usage rises at about 70-80 percent of the rate of the economy, so if China grows 10 percent, its need for electricity rises 7 to 8 percent. Add in the fact that China retires some dirty coal plants each year, and it needs to add a huge amount of electrical capacity just to keep up with demand. China's electrical capacity is expected to rise about 8.8 percent in 2011 to 1050 gigawatts. And most of that growth will come from coal-fired plants, perhaps the least sustainable form of electricity generation available. Solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of China's electricity generation. Given the pace of growth, it's very difficult for alternative energy like wind and solar power to gain market share in China.
Then there's the traffic — oh lord, the traffic. The process of urbanization in Xi'an is, in some ways, just beginning. And yet at rush hour it can easily take an hour to move six miles through the wide boulevards that are clogged with vehicles. There's not a hybrid or electric vehicle in sight. Yes, oil production continues to grow. But it's difficult to imagine it keeping pace with the rise in car sales, economic activity, and gas-sucking traffic in China.
The beeping and the braking, the chalky air, the new terminal at Xi'an's airport, the blinking lights and the construction cranes that loom like sentries in the mist — all these are signs that China, which essentially sat out the 20th century, is finally standing up. Almost by definition, China's rising living standards will lead to more intensive resource use. As China's 1.3 billion people start to consume like Americans long have, we'd be well advised to figure out how to do more with less — and to read a little Malthus.
Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance. He's traveling in China this week under the auspices of the China U.S. Exchange Foundation.
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中国が新ナビゲーション衛星を試験運用
China begins using new global positioning satellite
Reuters – 3 hours ago
BEIJING (Reuters) - China took a further step on Tuesday toward ending its dependence on U.S. satellites to provide navigation and positioning services with the start of trial operations of its homegrown Beidou system.
China started a drive to end its reliance on the U.S. global positioning system in 2000, when it sent an experimental pair of positioning satellites into orbit.
Ran Chengqi, spokesman for the new system, told reporters that Beidou, or "Big Dipper," would cover most parts of the Asia Pacific by next year and then the world by 2020.
China has already launched 10 satellites to support Beidou and would launch another six next year, he said.
State media have said the system will eventually comprise 35 satellites, which will be used for a variety of sectors including fisheries, meteorology and telecommunications.
China has ambitious plans for space, including a space station and a manned trip to the moon.
While China has vowed never to militarize space, experts say it is ramping up the military use of space with new satellites.
The successful missile "kill" of an old satellite in early 2007 represented a new level of ability for the Chinese military, and last year China successfully tested emerging technology aimed at destroying missiles in mid-air.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
中国が時速５００キロ超の列車試験運転へ
China tests 500 km/h super high-speed train
2011/12/27
BEIJING (Reuters) - China launched a super-rapid test train over the weekend which is capable of travelling 500 kilometers per hour, state media said on Monday, as the country moves ahead with its railway ambitions despite serious problems on its high-speed network.
The train, made by a subsidiary of CSR Corp Ltd, China's largest train maker, is designed to resemble an ancient Chinese sword, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
It "will provide useful reference for current high-speed railway operations," it quoted train expert Shen Zhiyun as saying.
But future Chinese trains will not necessarily run at such high speeds, CSR chairman Zhao Xiaogang told the Beijing Morning News.
"We aims to ensure the safety of trains operation," he said.
China's railway industry has had a tough year, highlighted by a collision between two high-speed trains in July which killed at least 40 people. Construction of new high-speed trains in China has since been a near halt.
In February, the railways minister, Liu Zhijun, a key figure behind the boom in the sector, was dismissed over corruption charges that have not yet been tried in court.
Visitors board a new testing model of a CSR high-speed bullet train during its launching ceremony in Qingdao, Shandong province December 23, 2011. China launched a super-rapid test train over the weekend which is capable of travelling 500 kilometers per hour, state media said on Monday. Picture taken December 23, 2011. REUTERS/China Daily
(Reporting by Sabrina Mao and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)
中国の人道主義者の運命（反体制という言葉より適している）
Blind Chinese Activist Escapes from House Arrest, Said to Enter U.S. Protection
By Hannah Beech | April 2012
On April 22, Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese legal activist named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2006, escaped from detention in eastern Shandong province, according to He Peirong, an online advocate who has followed Chen’s case for several years. He, an English teacher who was galvanized by Chen’s plight to engage in human-rights campaigning, said that Chen contacted her after his escape from his village house, which has been heavily guarded by local security personnel for years. In a post on Chinese microblog site Sina Weibo on the evening of April 26, He said that after Chen called her, she drove a car to Shandong to pick him up and “hid him in a safe place.”
By the morning of April 27, rumors floated online that Chen — who has been jailed, beaten and harassed for years because of his legal activism on behalf of women who were forced to abort late-term fetuses that were seen as contravening local family-planning regulations — had sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. A day later, ChinaAid, a U.S.-based rights group that for years has been advocating on behalf of one of China’s best-known activists, released a statement saying that it had “learned from a source close to the Chen Guangcheng situation that Chen is under U.S. protection and high level talks are currently under way between U.S. and Chinese officials regarding Chen’s status.” ChinaAid President Bob Fu, a Christian activist who suffered persecution in his native country, said: “This is a pivotal moment for U.S. human rights diplomacy. Because of Chen’s wide popularity, the Obama Administration must stand firmly with him or risk losing credibility as a defender of freedom and the rule of law. If there is a reason why Chinese dissidents revere the U.S., it is for a moment like this.” The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has refused to comment on the matter. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has in the past publicly urged the Chinese government to stop its persecution of Chen. She will be in Beijing next week for economic talks between the two nations.
This isn’t the first time a high-profile Chinese has sought American protection, complicating relations between the two powers. In February, Wang Lijun, a lieutenant of disgraced Chongqing chief Bo Xilai, made a mad dash to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, where he holed up for 24 hours and leaked incriminating information about his former boss to American diplomats. The former Chongqing police chief, who has been linked with torture and organ-transplantation, then left U.S. custody of his own accord, according to both American and Chinese statements. Back in 1989, as Beijing was still reeling from the bloodshed of the Tiananmen tragedy and pro-democracy protesters were being rounded up by security forces, Fang Lizhi, a democracy activist and astrophysicist who was often dubbed a Chinese Sakharov, fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He stayed there for more than a year before being allowed to leave China. He died this month in exile in Arizona at age 76.
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In 2005, I met Chen Guangcheng, then a barely known, self-taught legal activist, for a story I was writing on his advocacy on behalf of women who had been forced to undergo abortions or sterilizations by officials in Shandong’s Linyi city. Such local punitive measures in fact contravened national regulations on the application of China’s so-called one-child policy, but officials in Linyi were worried that their promotions would be compromised because of a high number of extra births in their region. With Chen’s help, I met several local women from Linyi, including one who said local doctors strapped her down and shoved a poison-filled needle into her abdomen two days before her due date, killing the baby. “Someone has to fight for people with no voice,” Chen told me. “I guess that person is me.”
But just a few hours after our last meeting in Beijing in 2005, local security from Shandong showed up in the Chinese capital, hustled Chen into an unmarked vehicle and took him back home. Since then, he has been in detention, either in jail or under house arrest, along with his wife and child. In 2006, he was sentenced to more than four years in jail on seemingly trumped-up charges of “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic.” Upon his release, Chen was forced into house arrest, along with his wife and daughter. At times, dozens of security officials and local thugs have guarded his home, which remains inaccessible to visiting advocates and local and foreign media.
During one of our meetings in Shanghai and Beijing, Chen described how he had evaded local security who were already guarding his home and trying to prevent him from leaving in the late summer of 2005. Because he was blind, he said, he decided to escape at night when those guarding him would be at a disadvantage. Sneaking into a nearby cornfield with a family member, he began throwing gravel in different directions to confuse the security personnel who were trying to follow him. “The night gives me an advantage,” Chen said. “I can navigate better than people with sight can.” After walking for kilometers and meeting up with a friend, Chen was able to drive to safety and eventually turn up in Shanghai and later Beijing, where he tried to meet with national family-planning officials to tell them about the abuses in Linyi.
On Friday afternoon, a 15-minute video was uploaded on YouTube, which is blocked in China, showing Chen in an undisclosed location, reportedly after he fled house arrest. “I’m here to confirm that everything on the Internet and the accusation about Linyi’s atrocities committed against me are all true,” he said. “What actually happened was worse than what people have talked about online.” In the video, Chen went on to directly ask China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, who has emerged as a relatively reformist voice within the country’s central leadership, to personally intervene in his case. Describing the multiple beatings he and his wife sustained, Chen demanded: “You have to find out and punish the person according to the law. Matters like this are too detrimental to the Communist Party’s image.” The blind advocate, who was filmed wearing aviator sunglasses, also listed the names of some of the local officials he accused of persecuting him and his family. Finally, he pleaded on behalf of his relatives who are still back in Linyi’s Dongshigu village. “Even though I managed to escape, my family are still in their hands,” he said. “My family may face crazy revenge from them. I’m asking the Chinese government to secure the security of my family. If anything happens to them, I will never give up on pursuing whoever is responsible.”
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Human Rights in China (HRIC), a New York City–based NGO, published a statement on Friday based on a conversation with his nephew Chen Kegui, whose house is just 200 m away from Chen Guangcheng’s. The nephew told HRIC that on April 26, his mother heard one of the guards stationed at the detained legal activist’s residence saying, “Chen Guangcheng is no longer here.” The same day the nephew reported that his father and another of the activist’s brothers were taken away from his house by local authorities. Early on April 27, Chen Kegui told HRIC that local security forces again entered his home and he fought back using kitchen knives before fleeing the area.
The ongoing drama surrounding Chen Guangcheng’s whereabouts has catalyzed China’s online community of human-right sympathizers. “For Chen personally, it’s a good thing because he gained his freedom again,” an entrepreneur surnamed Liu, who heard about Chen’s case and decided to engage in activism on his behalf, said by phone. “But I’m not satisfied that there has been any resolution in his case, because he has suffered so many insults for such a long time and no one has been punished for what they did to him.” Last October, Liu joined a dozen or so other Chinese online campaigners who traveled to Chen’s village to try to meet him. They say that local thugs robbed them and beat them. Last year, when Hollywood actor Christian Bale tried to do the same thing, amid the glare of trailing CNN cameras, he was also brusquely escorted out of the region.
Meanwhile, online activist He appears to have been taken away by security personnel in Nanjing, where she lives. Her main Weibo account has been shut down by Chinese authorities. A call to one of her mobile numbers was answered by a man who curtly said, “Wrong number,” before hanging up. He’s second-to-last message on Twitter, which is blocked in China but accessible to those using a VPN, was posted early on Friday morning, saying those sympathetic to Chen’s case should drive to Shandong and head to State Route 205 because his nephew Chen Kegui was somewhere on that road trying to escape. “Please offer necessary help to him,” she wrote. “I cannot set out anymore or else I would drive there myself.”
— With reporting by Chengcheng Jiang / Beijing
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廃棄物垂れ流しの臭い強し。
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1,000 dead ducks pulled from river in southwest China
Officials have found more than 1,000 deceased ducks in the Nanhe River in Sichuan province. The news comes on top of reports that the number of pig carcasses pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu River has topped 16,000.
By Victoria Taylor / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 3:41 PM
NBC-picture:Officials said they are investigating the origin of the dead ducks.
First a river that feeds into Shanghai was was filled with dead pigs, now a second river is flowing with dead animals of a different feather.
Dead ducks — more than 1,000 of them — were found in a river in southwest China’s Sichuan province, according to state news agency Xinhua.
NBC-picture:More than 1,000 dead ducks have been removed from a river in southwest China.
The birds surfaced in 50 plastic woven bags in the Nanhe river in Pengshan county. BBC reported that Liang Weidong, the deputy director of Pengshan's publicity office, said that authorities became aware of the situation on Tuesday. They have since removed more than 1,000 deceased ducks, which have been disinfected and buried in a designated area, Liang said.
NBC-picture:The news of the deceased birds came after officials reported that the number of dead pigs removed from a Shanghai river has surpassed 16,000.
Officials have not determined what killed the ducks, and an investigation is ongoing to see where the birds came from, according to Xinhua.
NBC-picture:Local officials said the residents are not at risk because the Nanhe river is not used for drinking water.
The river is not used for drinking water, and BBC reports that officials have told residents that they are not at risk.
Earlier this month, officials began removing dead pigs from Shanghai’s Huangpu river, which provides the city with 22 percent of its tap water. The deceased hog toll has surpassed 16,000. The origin of the pig corpses remains a mystery, and the swine scandal has sparked public concern.
Release the hounds! Kim Jong Un executed uncle by feeding him to pack of starving dogs
Jang Song Thaek was stripped naked, thrown in a cage and mauled by 120 hunting dogs that had been starved for five days, according to a report in a Hong Kong newspaper. Kim Jong Un and 300 officials reportedly watched the gruesome hour-long horror show.
By Stephen Rex Brown / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, January 3, 2014, 10:25 AM
Kim Jong Un literally threw his uncle to the dogs.
The North Korean leader executed his high-ranking uncle by having him stripped, thrown into a cage and eaten alive by 120 starving hounds as the despot himself looked on, the Singaporean Straits Times reports, citing an article in a Hong Kong paper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.
Jang Song Thaek, 67, was dramatically ousted from his position as Kim’s second-in-command last month. Photos showed him being removed from a meeting in Pyongyang of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.
State media labeled him a traitor and “despicable human scum” but never specified how Jang was executed.
Now, the newspaper Wen Wei Po reports that Kim and his brother monitored the gruesome one-hour long execution along with 300 other officials.
Jang and five of his aides were mauled by the 120 hunting dogs that had been starved for five days, according to the Singaporean Straits Times.
The victims were “completely eaten up,” the report said.
Before his stunning downfall, Jang was seen as a moderate influence pushing for more economic engagement with neighboring China.
Jang, who was married to Kim’s paternal aunt, also was thought to serve as a mentor to the all-powerful 30-year-old leader who assumed power only two years ago.
There was no way to confirm the horrific details of the supervillian-style execution.
The Telegraph cautioned that the wild story could serve as a message from China’s ruling party to Pyongyang, given that Chinese officials are said to be outraged about his execution.
Aung San Suu Kyi: The Nelson Mandela of Myanmar?
By Ingrid Piper and Moni Basu, CNN/Nov 9, 2015
(CNN) ― She's the living symbol of Myanmar's long struggle for democracy and the country's most loved politician. Now -- and not for the first time -- Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are on the brink of making history.
The 70-year-old former political prisoner and Nobel laureate appears to have led her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party to a resounding victory in the first freely held national elections in 25 years. Suu Kyi herself was reelected to her seat in the Kawhmu constituency in Yangon.
Many believe the elections will bring an end to decades of military rule in the onetime pariah state -- and still more have pinned their hopes for a new era of democracy on Suu Kyi.
■The daughter of a national hero
The affection people have for Suu Kyi is partly due to her father, Aung San, a military officer who became known as the founding father of independent Burma (now officially known as Myanmar).
He was assassinated by political rivals in 1947, when Suu Kyi was just 2 years old.
Suu Kyi -- known to many today as "The Lady" -- spent much of her early life abroad, going to school in India and at Oxford University in England.
She never sought political office. Rather, leadership was bestowed upon her when she returned home in 1988 after her mother suffered a stroke.
■Suu Kyi's move into politics
After her mother died, Suu Kyi vowed that just as her parents had served the people of Burma, so, too, would she.
In 1990, Suu Kyi led her newly-founded NLD party to victory in elections, but Myanmar's military annulled the results and placed Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of the next 20 years.
But imprisonment couldn't restrain Suu Kyi's calls for democracy in Myanmar, and support for her continued to grow nationally and around the world. She has been compared to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison fighting to end apartheid in South Africa before emerging as president.
In 1991 she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to democratize Myanmar -- an award she wouldn't be able to pick up in person until 2012.
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■Life in captivity
She has remained a devoted Buddhist who from the beginning admired the principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience espoused by India's Mahatma Gandhi, according to Nyo Ohn Myint, a professor who serves as one of the leaders in the NLD.
Suu Kyi tried to break the monotony of her life under house arrest by playing her piano, another passion in her life, according to the independent Irrawaddy magazine.
In 2007, people defiantly took to the streets to protest rising fuel costs, and the regime answered with a brutal crackdown. Suu Kyi's detention was extended again and again, and she appeared gaunt and unhappy.
In 2010, Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, part of a transition to a civilian system of government in Myanmar.
Her party was allowed to compete in by-elections in 2012 and won dozens of seats in the parliament, including one for Suu Kyi herself.
■Why Suu Kyi can't be president
But even if the NLD wins the election, Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by the military-drafted constitution, which prohibits anyone with foreign family members from assuming the top office.
Suu Kyi's late husband -- who died in England in 1999 while she was under house arrest -- was British, and her two sons have British passports.
The constitution also says that the parliament -- which includes members of the upper and lower houses together with unelected military officials -- must choose the next president.
■Suu Kyi's 'simple message'
But Suu Kyi has remained, as always, defiant in the face of long odds.
"If we win and the NLD forms a government I will be above the president. It's a very simple message," she told a news conference in Yangon in early November.
Some have said that Suu Kyi's stubborn defiance over the years became an obstacle to progress in Myanmar. But her followers remain ardent in their admiration. She has clung to her dream of democracy, peace and freedom for Myanmar's 50 million impoverished people, they say.
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北朝鮮による暗殺劇の裏側
Malaysian airport assassination focuses new attention on North Korean leader
By Anna Fifield February 15, 2017 at 5:22 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia ― Terminal 2 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport was convulsing with its usual Monday morning chaos. Passengers were crowding around self-check-in kiosks for no-frills flights to Bali and Cebu and Da Nang, cramming belongings into their carry-ons.
One of those navigating the cavernous white terminal was a rotund Asian man traveling alone, checking in for a flight to Macau after a week in Malaysia.
The nearby Starbucks was full of people camped out waiting for their flights, and the noise was so loud that the workers at the cafe selling Malaysian soup and noodles did not notice anything amiss just a few yards away.
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There, near a counter in the check-in area, the man was suddenly set upon by two attractive young women who looked like any other travelers heading off on vacation. One was wearing a white sweater emblazoned with “LOL” and a short flowery skirt, her lips painted dark red and her hair cut in a femme-fatale bob.
What followed was an assassination that, complete with a honey trap and a public poisoning, has focused new attention on Kim Jong Un, the 33-year-old leader of North Korea, suggesting he will stop at nothing to keep power.
For the victim was his older half brother, Kim Jong Nam, traveling on an apparently fake passport that said he was a 46-year-old named Kim Chol. It was an attack that South Korea’s spy chief asserted was directly ordered from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
One of the women grabbed the man as the other sprayed liquid on his face and held a cloth over it for about 10 seconds.
In the hullabaloo of the check-in area, no one even seemed to notice. This account of the attack and its aftermath was pieced together from interviews with staff at the airport, police and other official statements, and leaks to the local media.
The women left swiftly, but not that swiftly. They went down three sets of escalators, past an H&M and a Baskin-Robbins, and out of the terminal to a taxi stand, where they needed to buy a voucher for their journey before lining up for a cab. They got in and told the driver to take them to the Empire Hotel, some 40 minutes from the airport.
Where are you from, the driver asked. Vietnam, the women responded.
Inside the terminal, Kim Jong Nam, feeling dizzy and apparently unable to see, stumbled to one of the counters to seek help. He was taken to a medical clinic inside the terminal, where he had a mild seizure, then was loaded into an ambulance.
He didn’t make it to the hospital. He died en route. And Malaysian officials soon discovered the real identity of the man who had been living in a kind of exile for the past 15 years.
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