In the midst of all our economic problems, the three-day visit of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping to this country is much more than a welcome diversion.

Kim Jong Il’s son and successor was declared “supreme leader” of North Korea’s ruling party, military and the people during a memorial today for his father in the first public endorsement of his leadership by the government.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans lined the snowy streets of Pyongyang today, wailing and clutching their chests as a black hearse carrying late leader Kim Jong Il’s body wound its way through the capital for a final farewell.

North Korea’s next leader led a funeral procession for his father Kim Jong Il through Pyongyang’s snow-covered streets.

Suicide bombers carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three US-based hotels in the Jordanian capital last night, killing at least 57 people and wounding at least 115 in an al-Qaida-style assault on the Arab kingdom with close ties to the United States and a border with Iraq.

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin submitted his resignation today from his last official post as chairman of a largely ceremonial government military panel, the government said, completing a long-planned retirement.

THE entire 70-man crew of a diesel-powered Chinese submarine was killed when the vessel had an “accident” while on an exercise in the Yellow Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency revealed yesterday.