SEOUL – North Korea’s former military chief of staff who was reported executed earlier this year is apparently alive and well after being named Tuesday in a number of senior ruling party posts.

Intelligence reports in South Korea had suggested Ri Yong-Gil, former chief of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) General Staff, was executed in February on accusations of corruption and forming a political faction.

Although the reports were never confirmed by Pyongyang, North Korea named a new chief of staff, Ri Myong-Su, in the same month.

The change came at a time of highly elevated tensions on the divided Korean peninsula following the North’s nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch.

But on Tuesday, Ri Yong-Gil’s name appeared on a list of the newly-elected members of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee, as an alternate member of the politburo and a member of the party’s central military commission.

Reports – some confirmed, some not – of purges, executions and disappearances have been common since Kim Jong-Un took power following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in December 2011.

A large number of senior officials, especially military cadres, were removed or demoted as the young leader sought to solidify his control over the powerful army.

In the most high-profile case, Kim had his influential uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, executed in December 2013 for charges including treason and corruption.

Uncle of North Korean leader executed

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KATHMANDU – Climbers on Mount Everest are on the brink of the first attempts in three years to make the final ascent to the world’s tallest peak, after fatal avalanches cut short the 2014 and 2015 campaigns.

Teams at forward camps are looking for a weather “window” to open in the next few days, clearing the way to the 8,850 metre (29,035 foot summit) along the Southeast Ridge first climbed by New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

The southern route, on the Nepali side of the mountain, has suffered tragedy over the past two years, with 16 sherpa guides killed by an avalanche in the treacherous Khumbu Icefall in 2014.

At least 13 killed in Mount Everest’s deadliest avalanche

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Last year, an earthquake that killed 9,000 people across Nepal sent a massive snowslide crashing into Base Camp, killing at least 18 climbers and guides and putting an end to that year’s campaign.

At least 289 climbers and their guides are in different high camps waiting for a weather window and jostling to become the first to scale the peak. Nearly 700 people summitted in 2013.

Tourism Department official Gyanendra Shrestha said climbers had fixed ropes up to the South Col, the final camp, at about 8,000 metres (26,246 feet), and were stocking it with supplies. “Climbers have begun to move from the base camp to higher camps for the summit,” Shrestha told Reuters from Base Camp.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, who is in touch with climbers at Base Camp, said in Kathmandu that, weather permitting, the route from the South Col to the summit would be fixed on Wednesday.

“Climbers will then start making summit attempts from Thursday,” Sherpa told Reuters.

Veteran mountaineer and blogger Alan Arnette, tracking the campaign, said in a post eight teams had slept at Camp 3 – at 7,162 metres (23,497 feet).

Unpredictable weather remains a challenge though this year’s campaign has been free of incident.

Climbers from around the world spend tens of thousands of dollars to try to climb Everest every year though none reached the summit in last year’s spring campaign.

Last September, Japan’s Nobukazu Kuriki, 33, had to call off his solo attempt when he was beaten back by wind and snow at 8,150 metres (26,738 feet).

Wang Jing, a 40-year-old Chinese woman, was the only person to climb Everest in 2014 but her ascent sparked controversy amid reports she took a helicopter over the Khumbu Icefall, in what many Everest climbers saw as a violation of their code.

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AFP, Reuters

CURUP, Indonesia – Seven Indonesian teenagers were jailed Tuesday for the brutal murder and gang rape of a 14-year-old girl that sparked a national debate on sexual violence.

They were among a gang who set upon the schoolgirl while she was on her way home in a small village on the western island of Sumatra.

Her battered body was found three days later in woods, tied up and naked, and 12 people were arrested over the attack.

On Tuesday seven attackers, aged 16 and 17, were found guilty at a court in the Curup district of Sumatra and sentenced to 10 years in jail each.

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AFP

“This is in line with our demands,” said Eko Hening Wardhono, an official from the attorney-general’s office, adding that police were still investigating the other five.

A further two suspects are still on the run.

The crime took place in early April but it only caught the attention of the nation a month later, as reports of the incident went viral on social media and tens of thousands signed online petitions.

The case led activists to call for harsher punishments for sex attackers and sparked protests in the capital Jakarta. It also prompted President Joko Widodo to call for better protection for women.

It has drawn comparisons with the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012, which sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of India’s rape laws.

Activist Rita Pranawati, from government-backed rights group the Indonesian Child Protection Commission, welcomed Tuesday’s jail terms but said more needed to be done to tackle the root causes of sexual violence.

“Cases like this happen due to various reasons, from parenting problems, to bad education and drinking problems,” she said.

Sexual violence against women is rampant in Indonesia, according to the National Commission on Violence Against Women.