David Miscavige

David Miscavige (/ˌmɪsˈkævədʒ/; born April 30, 1960) is the leader of the Church of Scientology. His official title is Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (RTC), a corporation that controls the trademarks and copyrights of Dianetics and Scientology.

Miscavige was a deputy to church founder L. Ron Hubbard (a "Commodore's messenger") while he was a teenager. He rose to a leadership position by the early 1980s and was named Chairman of the Board of RTC in 1987. Official church biographies describe Miscavige as "the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion" and celebrate his accomplishments, including obtaining recognition as a tax-favored charity by the US Internal Revenue Service, issuing restored and corrected editions of the works of L. Ron Hubbard and undertaking a program of new or remodeled churches and related facilities.

Since he assumed his leadership position, there have been a number of allegations made against Miscavige. These include claims of forced separation of family members, coercive fundraising practices, harassment of journalists and church critics, and humiliation of church staff members, including physical assaults upon them by Miscavige. Miscavige and church spokespersons deny the majority of these claims, often criticizing the credibility of those who bring them.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Hyeonseo Lee (Korean: 이현서, born 1981 or 1982) is a North Korean defector and activist who now lives in South Korea, where she is a student. She escaped from North Korea, and later personally guided her family to freedom from the country through China and Laos.

Early life in North Korea

Lee grew up in Hyesan, North Korea. "When I was young, I thought my country was the best on the planet," Lee explained in her TED talk in February 2013. "I grew up singing a song called ‘Nothing to Envy’. I felt very proud. I thought my life in North Korea was normal, even though when I was seven years old, I saw my first public execution." Her family was not poor, but after the North Korean famine struck in the 1990s, she witnessed much suffering and death.

She later recalled a letter her mother received from the sister of a colleague, stating "When you read this, all five family members will not exist in this world, because we haven't eaten for the past two weeks… We are lying on the floor together, and our bodies are so weak we are ready to die." Not long afterwards, Lee "saw another shocking sight outside a train station – a woman was lying on the ground apparently dead, with a starving child in her arms staring at her face." Lee later said, "Nobody helped them, because they were so focused on taking care of themselves and their families."

The Stars

The Stars is a Japanese psychedelic rock band. It consists of ex-members of the band White Heaven including Michio Kurihara (Ghost, collaborations with Boris, Ai Aso) on guitar, You Ishihara on vocals and Chiyo Kamekawa on bass.

Discography

Notes

Beyond: Two Souls

Beyond: Two Souls is an interactive drama action-adventure video game for the PlayStation 3 home video game console, created by French game developer Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released in October of 2013. The game features Jodie Holmes, one of two player characters. The other is an incorporeal entity named Aiden: a separate soul linked to Jodie since birth. Jodie, who is portrayed by actress Ellen Page, possesses supernatural powers through her psychic link to Aiden, growing from adolescence to adulthood while learning to control Aiden and the powers they share. Willem Dafoe co-stars as Nathan Dawkins, a researcher in the Department of Paranormal Activity and Jodie's surrogate-father-figure. The actors in the game worked during the year-long project in Quantic Dream's Paris studio to perform on-set voice acting and motion capture acting.

Despite being a video game, Beyond: Two Souls premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, marking only the second time the film festival recognised a video game. David Cage, writer and director of the game, explained that game development studios should provide "interactive storytelling" that can be played by everyone, including non-gamers. The game received polarized critical reception upon its release. Sales reached over one million copies worldwide by the end of 2013. A PlayStation 4 version was released in November 2015.

North Korea

Coordinates: 40°00′N 127°00′E / 40.000°N 127.000°E / 40.000; 127.000

North Korea ( listen), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국; hancha: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國; MR: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), is a country in East Asia, in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name Korea is derived from the Kingdom of Goguryeo, also spelled as Koryŏ. The capital and largest city is Pyongyang. North Korea shares a land border with China to the north and northwest, along the Amnok (Yalu) and Tumen rivers, and a small section of the Tumen River also forms a border with Russia to the northeast. The Korean Demilitarized Zone marks the boundary between North Korea and South Korea.

Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones by the United States and the Soviet Union, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south by the Americans. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–53). Although the Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, no official peace treaty was ever signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991.