East Germany's 'Purple Witch' Dies In Chile

The former first lady of East Germany, Margot Honecker, has been cremated in Chile a day after she died of cancer at the age of 89.

Mrs Honecker had moved to South America in 1992, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In her own country she was known as the "purple witch", after her dyed hair, and because of the communist government’s repressive regime. 

Despite her husband Erich Honecker’s administration being described as a dictatorship that crushed dissent and spied on its citizens, Mrs Honecker remained unrepentant.    

Speaking in 2000, she said that, in East Germany, "there was no unemployment, no homelessness, no property speculation, no rent extortion.

"Proper apartments, fair rents, health, culture, education for all, kindergarten for the young, pensions for the old: all that was reality.

"The elections were free, secret and equal."

But critics told a very different story.

Former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse described her as "the most hated person" in East Germany after the head of the Stasi secret police, Erich Mielke.  

Mrs Honecker was East Germany’s education minister for 26 years. 

In 1978, despite opposition from parents and churches, she introduced military lessons for 9th and 10th grade pupils, including weapons training. 

She said that youngsters had to defend socialism "if necessary with a weapon in the hand".

It was also claimed that she was responsible for the forced adoption of jailed dissidents’ children, or the offspring of those who tried to leave East Germany.

Education Ministry files discovered in 1991 appeared to confirm the allegations.

In one case, a couple expelled to the west were apparently forced to abandon their three children.

But when asked about a programme of forced adoption, Mrs Honecker said: "It didn’t exist."

Erich and Margot Honecker at Santiago Airport in January 1993

Born in 1927, she joined the Communist Party in 1945.

In 1950, at the age of 22, she became the youngest lawmaker in the East German parliament. 

She married Erich Honecker in 1953.

Two months after the reunification of Germany in October 1990, Erich Honecker was charged with manslaughter for ordering shootings along the east-west border.

The couple took refuge in a Soviet military hospital outside Berlin, and in March 1991 were taken to Moscow.

In a TV interview two months later, Margot Honecker complained of a "witch hunt" and said their names had been "dragged through the mud".

When the Soviet Union collapsed later that year, they took refuge at the Chilean Embassy in Moscow. 

Erich Honecker was extradited to Berlin for trial in 1992, but proceedings were halted in 1993 because he had liver cancer.

He then joined his wife in Santiago - where she had fled to avoid also being extradited to Germany - before his death in 1994. 

Saudi Arabia sacks oil minister in government shake-up

Saudi Arabia has sacked its oil minister Ali al-Naimi as part of a major cabinet reshuffle, state media reported.

Naimi was replaced by former health minister Khaled al-Faleh in the overhaul announced on Saturday.

Blind Woman Sees Again - After Falling Over

For more than two decades, Mary Ann Franco was blind after a car accident in 1995 damaged her spine and left her unable to see.

But after having a fall at her home in South Florida and injuring her neck, she had an operation to alleviate pain in her arm and back. It also somehow corrected her vision.

She said: "In the mornings, I get up, and I look out here and the sun is coming through the trees, and the beams [are] coming down.

"Oh, God, it's so wonderful to see."

Experts believe that Mary Ann’s car accident may have partially blocked or kinked an artery in her spine, which caused her to go blind.

Dr John Afshar, the neurosurgeon who operated on her, said the recent surgery may have remedied this.

"I've never seen it, never heard of it," he said.

"When we give that extra amount of blood flow by unkinking the vessel, it could have re-established the blood flow, but this is all theoretical."

Mrs Franco, 70, puts her newfound eyesight down to a miracle and says she is simply overjoyed at seeing her loved ones again after 21 years.

Not only did Mrs Franco regain her sight, she also says she was colour blind before her accident and that has changed too.

ETA Member Jailed Over Plot To Kill King

A member of Basque separatist group ETA has been sentenced to 92 years in prison over a plot to kill the former Spanish king after being arrested in the UK.

Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui had planned to assassinate then King Juan Carlos during the opening of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, on 18 October, 1997

The attack was foiled five days earlier when police approached him and another ETA member as they tried to hide grenades in flower pots outside the building.

Spain's National Court heard how Gogeaskoetxea managed to escape when he shot dead a police officer at close range during a firefight.

The 49-year-old was eventually caught in Cambridge in the UK in 2011, after a fellow Spaniard recognised him at a squash club.

He had been living there for several years under a false identity.

Gogeaskoetxea's lawyers had fought his extradition to Spain, arguing he faced a real risk of "a flagrant denial of justice" in the country.

They said this was because the accusations against him were based on the confessions of a co-defendant who was allegedly denied proper access to a lawyer.

In 2012, Britain's High Court rejected the appeal and he was extradited.

The Guggenheim museum in Bilbao

Gogeaskoetxea was sentenced to 30 years for murdering a police officer and another 15 years for conspiring against the monarchy.

He was also given 47 years behind bars for several other crimes related to the plot including forgery of public documents and possessing weapons.

Under Spanish law, a convicted criminal can serve a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, unless he is convicted of carrying out deadly terrorist attacks.

ETA's last deadly attack in Spain was seven years ago.

In October 2011, it declared a "definitive end to armed activity" but it has yet to formally disband or disarm.

It is blamed for more than 800 killings in its campaign to create an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.

ETA has been linked to several other assassination plots on Juan Carlos, who abdicated the throne to his son Felipe in 2014.

Kim's Reality Only One Allowed In North Korea

To thunderous applause in the capital's cavernous House of Culture, Kim Jong-Un laid out what he claimed were the great successes of his leadership so far.

He lauded the country’s "first hydrogen bomb test", its launch of an "earth observation satellite" - "landmarks in the nation's history," he said, that would defend the "dignity" and "self-reliance" of the nation.

Both were in breach of existing Security Council resolutions, the latter widely seen as a test of banned long-range missile technology, and have resulted in more sanctions on this already impoverished and tightly-sanctioned country.

:: North Korea Images Fuel Fears Of New Nuclear Tests

Foreign journalists watch Kim's speech from a hotel's media room

But that's not the way it's being reported here.

North Korea's state television showed sweeping camera angles of the young leader addressing the party faithful, his generals roaring their approval, trembling, tearful officials overcome with the emotion of it all.

Unsurprisingly, there was no suggestion that any of the country's problems might be related to his actions - instead Mr Kim blamed the "unprecedentedly hard times" on the collapse of the world socialist system. 

"The allied imperialist forces concentrated their anti-socialist offensive on our Republic, our Party and people were compelled to fight against them single-handed."

In other words - this is an ideological struggle, his country the last bastion of the great socialist dream, and he the one man who can defend it against the capitalist enemies he insists are ranged beyond the border.

His version of reality is the only reality here - in this authoritarian, one-party state, no other perspectives are permitted.

Sky News has been allowed in to the country to report from the capital, but under the close supervision of government-assigned minders, and nowhere near the congress itself.

On Friday we were allowed to film the building from a distance, but that was as close as we got.

Today, as the congress entered its second day, we were taken to film a tourist park outside Pyongyang.

We were led through manicured gardens, past gleaming ponds, at one point there was a musical tree.

Guides in flowing traditional dresses showed us around a gallery of paintings of the "Eternal President" (Kim Jong Un's grandfather) Kim Il Sung.

In reverential tones, they described his heroic exploits as an anti-Japanese resistance fighter, his selfless sacrifice for the country's liberation.

The founding president is worshipped as a god here - no other forms of religion are allowed.

One journalist was forced to delete a photo from his phone that was judged to be improperly framed, cutting off part of the face of the late Kim Jong-Il, it would offend the great leaders, he was told.

As we walked, I tried to ask our guide about the path her leader is pursuing - unsurprisingly, with our phalanx of dark-suited officials looking on, she declared her unfaltering admiration.

The country's pursuit of nuclear weapons, she insisted, was the only way to keep it safe.

Wasn't that pursuit bringing more sanctions though, I asked, making people's lives here harder, the country even poor?

"Seeing is believing," she told me, people should come here and "see the truth" for themselves.

We would very much like to, but unfortunately our view is strictly-controlled.

DNA Testing Of Prince's Blood Can Go Ahead

A judge has authorised the release of a sample of Prince's blood so his DNA can be analysed in the event of a paternity claim.

The order was approved at the request of the special administrator of Prince’s estate, Bremer Trust, to obtain the blood sample from the Midwest Medical Examiner, which conducted the autopsy on the singer's body.

 Minnesota District Court Judge Kevin Eide said that parentage issues might arise as the probate case goes forward.

He had one child with his first wife, Mayte Garcia, in 1996, but the boy died just days after being born.

The exact value of Prince's estate has not yet been disclosed but his music catalogue alone has been estimated at over $500m.

Administrators of his estate said earlier this week they still had not found a will.

In the absence of a will, six siblings or half-siblings of the star have been listed as his heirs in court documents.

Investigators are still trying to establish how Prince died, but they are looking into whether prescription painkillers played a role.

They want to interview a California doctor and his son about a prescription drug the son may have given to Prince before he was found dead.

Police in California say they want to know if Dr Howard Kornfeld and son Andrew Kornfeld had a longer term medical relationship with Prince.

They say neither is accused of wrong-doing.

N Korea Images Fuel Fears Of New Nuke Test

Kim Jong Un has defended his country's nuclear weapons programme at North Korea's first full congress of its ruling party since 1980.

It comes amid signs the isolated state is about to carry out another nuclear test, according to a US website that monitors the isolated nation.

In his opening address, Kim hailed the "magnificent... and thrilling" nuclear test carried out on 6 January, which Pyongyang claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb.

The test and long-range rocket launch that followed a month later had "smashed the hostile forces' vicious manoeuvres geared to sanctions and strangulation, and displayed to the world the indomitable spirit, daring grit and inexhaustible strength of heroic Korea", Kim said.

North Korea has conducted a total of four nuclear tests, two of them since Kim came to power in late 2011 following the death of his father and former leader Kim Jong Il.

Speculation that the North might be about to make a fifth test, in defiance of UN sanctions, was fuelled by recent satellite imagery of a nuclear test site in the northeast of the country.

Analysts at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said the presence of vehicles at the complex's test command centre signalled the possibility of a test "in the near future".

"While the historical record is incomplete, it appears that vehicles are not often seen there except during preparations for a test," they said.

Most experts have doubted the North's hydrogen bomb claim.

However, they acknowledge the strides the North has made under Kim towards its goal of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking targets in the US.

The once-in-a-generation gathering of the country's top decision-making body is being scrutinised for signs of any substantive policy change or major reshuffle in the ruling elite.

The congress will elect its central committee which will in turn select a politburo, with Kim expected to bring in a younger generation of leaders picked for their loyalty.