2 bombers target mobile phone firms in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities blame a radical Islamist sect for twin suicide car bombings targeting two major mobile phone companies, an official said Saturday, blacking out a top operator’s network in most of Nigeria‘s northern commercial hub.

A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India at about 8 a.m. in the city of Kano, said Capt. Iweha Ikedichi, who speaks for a special taskforce deployed in Kano to reduce the threat of the Islamic rebels known as Boko Haram. The attack left an Airtel worker injured, authorities said. It also damaged a switch station, said James Eze, an Airtel spokesman. He said the company was still assessing how bad the damage was, but declined to comment further.

Switch stations control the regional mobile phone network and if they are seriously damaged, the entire network could go down. An Airtel staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press said the targeted switch station covered six northern states, including Kano. But while Airtel’s network appeared to be down across Kano Sunday, calls to lines in some of the other states went through.

At about the same time as the Airtel attack, another bomber targeted the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., about two miles (three kilometers) away. That attack was botched by security officers who shot the bomber, causing an explosion at the company’s gate, Ikedichi said.

The target of the foiled attack was MTN’s switch station, said Funmilayo Omogbenigun, spokeswoman for Nigeria’s largest cell phone network provider.

Authorities suspect the Boko Haram sect is behind the attacks. The group is held responsible for more than 770 deaths this year alone, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. Boko Haram’s campaign of bombings and shootings has targeted mosques, churches, schools, universities and government buildings. But, four months ago, the group broadened its scope by attacking mobile phone towers for the first time.

In September, a series of attacks damaged more than 31 towers operated by all the major mobile phone providers in the country. Other attacks have occurred since then, further straining the one link Nigeria relies on for communication in a country with very few landlines. While no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Islamist sect had threatened mobile phone companies earlier in the year, warning that they would be targeted for cooperating with the government to flush out its members.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 160 million people, mobile phones serve as a valuable lifeline in both cities and rural communities. Landlines remain almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to privatize it have failed. More 87 million mobile phone lines were in use in 2009, according to estimates.

“Never would we have expected that telecommunications could be targeted,” said Damien Udeh, a spokesman for the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria. “It portends a dangerous situation for everybody, especially government.”

___

Associated Press writer Yinka Ibukun contributed to this report from Lagos, Nigeria

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Drew Barrymore: My Dogs Are So Protective of Baby Olive

People Pets
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By Julie Jordan and Amy Jamieson

12/22/2012 at 05:30 PM EST

Drew Barrymore, Will Kopelman and dog Douglas

NPG

She may have been a nervous wreck after baby Olive arrived this fall, but the Drew Barrymore could have rested easy because her dogs had everything under control.

"They're so protective of her. They're so sweet," she tells PEOPE of her pups, Douglas and shepherd mix Oliver. "And Douglas, the little blonde one, just comes and licks [Olive's] head, and it's just so goofy and silly and I always say, 'Douglas, is this your baby?' "

The first-time mom, 37, and her husband Will Kopelman were careful when it came to introducing their furbabies to the real baby.

"We brought her stuff home to them to sniff and play with," she tells PEOPLE. "I put her with them right away. I was holding her and protective but there are all these wonderful studies that kids that grow up with dogs have better immunities because of the dander and the pollen. And it's a proven fact that dogs just improve the quality of your life."

In just a few months, Douglas has assumed the role of bodyguard over 10-week-old Olive, whom Barrymore calls "Super Baby" because she sleeps and eats so well.

"He's literally sitting [and] looking out the window," she says, "in, like, a guard dog position."

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.

Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.

Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)

Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.

Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.

"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."

In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:

—Previous violent or aggressive behavior

—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse

—Guns in the home

—Use of drugs or alcohol

—Brain damage from a head injury

Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.

Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.

Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.

According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.

Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.

Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.

And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.

All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.

Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.

Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.

Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.

___

Online:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.

A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.

Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.

Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.

"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.

"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.

If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.

For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.

Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.

IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY

Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.

If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.

"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.

"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."

Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.

Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.

"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.

"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."

Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.

The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.

Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.

U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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World Briefing | Asia: Report Links Former Chinese Police Chief to Murder

A Chinese news organization, Southern Metropolis Weekly, has reported that Wang Lijun, a former police chief in Chongqing, played a direct role in organizing the murder of Neil Heywood, a British businessman found dead in a hotel room in November 2011. The publication reported this week that it had obtained documents that said one or more witnesses had told officials that Mr. Wang had examined a container of cyanide with Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai, the former party chief of Chongqing, on Nov. 12, 2011. Ms. Gu had thought up a plot to kill Mr. Heywood by poisoning him, and Mr. Wang encouraged her on Nov. 13 to meet Mr. Heywood for dinner and then poison him, the report said. During this year’s trial of Ms. Gu, witnesses said she tried to think of ways to kill Mr. Heywood with Mr. Wang, but the statements did not indicate Mr. Wang had played a direct role in the poisoning plot, according to one lawyer at the trial. Ms. Gu was convicted of Mr. Heywood’s murder and was given a commuted death sentence; she could be imprisoned for life. Mr. Wang was later given a 15-year sentence after being convicted on various charges.

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Instagram diverts attention from botched policy change with another new filter

Title Post: Instagram diverts attention from botched policy change with another new filter
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See If You Can Spot the One Color That Popped on the Carpet This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/21/2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Getty; Splash News Online; WireImage

Even though we didn’t see as many stars on the red carpet this week as last — it’s quiet in Hollywood this holiday season! — we still saw some strong trends emerge at various events. What were they? Let’s get to it!

Up: Pops of red. You can thank the holidays for this festive mini-trend, which we spotted on Hailee Steinfeld’s purse, Bella Heathcote’s dress and Rose Byrne’s jacket. Adding just a hint of the bold hue to your outfit is an easy way to look all holiday-y without going overboard.

Up: Head-to-toe black. What, are stars sick of sequined dresses already? This week we saw nearly one dozen leading ladies wear all black: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, LeAnn Rimes, Alexa Chung, Jessica Chastain, Miley Cyrus, Krysten Ritter and Kerry Washington … to name a few. As New Yorkers, we’re always happy to see all-black ensembles en force, and it is a look that’s usually pretty failsafe — and slimming.

Down: Stick-straight hair. Rita Ora was the only woman we saw with pin-straight locks this week; everyone else went for bouncy curls and elegant updos (and cropped cuts, if you count Miley Cyrus!). With Christmas and New Year’s Even upon us, we predict we’ll be seeing a lot more exciting hairdos and less of the minimalist straight looks.

Tell us: Which color are you more likely to wear at the holidays: red or black?

Want more Trend Report? Click to hear our thoughts on mini dresses, cut-outs and collars.

FIND ALL THE LATEST RED CARPET NEWS AND PHOTOS HERE!

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Wall Street ends lower after "fiscal cliff" setback

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks finished lower on Friday after a Republican plan to avoid the "fiscal cliff" failed to gain sufficient support on Thursday night, draining hopes that a deal would be reached before 2013.

Still, stocks managed to rebound from the day's lows near the end of the session, and for the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes still ended higher, with the S&P 500 gaining 1.2 percent.

Trading was volatile because of waning confidence in the prospect of a deal out of Washington, and in part, as the result of the quarterly expiration of options and futures contracts. The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or VIX, the market's favorite barometer of investor anxiety, finished below its session high.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner failed to garner enough votes from even his own party to pass his "Plan B" tax bill late on Thursday. It was the latest setback in negotiations to avoid $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that some say could tip the U.S. economy into recession.

"The failure with Plan B was disappointing, if not terribly surprising, but now there's a real lack of clarity about what will happen, and markets hate that," said Mike Hennessy, managing director of investments for Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 120.88 points, or 0.91 percent, to 13,190.84 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 13.54 points, or 0.94 percent, to 1,430.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 29.38 points, or 0.96 percent, to 3,021.01.

"Amazingly, this sharp decline today may not actually change the technical picture much - unless the decline gets worse," said Larry McMillan, president of options research firm McMillan Analysis Corp, in a research note.

For the week, the Dow gained 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq climbed 1.7 percent.

On Friday, Herbalife dropped for an eighth straight session. Investor Bill Ackman recently ramped up his campaign against the company. The stock skidded 19.2 percent to $27.27 and has lost more than 35 percent this week.

Plan B, which called for tax increases on those who earn $1 million or more a year, was not going to pass the Democratic-led Senate or win acceptance from the White House anyway. But it exposed the reality that it will be difficult to get Republican support for the more expansive tax increases that President Barack Obama has urged.

Still, the declines of about 1 percent in the three major U.S. stock indexes suggest that investors do not believe the economy will be unduly damaged by the absence of a deal, said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, in San Francisco.

"You could have easily woken up today and seen the market down 300 or 400 points, and everyone would have said, 'That's telling you this is really dire,'" Lehmann said.

"I think if you get into mid-January and (the talks) keep going like this, you get worried, but I don't think we're going to get there."

Banking shares, which outperform during economic expansion and have led the market on signs of progress on resolving the fiscal impasse, led Friday's declines. Citigroup Inc fell 1.7 percent to $39.49, while Bank of America slid 2 percent to $11.29. The KBW Banks index <.bkx> lost 1.19 percent.

Volatility on Friday was exacerbated in part by "quadruple witching," the quarterly expiration of stock index futures and options, stock options and single stock futures contracts.

About 8.59 billion shares changed hands on major U.S. exchanges, more than the daily average of 6.47 billion daily in 2012, in part because of the "quadruple witching" expiration.

The day's round of data indicated the economy was surprisingly resilient in November; consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped.

But separate data showed consumer sentiment slumped in December. The S&P Retail Index <.spxrt> fell 1.2 percent.

U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion sank 22.7 percent to $10.91 after the Canadian company, known as the BlackBerry maker, reported its first-ever decline in its subscriber numbers on Thursday alongside a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal)

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God Save the British Economy

Illustration by Tadaomi Shibuya

Entering the Bank of England is like walking back in time to the old British Empire. Its brass door is attended by the Pinks, men in black hats and pink tailcoats. Vast meeting rooms are decorated with richly colored carpets, high ceilings with gold filigree and ornate furniture. Between rooms, the marble floors bear monetary-themed mosaics. One depicts the development of the British pound. Elsewhere, the mosaics take the form of constellations — a reminder that the empire and its economy once dominated everywhere you could see the stars at night.

Muir Vidler for The New York Times

Adam Posen at the Bank of England in August.

One morning this summer, I went to the bank to visit Adam Posen, a member of its Monetary Policy Committee, the custodian of the pound. With bright red curly hair and a trim beard, Posen, who is 46, stands out in all the M.P.C.’s official photographs. He is “ fatter” and “fuzzier” than the other officials, he joked. Posen also happens to be only the second American economist ever to serve on the committee.

It’s impossible to imagine the uproar if President Obama ever nominated a British academic to work at the highest level of the Federal Reserve. But when Posen arrived, in September 2009, his job was to provide an outsider’s perspective. The bank was trying to steer Britain through the global financial crisis, and Posen seemed like a uniquely perfect fit. In the late 1990s, when he was a 30-year-old economist, his contrarian critique of Japan’s central bank and finance ministry helped that country put an end to its so-called Lost Decade. In the years since, Posen has become a well-respected adviser to (and critic of) many of the world’s key financial institutions. With this appointment, Posen crossed the line from scholar to decision maker. It was the first time that he had real power.

Posen arrived in London after the acute panic of the financial crisis had given way to the long slog we’re still in. At that point, policy makers around the world were given the task of assessing the damage and devising a plan that would best position the economy to function at normal levels. The United States had already responded with a roughly $800 billion stimulus package. In the spring of 2010, British voters went in another direction. They elected Prime Minister David Cameron, who had promised to reset the economy by severely cutting government spending, which would lead to significant public-sector layoffs. The economy’s only chance to return to long-term growth, Cameron argued, would be a painful, but brief, period of austerity. By shrinking the size of an inefficient government, Cameron explained, the budget would be balanced by 2015 and the private sector could lead the economy to full recovery.

Today these two approaches offer a crucial case study and perhaps a breakthrough in an age-old economic argument of austerity versus stimulus. In the past few years, the United States has experienced a steep downturn followed by a steady (though horrendously slow) upturn. The U.S. unemployment rate, which shot up to 10 percent at the end of 2009 from 4.4 percent in mid-2007, has now dropped steadily to 7.7 percent. It might be a frustrating pace, but it’s enough to persuade most economists that a recovery is under way.

The British economy, however, is profoundly stuck. Between fall 2007 and summer 2009, its unemployment rate jumped to 7.9 percent, from 5.2 percent. Yet in the three and a half years since — even despite the stimulus provided by this summer’s Olympic Games — the number has hovered around 7.9. The overall level of economic activity, real G.D.P., is still below where it was five years ago, too. Historically, it’s almost unimaginable for a major economy to be poorer than it was half a decade ago. (By comparison, the United States has a real G.D.P. that is around a half-trillion dollars more than it was in 2007.) Yet austerity’s advocates continue to argue, as Cameron has, that Britain’s economic stagnation shows that the government is still crowding out private-sector investment. This, they say, is proof that austerity is even more essential than was first realized. Once the debts have been paid off and the euro zone solves its political problems, the thinking goes, the British economy will bounce back quickly.

When I visited Posen this summer, he refused to publicly criticize a sitting administration’s policies, but every time the topic of austerity came up, he was unable to hide his frustration. Posen’s term ended in August, and his subsequent nondisclosure agreement expired last month. Now he wants to persuade everyone he can that Britain should abandon its austerity program. He says that he has a solution that would quickly return healthy economic growth. His critics say that his prescription would bring about another financial panic. But whether you think he’s right or wrong depends on what you make of the data.

Economics often appears to be an exercise in number-crunching, but it actually resembles storytelling more than mathematics. Before the members of the Monetary Policy Committee gather for their monthly meeting, they sit through a presentation from the Bank of England’s economic staff. The staff members take the most recent economic data — G.D.P. growth, the unemployment rate and more subtle details gathered from interviews with businesspeople throughout the country — and try to fashion it into a narrative. Does a sudden spike in new factory orders represent a fundamental shift, or is it just a preholiday blip? Do anecdotal reports of rising food prices herald a period of inflation, or is it the result of a cold snap? Which story feels truer?

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North Korean Video Game Has Western Ties

Video games represent a true luxury for most North Koreans living in a country where even the elite have only hours of electricity each day. That has not stopped a Western company in the capital city of Pyonyang from creating what may be the first North Korean game widely available online.

The game, called “Pyongyang Racer,” is a simple Web browser game that allows players to drive a car around North Korea’s capitol city of Pyongyang, according to Beijing Cream. Players must avoid hitting cars and collect gasoline in the form of petrol barrels to keep their run going as long as possible — all while getting warnings from one of Pyongyang’s famously picturesque traffic girls.

“Pyongyang Racer” has an unusual development history as a video game. The North Korean programmers who made the game work for Nosotek, a Western company that describes itself as the “first western IT venture” in North Korea.

Nosotek’s North Korean programmers previously made mobile-phone games based on the Hollywood films “The Big Lebowski” and “Men in Black.” Those games ended up getting published through a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp (owner of Fox News), according to Bloomberg News.

Nosotek claims to have “attracted the cream of local talent as the only company in Pyongyang offering Western working conditions and Internet access.” That would likely be true in North Korea, given the nuclear-armed country’s pariah status among Western countries and businesses.

The Nosotek website also praises the advantages of working in North Korea because “IP secrecy and minimum employee churn rate are structurally guaranteed.” Translation: North Korean programmers would likely never leave Nosotek with the company’s intellectual property secrets because they have practically no other employment options.

Nosotek built the game for Koryo Tours, a company based in Beijing, China, to distribute “Pyongyang Racer” through the Koryo Tours website. Koryo Tours is currently the leading company that runs tours of secretive North Korea for Westerners and other foreigners.

“This game was developed in 2012 and is not intended to be a high-end technological wonder hit game of the 21st century, but more a fun race game (arcade style) where you drive around in Pyongyang and learn more about the sites and get a glimpse of Pyongyang,” Koryo Tours said on the game’s website.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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