The charge starts against the North at long last

Former inmates of North Korean prison camps have been testifying before UN investigators this week in Seoul. The three-person Commission of Inquiry, led by Australian judge Michael Kirby, has been hearing evidence at the start of its probe into North Korean human rights abuses. One by one, before the UN panel, North Korea's former citizens told their stories - of hunger, torture, and summary executions. Each story was recorded as evidence in the case against their former state. The three investigators from Serbia, Indonesia, and Australia are looking for evidence of crimes against humanity in a country they have not been allowed to visit. Many of those testifying before them told of years spent in political prison camps hidden from public view. North Korea denies such camps exist, but satellite photographs show vast areas of the countryside fenced into camp-like structures. The big question is: how are those bellends going to deny it now? Let's not ponder that now because Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is to retire from the technology giant within the next 12 months. Shares in Microsoft, criticised for its slow response to the booming market for mobile devices, leapt 9% on the news. Mr Ballmer, who last month unveiled a restructuring to address the criticism, said in a statement: "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. "We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction." The world's biggest software company has created a special committee to find a replacement. This committee includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates. And speaking of gates, most of the time, an airplane going back to the gate means mechanical failure or other issues. But when an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to New York stopped and went back to the gate, it was for a much more special reason: to make sure that an 11-year-old cancer patient could get on board the flight. Inbar Chomsky was with a group of kids attending Camp Simcha, an upstate New York summer camp for kids with serious illnesses. Inbar cheerfully boarded the plane with the rest of her group, but when a counselor went around to collect all the kids’ passports, Inbar suddenly discovered that hers had gone missing. Although crew members and passengers spent more than half an hour looking for the lost passport, when it didn’t turn up young Inbar, who was in tears, was forced to get off of the plane. However, the story wasn’t over yet. Just moments after the plane pulled away from the gate, a fellow camper discovered Inbar’s passport by chance in a backpack. Although El Al, like most other airlines, has a strict policy against returning to the gate once security has been cleared and the doors have been closed, they made a “rare” exception for the 11-year-old.