ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
Malaysia seizes pig-hair
brushes after Muslims complain
By Hyung-jin Kim
The Associated Press
BAD BRUSHES. Domestic trade enforcement of-
ficers check paint brushes believed to be made from
pig bristles at a hardware store outside Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Malaysian authorities have seized thousands
of paint brushes suspected to be made from pig bris-
tles and sold without labels, in a crackdown following
complaints from Muslim consumers. (AP Photo/Daniel
Chan)
water to a newly launched internet
browser, to appeal to Muslims.
The Muslim Consumers Association of
Malaysia called for stricter enforcement
not just for paint brushes, but for other
products as well. An official from the
group, Nadzim Johan, said the association
also received complaints that culinary
brushes used in eateries may also contain
pig bristles.
“The key issue here is about labelling,”
he said. “We want Muslim consumers to be
forewarned. It’s not fair to deceive them.”
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Wondering what events are going on this week?
Check out The AR’s Community and A.C.E. calendar sections, on pages 10 and 12.
EOUL, South Korea — A South
Korean passenger plane that
exploded off the coast of Southeast
Asia. Army officers lured into sexual
encounters. A secret agent spirited back to
North Korea in a tiny submarine.
North Korea has a long history of
dispatching female spies on some of its
most dangerous and deadly assignments.
So the arrests of two women in connection
with the apparent killing of an exiled
member of North Korea’s ruling family has
helped fuel suspicions that the North was
involved in the mysterious death.
South Korea’s intelligence agency
believes two women poisoned Kim Jong
Nam, the half brother of North Korea’s
ruler, as he stood in a shopping area at the
Kuala Lumpur airport. But authorities
have so far revealed very little information
about Kim’s death or the women.
Here is a look at some of North Korea’s
most famous female spies.
Kim Hyon-hui
In November 1987, two North Korean
agents posing as a father and daughter left
a time bomb on a South Korean jetliner
when it stopped in Abu Dhabi during a
flight from Baghdad to Seoul. The plane
exploded off the coast of Myanmar (also
known as Burma), killing all 115 people
aboard, South Korean investigators say.
When the two, who were travelling with
fake Japanese passports, faced arrest at a
Bahrain airport, the 72-year-old male
agent killed himself by biting a cyanide-
tipped Marlboro cigarette. But the woman,
Kim Hyon-hui, was stopped just before
taking the poison.
After being extradited to Seoul, Kim,
then around 25 years old, told investiga-
tors that the bombing was intended to
disrupt the Seoul Summer Olympics, set to
begin 10 months later.
Kim was sentenced to death but was
eventually pardoned on the grounds that
she was duped by North Korea’s leaders.
She has written several best-selling books
and married one of the South Korean
intelligence officers who investigated her.
Won Jeong-hwa
Won Jeong-hwa, who entered South
Korea around 2001 by posing as a defector
from the North, was arrested and
sentenced to five years in prison in 2008.
South Korean authorities said she used
sex to extract sensitive information from
South Korean military officers and plotted
to kill other officers. The South Korean
media quickly dubbed her “North Korea’s
Mata Hari” after the exotic dancer sent to
obtain military secrets in World War I.
After her release from prison, Won said
her Mata Hari image had been
exaggerated by officials and the media,
and that she had used sex as a spying tool
only once. She said she had fallen in love
with a junior army officer.
Won also said she disobeyed orders to
kill two of her South Korean military
intelligence sources with poison.
The Asian Reporter
Foundation’s 19th
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Awards banquet will
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AP Photo/Bei Yeon-Hong, File
S
SLOW INTERNET?
$
North Korea and its long
history of using female spies
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) —
Malaysian authorities have seized
thousands of paint brushes suspected of
containing pig bristles after consumers in
the Muslim-majority nation demanded a
crackdown, officials said.
Pigs and dogs are considered unclean by
many Muslims, who make up some 60
percent of Malaysia’s 30 million people. It
is illegal in the country to sell products
made from any part of a pig or a dog, unless
the goods are labelled and kept separately.
Zarif Anwar, an enforcement official
with the domestic trade and consumer
ministry, said officials nationwide have
been inspecting shops selling paint
brushes for art and commercial use.
He said the brushes seized were not
labelled and found to have a different
texture from other brushes and frayed
ends, signs that they could be made from
pig bristles. In some cases, the brushes had
a “halal” certification that had expired, he
said. The halal tag is issued by an Islamic
government body to certify products safe to
be used by Muslims.
The seized brushes will be sent to a lab to
be examined, Zarif said.
“We want to protect consumers and we
want traders to be aware of the religious
sensitivity involved. This is a big offense,”
Zarif told The Associated Press.
He warned that traders who flout the
rule face up to three years in jail, a fine of
100,000 ringgit ($22,522), or both.
Conservative attitudes have been on the
rise in Malaysia. A wide range of products
have been certified halal, from mineral
February 20, 2017
FEMALE SPIES. Kim Hyon-hui, a North Korean
who bombed a Korean Air Lines jet in 1987, confesses
at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, in this
January 15, 1988 file photo. North Korea has a long
history of dispatching female spies on some of its
most dangerous and deadly assignments. So the ar-
rests of two women in connection with the apparent
killing of an exiled member of North Korea’s ruling
family has helped fuel suspicions that the North was
involved in the mysterious death. In the bottom photo,
Won Jeong-hwa, who was sentenced to five years in
prison in 2008 for using sex to extract sensitive infor-
mation from South Korean military officers, wipes her
tears during an interview at her apartment in Gunpo,
South Korea, in this April 11, 2014 file photo.
Won struggled to make a fresh start
after her release from prison, amid
allegations that she was just a low-level
informant whose role was inflated by
South Korean prosecutors. Won, however,
insists she was a highly trained spy.
Lee Sun-sil
In October 1992, South Korea’s intelli-
gence agency announced it had arrested 62
people for establishing a secret southern
branch of North Korea’s ruling Workers’
Party. Spearheading the underground
political party was 75-year-old Lee Sun-sil,
a North Korean woman who Seoul officials
say had operated in the South for 10 years.
Lee, reportedly ranked 22nd in the
North’s political hierarchy, avoided arrest
because she had already returned to North
Korea by the time the underground party
was broken up. A former North Korean
agent captured in a separate case in the
mid-1990s said he had escorted her to the
North in 1990 on board a submersible.
The captured agent said North Korea’s
founding leader Kim Il Sung, the
grandfather of current leader Kim Jong
Un, met Lee twice at one of his villas,
awarding her an honorary title and giving
her a gold watch engraved with his name.
Lee, who also was a member of the
North’s rubber-stamp parliament, died in
2000 and was buried at Pyongyang’s
patriots’ cemetery, according to South
Korean officials.
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