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Chick-fil-A Draws Huge Crowds for Appreciation Day

By JENNIFER PRESTON

A video of long lines outside a Chick-fil-A at the Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the country headed to Chick-fil-A restaurants on Wednesday, answering a call from Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to show support for the fast-food chain after the company's president drew criticism for his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Long lines were seen outside Chick-fil-A restaurants nationwide, and many customers documented their visits on social media sites and shared their reasons for eating at the chain.

Many said they showed up because they agreed with the position of Chick-fil-A's president on same-sex marriage, while others said they wanted to support freedom of expression for business owners.

As my colleagues Kim Severson and Robbie Brown report from Atlanta, where Chick-fil-A began in the 1940s, the president, Dan T. Cathy, made comments last month about the biblical arguments against homosexuality. This prompted calls to boycott Chick-fil-A that were supported by the mayors of Boston and Chicago, along with plans for a same-sex kiss-in at the restaurants on Friday.

Last weekend, Mr. Huckabee used his television and radio programs, as well as Facebook, to help organize an appreciation day for Chick-fil-A on Wednesday.

More than 650,000 people signed up to participate, and tens of thousands “liked” photos of packed restaurants that Mr. Huckabee posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

Below are some of the photos shared Wednesday on Twitter from Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country.

Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, shared a photo from her visit.

Last week, Sarah Palin posted a photo of her visit to a Chick-fil-A in California on her Facebook page.

Mr. Huckabee noted in regular audio updates Wednesday that Chick-fil-A did not participate in organizing the event. And there were no tweets or photos about the appreciation day on the company's Facebook or Twitter accounts.



In North Korea, Putting a Female Face Front and Center

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea - Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is adding a new look to the nation's leadership. Until she began accompanying Mr. Kim in public appearances in recent weeks, holding his arm and smiling at what appear to be adoring crowds, there had seldom been a woman's face among the North's power circles, which are filled with grim-faced party secretaries in Mao suits and military generals in their olive-colored uniforms.

Since North Korea's state-run news media revealed Ms. Ri's identity on July 25, ending weeks of speculation, the outside world has learned a bit more about her, most notably that she has been a YouTube star of sorts.

North Korea watchers dug up a few video clips from state-run North Korean television that show a woman with the same name singing patriotic songs like “Footsteps of Soldiers.” It was unclear at the time if the woman was Ms. Ri.

Since then, the South Korean government's National Intelligence Service has said it believes the singer is indeed Mr. Kim's wife. The spy agency also told Parliament that Ms. Ri was born in 1989 - making her one of the youngest first ladies in the world - had been married to Mr. Kim in 2009 and had performed with Pyongyang's Unhasu Orchestra at least until early 2011, when she sang at the orchestra's New Year's concert.

The couple is believed to have a child, the agency said.

In the 2011 concert, the woman identified as Ms. Ri performed in front of her husband and her father-in-law, Kim Jong-il, and sang about falling in love with a “broad-chested comrade.” Wearing a red hanbok, a traditional Korean dress, and flanked by saxophonists, she defined a true man as “not one who is handsome or well-clothed” but “one who takes a tough road for others while not losing his smile.”

In another performance in 2010, she sings “Don't Ask My Na me,” a song about an idealized worker.

The South Korean spy agency said that Ms. Ri had been to South Korea as a member of the North's cheering squad in support of athletes competing in a track meet in 2005. South Korean photographers dug up the photos of Ms. Ri, noting her poise and smile.

Mr. Kim's father also seemed to have a soft spot for performers: the current leader's mother, Ko Young-hee, was a dancer with Pyongyang's Mansudae Art Troupe. Kim Jong-il's first wife, Sung Hae-rim, was a movie actress, and the woman who was believed to have been his consort in his final years, Kim Ok, was a pianist.

Defectors from North Korea say it is common for children of the top leadership to pick wives from Pyongyang's artistic circles. The performers, who often do shows exclusively for the party and military elites, are selected in a rigorous audition process, and their families' ideologies are investigated in a process that can take months. Talent and looks alo ne cannot guarantee entry into what is considered a privileged class. The fact that Ms. Ri was apparently allowed to travel abroad means that she was trusted by North Korea's leaders, they said.

“In North Korea, arts and literature are a political and propaganda tool before they are a source of entertainment,” said Lee Woo-young, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, South Korea. “Their social status is much higher there than in counties like South Korea.”

Jong Jin-hwa, a North Korean radio broadcaster who now lives in Seoul, said: “In North Korea, songs are all about ideology. They don't contain words like ‘love.' ”

Kim Jong-il, who died in December, saw fertile ground for propaganda in movies and music. He wrote a book about filmmaking and produced operas that featured the struggle against “imperialists” - an overriding theme in North Korea.

Around the time that North Korea formally declared Kim Jong-un as his father's successor in 2010, it required farmers and soldiers to learn a song entitled “Footsteps,” which heralded the coming of “the young general” who would lead the country to a “brilliant future.” The video accompanying the music shows a sunrise, a long-range rocket launch, goose-stepping soldiers and the young Mr. Kim riding a white stallion.

In Pyongyang's secretive hierarchy, officials are measured by how close they stand to the leader in public. Under Kim Jong-il, no wife or consort was in sight. But his 66-year-old sister, Kim Kyong-hee, still shows up with Kim Jong-un, trailing behind him, and many outside analysts say she helps guide him behind the scenes.

She looks as dour and sickly as her brother in his last days, her eyes usually obscured by dark glasses. Despite the enormous power she is said to wield with her husband, Jang Song-thaekck, she belongs to a generation of North Korean women who lived under strictures regarding “prope r behavior for socialist women”: no smoking, no driving, no bicycling, and no trousers unless they worked in the fields.

The emergence of a youthful first lady - not just visiting collective farms but watching a live performance featuring a cast of Disney characters - is part of what analysts say is Kim Jong-un's efforts to forge a new leadership style.

Still, things will not change quickly in North Korea, said Kim Young-soon, a former North Korean dancer who defected to the South nine years ago.

“For instance, North Korean performers won't be allowed to have fan clubs,” Ms. Kim said. “In North Korea, there can be no stars except Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un.”



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    • Video Said to Show Execution by Syrian Rebels Stirs Debate

    By J. DAVID GOODMAN

    As my colleague Damien Cave reported, Syrian rebels on Tuesday said they had captured and later executed several members of a prominent Aleppo family with close ties to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. That act - captured on video and circulated widely - appeared to constitute a war crime, human rights activists said on Wednesday.

    While the details remained murky, the killings appeared to stem from the pitched battles that have raged for days in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria and the country's commercial hub. Rebels accused members of the Barri family, a large Sunni clan well known for suppressing opposition to Mr. Assad, of killing 15 antigovernment fighters.

    Video posted by antigovernment activists showed more than a dozen men, some with bloodied faces and torn clothing, who are said to be members or associates of the clan. Held in what appeared to be the room of a school, they were made to give their names and accused of being pro-government militiamen known as shabiha. The man sitting in the center and said to be a leader of the group said his name was Ali Zein El Abidin Barri, also known by the nickname Zeino.

    Another video, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, appeared to show several of the men from the clip above, including an older man bleeding from his face and wearing only his black underwear, being led by rebels with assault rifles out on to an Aleppo street where a crowd had formed. In the extremely graphic and disturbing video, the men, prisoners of the rebel fighters, were then forced to sit along the wall of a local school, decorated with a painted mural of Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob SquarePants and other cartoon characters kicking a soccer ball.

    “The Free Syrian Army forever,” the crowd chanted. “Stepping on Assad's head.”

    Then, seemingly without warning, someone in the group of armed rebels fired a single shot. That set off a hail of bullets that continued for nearly 45 seconds. Many in crowd, including the videographer, backed away from the ad hoc firing squad. As a cloud of dust cleared, the lifeless bodies of the captured men could be seen. An Al Jazeera reporter in Aleppo identified one of the dead as a local politician, Zeino al-Barri.

    The disturbing clip attracted tens of thousands of views by Wednesday morning and sparked a vigorous debate online, with some antigovernment activists objecting to the executions, while some welcomed it. Others justified the executions as the unfortunate consequence of the government brutal response to the 17-month-old uprising.

    “Intentionally killing anyone, even a shabiha, once he is outside of combat is a war crime, regardless of how horrible the person may have been,” said Nadim Houry, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, in a telephone interview. “As the opposition gains more territory, it is important to hold them to the same standard that we would apply to all sides.”

    Mr. Houry was quick to point out that Human Rights Watch had previously documented scores of extrajudicial killings by the Syrian government during the conflict in an April report, as well as in previous reports of human rights abuses by the rebels. None of those acts of brutality justified executions without judicial process, he said.

    But after making a similar point about war crimes on Twitter, Mr. Houry found himself in a debate with several activists.

    Shakeeb al-Jabri, a Syrian activist i n Beirut, Lebanon, said such expectations of the rebel fighters were idealistic.

    “The video is disturbing but the supporting comments are really shocking,” Wissam Tarif of the human rights group, Avaaz, wrote on Facebook. “Few condemned and most commentators approved and congratulated. This is not what Syrians or at least most Syrians are fighting for.”

    The circumstances leading to the capture and execution of the Barri clan members were not clear, but it appeared to follow a street battle on Tuesday that flared up after what antigovernment activists said was a truce between fighters from the two groups.

    As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, wrote on his Angry Arab blog of the large size of the Barri clan, which, by some estimates, numbers in the thousands.

    Quoting an unnamed Syria observer, Mr. AbuKhalil wrote that the family was thought to have ties to criminal gangs and guns: “Their elders (they include an MP) were known for attacking demonstrations in their areas and beating protesters, as well as recruiting and financing thugs. But these are, of course, a small section of a very large family.” Rebels had secured an agreement from the Barri family to remain neutral in the current fighting in Aleppo, the observer said, but the agreement broke down on Tuesday.

    A man said to be a rebel leader in the fight against the Barri clan gave an explanation for the killings in a video poste d on Tuesday, saying a battalion of rebel fighters had been unexpectedly attacked by a large number of armed shabiha, killing 15 rebels. He said that after a long firefight, roughly 50 of the pro-government fighters were captured and a small number were killed for their role in the rebel deaths.

    Mona Mahmood, a Guardian reporter, spoke by phone on Wednesday to a man said to represent the armed group, who echoed reports that a deal between the Barri clan and rebel forces had broken down on Tuesday, leading to the clash and the executions.

    “We were in a truce with the Barri clan, which are shabiha clan,” the man, identified as Basheer al-Haji, told The Guardian. “We were attacking one of the police stations in the city and Barri clan began shooting against us from behind.” He said they captured 50 people and immediately held a kind of “field trial” for them.

    “We have judges and lawyers who are in the opposition,” he said. “They found that se ven of the Barri clan were involved in killing and they decided to execute them. Others are kept for trial after the collapse of the regime.”

    Underscoring the decentralized nature of the rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, a battalion in Homs posted video earlier this week proclaiming that they would adhere to international law in the treatment of detainees.

    “We are committed as best we can to applying the articles and subarticles of the Geneva Convention No. 4 that details the treatment of prisoners of war,” read a man who was identified as a fighter with the Farouq Brigade in Homs, while sitting in front of the rebel flag.

    “We are committed to treating them in a humane way, and we tell everyone that we are revolting against a barbarous regime that always tortured and treated detainees and arrestees in brutal ways that led to the death of many,” he said. “That is why we can never adopt the behavior of that very entity we a re revolting against.”



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