Kate Whitehead

Incidents of rage on flights between the city and the mainland are on the rise, as witness tells of passenger who punches stewardess

The North Koreans know how to put on a show and this year — the 60th anniversary of the end of hostilities in the Korean War — they’ve gone all out for the Mass Games.

‘My mother was a typical Asian parent. She lost her dream because of the Cultural Revolution,’ says Yu Dan Shi. ‘I became the product of high expectations’ In 2008, Yu Dan Shi was 32 and a successful marketing officer for a global tech company. She had left her native Shanghai over a decade previously to…

As chief exterior designer at Porsche, Hong Kong-born Pinky Lai Ping won plaudits for reworking the 911. After leaving the German firm, he’s setting course for China with a high- performance plug-in car on the cards.

What is it? A brand new 266-room hotel on its own island (below) within the Venice lagoon. Isola delle Rose is an artificial island, built in the 19th century, and JW Marriott spent several years transforming what had been a sanatorium before the hotel opened in March.

Ten years ago, the number of Western visitors to North Korea was well below a thousand a year, with Americans permitted by Pyongyang to visit only during the summer Mass Games.