Australia's Qantas operates 19 hour London-sydney flight

SEOUL: North Korea has launched a visceral diatribe against US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, calling the former vice-president a "rabid dog" -- while also borrowing the terminology of Donald Trump.

Pyongyang is renowned for its vitriol, but the verbal deluge was unusually ferocious even by its own standards.

Biden "had the temerity to dare slander the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK", the North's official KCNA news agency said late Thursday, referring to the country by its official name.

"Rabid dogs like Biden can hurt lots of people if they are allowed to run about," it went on. "They must be beaten to death with a stick.

"Doing so will be beneficial for the US also," it added.

It was not immediately clear what had provoked Pyongyang's ire, but Biden's campaign released an ad this week condemning Trump's foreign policy, saying that "dictators and tyrants are praised, our allies pushed aside".

The voiceover says the word "tyrants" at the exact moment a picture appears of US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shaking hands at their Singapore summit last year.

KCNA appeared to cite one of Trump's favoured insults for the candidate -- "Sleepy Joe" -when it said Americans called him "Biden not awakened from a sleep".

PERTH: Australia's national carrier Qantas on Friday successfully completed a 19-and-ahalf hour non-stop flight from London to Sydney, which was used to run a series of tests to assess the effects of ultra longhaul flights on crew fatigue and passenger jetlag.

The Boeing 787-9 Dream

liner took off from London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday morning and touched down at Sydney Airport 45 minutes behind schedule at 12:30pm on Friday. The 17,800 mile (11,060 mile) journey was part of Project Sunrise Qantas' goal to operate regular, non-stop commercial flights from Australia's east coast cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to London and New York.

Last month, Qantas completed the first non-stop flight from New York to Sydney, which took 19 hours and 16 minutes.

Another New York to Sydney flight is expected next month to round out the project.

There were 52 people mostly Qantas employees on board. They participated in various experiments, including using wearable technology devices to track sleep patterns, food and drink intake, lighting and physical movement.