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Melanie Susan Potier or Poitier (November 14, 1947 - June 23, 1981), better known as Suki Poitier, was an English model.

She was born to Gilbert and Mary (née Moore) Potier in Surrey. She had an older sister Rosemary Sarah (Sally) Potier born February 12, 1946. As a teenager, she modeled for all the great English designers, becoming a favorite of Ossie Clark. At the age of 18, Suki was dating Guinness heir Tara Browne, who was separated from his then-wife, Nicky.

On December 18, 1966, Suki was a passenger in Tara's Lotus Elan when he drove through South Kensington at high speed, colliding with a parked lorry and died soon thereafter. Suki was not injured. Purportedly, part of The Beatles song, "A Day in the Life" is based on this incident.

It was this tragedy that led her to Rolling Stones musician Brian Jones. Suki said, "He gave me a shoulder to cry on and he picked up the pieces and made me feel a woman again". The two dated for approximately two years from mid-1967 to early 1969.

Suki moved to a fifteenth-century farmhouse with 27-year-old Brian in the last eight months before his death. The house was once the home of AA Milne, creator of the Winnie the Pooh stories. It was there in the swimming pool that Brian, who had by then left the Rolling Stones, drowned mysteriously. By the time of Brian's untimely death, however, they were no longer a couple.

Suki was shattered by Brian's death. Suki remained friends with the Rolling Stones, going to parties with Mick Jagger, attending the Isle of Wight Festival with Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and other members of the Stones camp.

In the 1970s, Suki married a Hong Kong businessman named Robert Ho, the eldest son of casino mogul Stanley Ho and wife Clementina Leitao Ho, with whom she had two daughters, Faye and Sarah. On June 23, 1981, while in Portugal, the couple were both killed in an automobile accident in their Bentley on the road to Cascais,^[1] while returning home to their two children, having had a quiet dinner with Robert's mother, who lived nearby.

Today, eldest daughter Faye is active in Macau nonprofit organizations. An avid supporter of children, the elderly, and animal welfare, she is Chairwoman of the Macau Children's Association, Managing Director of Macau Charity Association, Director & President of SPCA - ANIMA Macau.

Her youngest daughter Sarah Ho is a successful jewellery designer, who was trained as a goldsmith at the London Metropolitan University and then graduated as a gemologist from the HRD Institute of Gemology in Antwerp, Belgium. She established her own company, SHO Fine Jewellery, in 2006.

SEOUL (AFP) –  North Korea on Sunday angrily denied reports that it had executed several state performers to cover up the past of its first lady, calling the media accounts an "unpardonable" crime.

The denial came a day after the North indefinitely postponed reunions for families divided by the Korean War, citing South Korean hostility, slander and provocation.

Sunday's denunciation focused on several recent reports carried by the South's "reptile media" aimed at "hurting the dignity" of supreme leader Kim Jong-Un.

In particular it cited a Saturday report in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper -- picked up by South Korean broadcasters and websites -- that several members of the North's Unhasu Orchestra and other state music troupes had been executed by firing squad for taping themselves having sex.

Ri Sol-Ju, Kim's wife, is a former member of the orchestra.

Asahi said the rare execution of state performers, including a singer rumoured to be Kim's ex-girlfriend, had been ordered to squash rumours of Ri's decadent lifestyle while she was an entertainer.

It said police had secretly recorded conversations between the entertainers who said, "Ri Sol-Ju used to play around in the same manner as we did".

The source for the Asahi report was a "high-ranking North Korean government official who recently defected".

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper had reported the alleged executions last month, but there was no response from Pyongyang at the time.

In the first randomised controlled trial to study the effects of copper bracelets and magnetic wrist straps on rheumatoid arthritis, 70 patients with active symptoms each wore four different devices over a five-month period, reporting on their pain, disability, and medication use throughout the study. Participants also provided blood samples, after wearing each device for five weeks, in order to monitor changes in inflammation.

The research published in PLOS ONE, show that both the standard magnetic wrist strap and the copper bracelet provided no meaningful therapeutic effects beyond those of a placebo, which was not magnetic and did not contain copper.

Dr Stewart Richmond, a Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences at York, who led the study, said:

"It's a shame that these devices don't seem to have any genuine benefit. They're so simple and generally safe to use. But what these findings do tell us is that people who suffer with rheumatoid arthritis may be better off saving their money, or spending it on other complementary interventions, such as dietary fish oils for example, which have far better evidence for effectiveness. Warning people who suspect they may have rheumatoid arthritis to consult their GP and seek early medical treatment, rather than placing faith in such devices, is also important in helping to avoid long-term joint damage resulting from uncontrolled inflammation."

Dr Richmond suggests there are two main reasons why wearers sometimes report benefit:

"Firstly, devices such as these provide a placebo effect for users who believe in them; secondly, people normally begin wearing them during a flare up period and then as their symptoms subside naturally over time they confuse this with a therapeutic effect. Pain varies greatly over time in conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, and the way we perceive pain can be altered significantly by the power of the mind".

Magnet therapy is often privately used for the management of chronic pain, with estimated worldwide annual sales of devices exceeding one billion US dollars. The practice of wearing copper bracelets to combat rheumatism has been popular since the 1970s. An earlier study by Dr Richmond and his colleagues, published in 2009, threw doubt on the effectiveness of such devices for osteoarthritis. The present study builds on and extends these findings.