the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea, nears completion

For nearly 20 years this 330-metre high building has been the equivalent of bnz's 'rusting tower of Visa' - an conspicious ugly partly completed building serving as the centrepiece of the Dear Leader's hermit kingdom capital.  However, this recent pic from Google Earth indicates that it is finally nearing completion, so it isn't so ugly anymore, just weird.   Given that North Korea doesn't exactly encourage tourism you wonder why it needed such a massive hotel in the first place.   At present it ranks as the world's 40th tallest building.