As Dennis Rodman visits, North Korea pledges ‘bitter hatred for the U.S.’
Dennis Rodman’s ongoing “basketball diplomacy” to North Korea, which his agent says is meant to convince “Kim Jong” that “the only way to go is with peace not war,” doesn’t seem to have exactly...
View ArticleReport: Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Eun hung out, ‘laughed together’
A few days into former American basketball star Dennis Rodman’s bizarre and apparently impromptu trip to North Korea, Chinese state media have reported that Rodman actually met with North Korean leader...
View ArticleFlashback: Kim Jong Il tried to get Michael Jordan to visit North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun’s interest in basketball goes back to before Dennis Rodman’s visit this week, when the two of them reportedly watched a basketball game together. His father, eccentric...
View ArticleDennis Rodman plastered on the front page of North Korea’s state newspaper
As anticipated, North Korean state media are playing up American basketball star Dennis Rodman’s highly unusual visit to the country, which has peaked (so far) with Rodman sitting alongside leader Kim...
View ArticleKim Jong Eun inherited an eccentric obsession with basketball from father Kim...
At the end of her two-day trip to North Korea in October 2000, a historic but ultimately failed effort to thaw relations, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented her host with a gift. The...
View ArticleToday’s reads: Ping-pong diplomacy, John Kerry’s big job
This post is part of a recurring feature, in which the WorldViews team shares some of what it’s reading today. It’s meant to highlight some of the best foreign affairs coverage from other media...
View ArticleState Department: No position on Dennis Rodman’s North Korea trip
Dennis Rodman’s bizarre North Korean jaunt has dominated headlines in both countries for days, but the U.S. State Department has no comment on the matter — as deputy spokesman Patrick Ventrell made...
View ArticleToday’s reads: Slam dunk diplomacy, Chinese political cliques
This post is part of a recurring feature, in which the WorldViews team shares some of what it’s reading today. It’s meant to highlight some of the best foreign affairs coverage from other media...
View ArticleWhy Obama can’t just call Kim Jong Eun, as Dennis Rodman suggested
Dennis Rodman famously (infamously?) offered President Obama a piece of diplomatic advice in his first public appearance since returning from North Korea. “He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him,”...
View ArticleIs the Pirate Bay really moving to North Korea?
The Pirate Bay, the embattled file-sharing site that has been blocked or sued in at least a dozen countries, said in a press release Monday afternoon that it had finally found refuge from its many...
View ArticleDennis Rodman’s trip: A video recap from North Korean media
A lengthy video recap of Dennis Rodman’s Pyongyang trip, reportedly from North Korean TV, surfaced on the English-speaking Internet late last night. If you can get through all the clapping, it’s worth...
View ArticleState TV video: Kim Jong Eun and adoring soldiers on South Korean border
A video of Kim Jong Eun that aired Thursday on North Korean state TV shows soldiers crying, jumping and running into chest-deep ocean water merely to wave to the young leader as he inspects military...
View ArticleWhy North Korea loves to threaten World War III (but probably won’t follow...
Here is a partial list of some of North Korea’s terrifying threats and provocations since the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions late last week: nullify the 60-year armistice that...
View ArticleA puzzling photo from North Korea
The above photo, released by the North Korean state media agency KCNA on Jan. 20, purports to show leader Kim Jong Eun visiting a new hospital, Taesongsan General Hospital, being built by the national...
View ArticleA rare glimpse of North Korea’s version of Facebook
Most North Koreans can’t access the Internet, and only foreigners can use the country’s brand-new 3G cellular network. But the country has still developed its own rudimentary social network — which you...
View ArticleNorth Korean propaganda video ‘explains’ what life is really like in Western...
Correction: As the Huffington Post points out, this video is real but the English overdub is fake, the work of a British travel writer named Alun Hill. The original North Korean propaganda video does...
View ArticleFunny video explains what South Koreans think about the North
Eat Your Kimchi is a very popular blog written by two Canadians who moved to South Korea about five years ago and have been documenting their experiences ever since. Their videos began as observations...
View ArticleNorth Korea officially denounces the ‘reptile media’ for ‘jabbering’
Some day, I want to meet the person who translates North Korea’s state propaganda into English, because that man or woman is an artist. Today’s says that North Korea is definitely ready to launch a...
View ArticleSouth Korea under cyber attack: Is North Korea secretly awesome at hacking?
North Korea, a country where private computer ownership is illegal and most civilians can only access a tiny, closed intranet through shoddy knock-off software, is not the sort of place where you might...
View ArticleReport: North Korea ordered its foreign diplomats to become drug dealers
It sounds crazy, but there is good reason to suspect that this story, in the prominent South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, could be true. According to the story, North Korea ordered its diplomats in...
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