Via the KCNA: “General Secretary Kim Jong Il was presented with a gift by the visiting governor of New Mexico State, U.S. Governor Bill Richardson handed the gift over to Kim Yong Dae, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK, Tuesday.” The gift was not identified.
After missile and nuclear tests and uranium enrichment, the U.S. sanctions North Korean firms while Pyongyang reverses, making overtures. It’s not an accident, it’s a pattern of strategic disengagement.
- #Vanity Fair, of all publications, has a lengthy article on North Korea’s counterfeiting operations, including Office 39. Well worth a read. (h/t NE Asia Matters)
- #The Chosun Ilbo has an article about a new book by Chang Jin-song (formerly affiliated with the North Korean Workers' Party) that details Kim Jong-il private life, including the inside scoop on all his lady friends. According to Chang, one unfortunate young lady to get Kim's attention was, "brutally executed after she spurned Kim's persistent advances and fell in love with another man."
- #Gizmodo has an excellent array of Kim Jong-il photos; In Which We Provoke Kim Jong Il in 77 Offensive and Hilarious Ways. Some are sure to become often used classics.
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April 13th, 2007 at 5:44 am
$25 million.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:25 am
… in supernotes (ala Bruce Klingner)
April 13th, 2007 at 9:33 am
[...] Bill’s© campaign site to claim credit for a North Korea “breakthrough” (ht: a different Richardson) that not even Nancy Pelosi has the constitutional authority or personal prescence to have [...]