In honor of the passing of Muhammad Ali I figured I would share this story about the trip the legendary boxer made to North Korea. Muhammad Ali joined a group of professional wrestlers on a friendship tour to North Korea in 1995 at the invitation of famous Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki. One thing you can always count in life is that pro-wrestlers will tell it the way it is and that is what Ric Flair does about his 1995 trip to North Korea in his book, Ric Flair: To Be the Man:
The second we arrived in Pyongyang, our passports were confiscated. Then each of us was assigned a “cultural attache” to follow us everywhere; these guys even sat in the dressing room while we went over our matches. In the dining room where the wrestlers ate, there was a camera in each corner, monitoring every movement. When Scott Norton called his wife and said, “This place sucks,” his phone line suddenly went dead.
Here is my favorite line from the book where Muhammad Ali also tell things the way it is:
Muhammad Ali (right) and Antonio Inoki (left) enjoy the 1995 Pyongyang Festival
Because of the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, it was difficult to understand Muhammad Ali when he spoke. But at one function, we were sitting at a big, round table with a group of North Korean luminaries when one of the guys started rambling on about the moral superiority of North Korea, and how they could take out the United States or Japan any time they wanted. Suddenly, Ali piped up, clear as a bell, “No wonder we hate these motherf*ckers.”
I wonder how the North Korean translators translated that. Probably the same way they translated this:
Before we left North Korea, our handlers requested that I make a speech at the airport. They even had specific points that they expected me to articulate — things like North Korea being a worker’s paradise, and that America sucked. I looked at Bischoff and told him, “I can’t say this.” The last thing I wanted was to be quoted in the American press making statements that I didn’t mean. So I just spouted some generic comments and thanked everyone for their hospitality.
This is how I was quoted by the official North Korean press agency: “Before I leave this beautiful and peaceful country, I would like to make a tribute to the great leader, Mr. Kim Il Sung (the late father of the current dictator), who devoted his life to the Korean people’s happiness, prosperity, and Korean unification. His Excellency, Kim Il Sung, will always be with us.”
Muhammad Ali probably should have never went on the trip, but at least he did not fall for the propaganda like so many other foreigners like Dennis Rodman did when they traveled to North Korea.
The first reported bank robbery has happened in North Korea. This is something pretty audacious to try in North Korea. It looks like the bank employees are in big trouble:
Staffs work at a North Korean bank. / Courtesy of dprk360.com
North Korea has now suffered its first bank robbery.
The unknown robbers infiltrated the Shinam branch of the Central Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the city of Cheongjin, North Hamgyong Province, on Apr 4, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday citing a source from the province.
The robbers broke into the bank’s main entrance and stole an unspecified amount of cash, the source said. The bank is currently out of service. The provincial police assumed there was an accomplice inside the bank.
After the incident at the branch, other branches of the bank beefed up security by bringing in more security personnel. Shinam branch took care of many customers compared with other branches because it mainly brokered trades. [Korea Times]
South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo had some unsurprising things to say about Kim Jong-un:
Young, rash and impulsive.
A frank assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by South Korean Defense Minister Han Minkoo.
Speaking exclusively to CNN on the sidelines of a defense forum in Singapore, Han says it’s a combination that concerns him greatly.
“Kim Jong Un was just 28 when he came to power with very little time to prepare. Add to that, he is very young, he lacks experience.”
Kim certainly seems to be in a rush to perfect his nuclear and missile capabilities, the intensity of testing this year alone is unusual even for North Korea.
“If you look at his father, Kim Jong Il, during his 18 year reign, there were about 18 missile tests. During Kim Jong Un’s four year reign there (have been) 25 missile tests,” says Han.
Han is not convinced North Korea can miniaturize nuclear weapons or fit a nuclear warhead onto a missile, as claimed by Pyongyang, but acknowledges that practice makes perfect.
“If they continue to progress with the miniaturization technology, we think it may be possible to deliver it in other ways such as an artillery shell or in the form of a nuclear mine.” [CNN]
You can read much more of this interview at the link to include his commentary on why South Korea needs the THAAD missile defense system.
It looks like Kim Jong-un is not setting a very good example for North Korea’s recent anti-smoking campaign:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) holding a cigarette with his right hand in a photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 4, 2016. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution.) (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is known to be a heavy smoker, has held a cigarette for the first time in months in public, a photo released by the North’s mouthpiece newspaper showed Saturday.
A snapshot of him smoking at the remodeled Mangyongdae Children’s Camp in Pyongyang was published in Rodong Sinmun. Kim was there to promote “Pyongyang Speed,” a term referring to the North’s rapid industrialization, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
He was last seen smoking more than 80 days ago at a test evaluating the heat stability of a homegrown North Korean rocket.
Experts speculated that Kim may have refrained from smoking in front of cameras because the North’s media have been campaigning against that behavior. Rodong Sinmun, in fact, published several stories reiterating the harmful effects of cigarettes between April and May. At one point, local women appeared on the Korean Central Television to denounce smokers as “imbeciles who upset their surroundings.” [Yonhap]
Is this a sign that sanctions are working that the Kim regime has had to resort to bank robbery?:
Security researchers have tied the recent spate of digital breaches on Asian banks to North Korea, in what they say appears to be the first known case of a nation using digital attacks for financial gain.
In three recent attacks on banks, researchers working for the digital security firm Symantec said, the thieves deployed a rare piece of code that had been seen in only two previous cases: the hacking attack at Sony Pictures in December 2014 and attacks on banks and media companies in South Korea in 2013. Government officials in the United States and South Korea have blamed those attacks on North Korea, though they have not provided independent verification.
On Thursday, the Symantec researchers said they had uncovered evidence linking an attack at a bank in the Philippines last October with attacks on Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam in December and one in February on the central bank of Bangladesh that resulted in the theft of more than $81 million.
“If you believe North Korea was behind those attacks, then the bank attacks were also the work of North Korea,” said Eric Chien, a security researcher at Symantec, who found that identical code was used across all three attacks.
“We’ve never seen an attack where a nation-state has gone in and stolen money,” Mr. Chien added. “This is a first.” [New York Times]
You can read more at the link, but they actually almost stole $1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This is just another example of the danger posed by the Kim regime and why all efforts should be made to isolate and strangle the regime economically until it collapses.
The United States has announced more financial sanctions will be implemented on North Korea:
The United States on Wednesday designated North Korea a “primary money laundering concern,” its newest way of freezing it out of the international financial system to curb its nuclear and missile programs.
South Korea quickly lauded the move, predicting it will have a more “far-reaching effect” than previous financial sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury Department prohibited certain U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts with North Korean financial institutions. It also prohibited the use of third-country U.S. correspondent bank accounts to process transactions for North Korean financial institutions working on behalf of the Kim Jong-un government and state-controlled corporations. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but according to ROK Drop favorite One Free Korea these sanctions are “the single most powerful sanction the United States has ever imposed on North Korea.” That is the good news, but it does make me wonder why did it take this long to finally implement them on North Korea? For those looking for the details on how these sanctions will be implemented I highly recommend reading One Free Korea’s posting. Hopefully these financial sanctions are vigorously enforced considering how skilled North Korea is at avoid past sanctions. If so these sanctions really could hit the Kim regime hard.
Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the central committee under North Korea’s ruling Workers Party of Korea, is seen inside a car after arriving at Beijing’s international airport on May 31, 2016, in this photo released by Kyodo News. (Yonhap)
