Dennis Rodman Is Back In North Korea – Photos Of Kim’s Basketball Pal
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at a sports arena in Pyongyang, North Korea. Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series.
DENNIS Rodman has swapped Celebrity Big Brother for another kind of prison. He’s back in North Korea, touring Kim’s Kingdom with his “all-star team” of American basketball players. They’re going to play match to mark Kim Jong Un’s birthday. Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robinson Vin Baker and former Knick Charles D. Smith will shoot hoops without the approval of the NBW, which decrees: “Although sports in many instances can be helpful in bridging cultural divides, this is not one of them.”
Why not? It was Rodman who told us: “You know, they’re still afraid to come here, but I’m just telling them, you know, don’t be afraid man, it’s all love, it’s all love here.”
It was all love in Kim’s New Year’s message. He said North Korea was entering the new year on a surge of strength because of the elimination of “factionalist filth” – a reference to the young leader’s once powerful uncle, whose execution last month has raised questions about Kim’s grip on power.
Other highlights of the address will now follow:
Dennis Rodman, center, meets with former North Korean basketball player Ri Myung Hun at a practice session with USA and North Korean players in Pyongyang, North Korea on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014
Dear comrades,
Officers and men of the heroic People’s Army and all the beloved fellow countrymen,
Dear compatriots,
Having seen out the year 2012 characterized by the events that will go down in the history of the nation, we are seeing in the new year 2013 full of high hope and confidence in final victory…
Although they saw in 2012 in tears of blood after the sudden demise of the General whom they had believed in as in heaven, our service personnel and people determinedly rose up following the Party with firm faith that the great General would always be with them and fully supported the leadership of the Party. With loyalty as pure as white gem, noble sense of moral obligation and all sincerity, they refurbished the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in the most sublime way as befits the supreme sanctuary of Juche and erected the statues of the Generalissimos on Mansu Hill and in several other places…
“Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space!” — this is the fighting slogan our Party and people should uphold this year…
If the aggressors dare launch a preemptive attack against our sacred country, the People’s Army should mercilessly annihilate them and win victory in the war for the country’s reunification.
Dennis Rodman greets the media as he waits to get inside a car outside a Pyongyang hotel
A North Korean basketball player returns the scarf that Dennis Rodman was wearing and took off during a practice between North Korean and US basketball players in Pyongyang, North Korea on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014.
Former NBA basketball star Charles D. Smith enters an elevator at a hotel in Pyongyang
Former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman shakes hands with North Korea’s Sports Ministry Vice Minister Son Kwang Ho
Former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman, center, gestures to the media as he arrives at the departure hall of Beijing International Capital Airport in Beijing Monday, Jan. 6, 2014.
North Koreans look down from a balcony as former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman enters the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang
North Koreans play basketball at a public court in Pyongyang
Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Reviews, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
