Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...North Korean regime works. Spy satellites are trained on its suspected nuclear sites 24 hours a day. Defectors from the North have been thoroughly scrubbed, and spies have been recruited. Diplomats from the U.S. and four other countries have talked on and off for years with their counterparts from Pyongyang. For all that, the May 25 nuclear-weapons test--North Korea's second in three years--makes clear just how dangerously unpredictable...
...international community struck the usual poses that follow Pyongyang's periodic outrages. President Barack Obama said in a statement that the test would "serve to deepen North Korea's isolation." Japan said it would "not tolerate" such actions and called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, a demand South Korea backed. Russia expressed "serious concern." Even the Chinese, North Korea's alleged ally, said they were "firmly opposed" to the test...
Media buzz before the showdown in Pyongyang centered around Afshin Ghotbi, the Iranian-American who was named coach of the team ahead of the game in a bid - supposedly encouraged by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - to revitalize Iran's flagging footballing fortunes. Many in Iran thought Ghotbi ought to have been in charge from the very start of their qualification campaign last year. But politics and prejudice stood in the way of his appointment then - after all, when Iran beat the United States 2-1 in the 1998 World Cup, a victory that saw millions of Iranians fill the nation...
...kind of headline even war hawks in Washington wouldn't dare dream up: North Korea delivers Iran a fatal blow. But on Saturday, it happened. In a stadium in Pyongyang, the football teams of both countries ground out a turgid goalless draw. That means Iran - a nation where the public's passion for football rivals the religious fervor of its ruling mullahs - will likely miss out on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. North Korea, meanwhile, stays on course to qualify for the first time in over four decades. (See TIME's photos of North Korea going...
...passing. They boast a number of flashy stars who ply their trade in some of Europe's elite football leagues. In the past, Iran's mullahs have issued fatwas chastising national team players for growing their hair long. Still, there were plenty of flowing locks on Iranian heads in Pyongyang; the team commands such adulation from the country's football faithful that even the clergy can be cowed...