Word: pyongyang
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...there was "no problem" with the Dear Leader. Still, a senior South Korean intelligence analyst told TIME that "something strange has clearly happened. We know Kim Jong Il has been out of sight for a few weeks, and we know physicians from outside North Korea have come to Pyongyang. But that's all we know at this point, and we believe our intelligence on this matter is [better] than...
...Governments in Washington, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are now running this drill, because anonymous intelligence sources are saying Kim Jong Il, the 66-year-old dictator in Pyongyang, is ill. He might even have had a stroke, the reports say, and in any case he did not show up for the mass 'celebration' the country threw for its 60th anniversary, a pretty unusual absence, even for a North Korean leader not known for his predictability...
...With the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, and both China and South Korea adamantly opposed to military action by Washington, the U.S. eventually found itself with little choice but to talk seriously to Pyongyang. The appointment of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State in the second Bush term and Christopher Hill as the chief U.S. negotiator brought in a team that was intent on a deal and willing and able to push the neocons to the side to get an agreement...
...insights into Washington's dance with Pyongyang, Chinoy's impressive effort ultimately falls short. The book was written even as events continued to unfold at a rapid speed, giving the final section a jumbled feel that is at odds with the more measured bulk of the text. More serious, though, are the flaws in Chinoy's analysis. Chinoy has visited North Korea more than a dozen times in the past two decades and is clearly engrossed by the country. Indeed, it is revealing that the first photo in the book is of Chinoy meeting Kim Il Sung...
...human spirit so ruthlessly that Mao's Cultural Revolution, by contrast, looks like a dinner party. Yet the country's appalling record on missile and weapons proliferation, its illegal-drug sales and counterfeiting and its abysmal human-rights record here are implicitly just the antics of a misunderstood regime. Pyongyang's extortionate tactics with Kim Dae Jung, the South Korean leader who tried to coax it out of isolation, are also glossed over. In Chinoy's zeal to castigate the neocons, there is a subtle subtext that the North is a more or less normal country being prevented by silly...