Open Sources, December 30, 2013

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REPORT: KIM JONG UN PIMPED HIS PLEASURE SQUAD TO RODMAN: Well, this seems as easy to believe as it is hard to prove. It comes via a Taiwanese website I’ve never heard of:

Chris Nelson, Washington’s top insider source on Asia, says Rodman’s real reason for visiting North Korea extends further than just helping to set up a domestic basketball league. According to the September edition of the private newsletter the Nelson Report: “Sources in the region report that during his visit earlier this year, Kim provided Rodman with what we might characterize as specialized personal entertainment of the female persuasion, and, they argue, that is a special inducement for Rodman this time.”

I don’t subscribe to Nelson’s newsletter and haven’t read the original report, but this is just too good to be true.

You’ll have to search far and wide for someone who holds Dennis Rodman’s morals in lower regard than me, but I question how any source inside the palace court would be (a) able and (b) willing to risk leaking that kind of information to anyone who would ultimately get it into Nelson’s hands. As with so many of these rumors, it’s more significant for the fact of its circulation than the likelihood of its veracity.

One obvious possibility is that the South Korean NIS is engaging in a clever disinformation campaign (which I’d fully support, strictly as a matter of statecraft, even if I’m skeptical enough to question it). Another, more interesting, possibility is that contempt for Kim and Rodman inside Pyongyang is germinating rumors like this one, and those about Ri Sol Ju’s career as a porn star, and her alleged sexual affair with Jang Song Thaek. Either you believe that someone inside the palace, who is very close to and trusted by Kim Jong Un, is leaking all this ultra-sensitive information, or someone is out to make Kim Jong Un look like … exactly the kind of person he probably is anyway.

Every one of these rumors is plausible. That any North Korean insider would leak them isn’t. Meanwhile, feel free to insert your own “Rodman” double-entendre in the comments.

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TICK-TOCK: North Korea is operating a new fuel fabrication plant. If the administration has a plan to take these toys away from the psychopath who is perfecting them, it’s not evident to anyone.

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CLANDESTINE VIDEO FROM N. KOREA shows starving soldiers. It’s a little old, but worth seeing.

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LEAVE THE KID ALONE: To the South Korean reporter who insists on stalking Kim Han Sol, and to the South China Morning Post reporters who insist on printing photographs of Kim’s mailbox (complete with name and address label), you are awful, hideous excuses for human beings. For God’s sake, stop showing the North Koreans and everyone else exactly where to find him.

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AMNESTY ACCUSES CHINA OF LAOGAI DECEPTION: “The human rights group says that while labor camps are being shut, research suggested that authorities are expanding the use of ‘black jails,’ enforced drug rehabilitation clinics and “brainwashing centers” to take their place.”