Clinton in Pyongyang not quite Nixon in China.

international | arts and media | other press Tuesday August 04, 2009 16:18 by Susan Boyle

(possible "ex President Carter in N Korea")...long way to go get 2 people released.

Those of us whose holidays or vacations are generally spent eating healthy salad, considering the holistic benefits of poverty which reduce alcohol consumption & welcome soft slumber - are often left with only two things to do.

The sensible : decorate the gaff.
The frustrating : read about other people's holidays.

Oh, if I had enough for a decent roller and emulsion I'd have enough for a six pack & oriental massage on my local beach. So instead I offer to the reader a miscellany of links covering former President Clinton's surprise day trip to North Korea.

The English guardian offers us a video of Mr Clinton alighting from a private aircraft to get a holaha bouquet of flowers from a young North Korean girl who knows America is failing because its workers do not strive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/04/bill-clinto...ng-il

The New York Times offers us a photo of Mr Clinton looking like a waxwork model sitting next to the glorious leader Kim Jong-il.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/asia/05korea.ht...=1&hp

The NYTimes fills the readers in on the background to this curious daytrip, for in the search for exotic holiday snaps & food you might get a nasty after-taste from - surely Pyongyang isn't chique or cool?

Television footage from Pyongyang showed Mr. Clinton being greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, the vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers. The imprisoned journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.” The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea. The visit by Mr. Clinton, even if officially a private effort, was clearly undertaken with the blessings of the White House, and marked his first diplomatic mission abroad on behalf of the administration. Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

ah it's a working holiday then.

probably go down on expenses too.

Because the White House have told Al Jazeera that until the "mission is accomplished" they're not going to comment on it. I suppose that's why neither the South Korean or Japanese media have bothered to take off their swine flu masks and write an article.

last link to more info from the NYT mediablog on the 2 American travellers. Remember kids if your travel agent goes bankrupt while you're on holliers, or lays off your tour guide, or you wake up minus one kidney - the diplomatic and consular missions of the republic of Ireland do not have funds to help you.

Please note it is also an idea to bring a good interpreter with you, sometimes a phrasebook is not enough "A later claim in [in North Korean media] — that the two women admitted at their trial that they crossed the border into North Korea for the purpose of “faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it” — suggests that the authorities were actually concerned that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee might shoot video in the country, not work on an animated film there. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/north-korea...isit/