Poison-slay body in N. Korea deal
A SCHOOLYARD jab at North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has him threatening to blow up the playground.
The dictator’s isolated regime responded angrily this week after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the Dear Leader a “crazy fat kid.”
“China is the only one that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy fat kid that’s running North Korea,” McCain told MSNBC’s Greta Van Susteren last week.
He added that Beijing “could stop North Korea’s economy in a week,” and chastised China for not reining in a neighboring leader who does not act “rational.”
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said through the Korean Central News Agency that the statements were an affront to the “dignity” of Kim and were “tantamount to a declaration of war.”
“The service personnel and people of the DPRK are regarding the dignity of their supreme leadership as their life and soul,” it said, according to KCNA Watch. North Korea also referenced its nuclear capacity in the response adding to repeated threats against the U.S. and allies such as Japan.
McCain, for his part, did not seem fazed by any impending wrath from Kim.
“What, did they want me to call him, a crazy skinny kid?” McCain posted on Twitter. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia says it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in Pyongyang.
Relations between Malaysia and North Korea have been badly frayed by the murder of the North Korean leader’s half brother at Kuala Lumpur’s airport. Both countries withdrew their ambassadors, and North Korea blocked nine Malaysians from leaving the country. Malaysia responded in kind, barring North Koreans from departing.
Following negotiations that he described as “very sensitive,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said Thursday that North Korea had allowed the nine Malaysians to leave, and that Malaysia had agreed to release Kim’s remains to North Korea. He didn’t say whether Kim’s body had left Malaysia.
Kim was poisoned at the airport on Feb. 13 by two women using a banned nerve agent, according to Malaysian officials. North Korea, which is widely suspected to be behind the attack, has rejected the autopsy findings.