North Korea just apologized for something
North Korea is known for a lot of things, but apologizing is not one of them. So it was noteworthy when a hard-line North Korean general offered an apology yesterday (April 2) to South Korean reporters, of all people, visiting Pyongyang.
The journalists were in town to cover the K-pop performances attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in recent days. While they had been invited to watch some of South Korea’s top entertainers sing and dance, their minders were overruled by Kim’s bodyguards, who blocked them from entering the theater hosting the performances.
That wasn’t particularly surprising. What was surprising: The high-ranking Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, apologized to the reporters in person at their hotel in Pyongyang. This is the same general suspected of masterminding two attacks on South Korea in 2010: the sinking of a warship and the shelling of an island, leading to the deaths of nearly 50 sailors and a handful of soldiers and civilians, respectively.