Dennis Rodman returns to North Korea

BEIJINGNAMPA/AFP Former NBA star Dennis Rodman arrived back in Pyongyang yesterday, Chinese state media reported, after he said he was going to see his "friend" North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, whose regime has jailed a US citizen. Korean-American Kenneth Bae, 44, has been held prisoner in the North since November, and Rodman had said last week that he might seek the man's release. But speaking to reporters at Beijing airport en route to the North Korean capital, Rodman said "I haven't been promised anything" on Bae. "I'm just going to meet my friend Kim the marshal to start a new basketball league going," Rodman said. "I'm just trying to keep the communication job going." China's official news agency Xinhua later reported that Rodman had arrived in Pyongyang, where he had been invited by the North's sports authority. On a visit six months ago, the flamboyant Rodman declared himself a "friend for life" of the authoritarian leader and embraced him after the pair watched a basketball game together in Pyongyang. The Swiss-educated Kim, who is around 30, is reported to be a huge fan of basketball and the Chicago Bulls, with whom Rodman won three NBA titles alongside Michael Jordan in the 1990s. Rodman faced ridicule from many US commentators over the first trip, which came during high tensions over rocket launches and atomic tests by Kim's isolated regime. At the time, in an enthusiastic commentary on the Kim-Rodman meeting, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Rodman - nicknamed "The Worm" - as saying the impasse in US-North Korean relations was "regrettable". North Korea and the United States have never had diplomatic ties. A US envoy had been due to travel to North Korea last week to seek Bae's release, but Washington said Pyongyang cancelled the invitation at short notice. KCNA quoted the North's foreign ministry as saying joint US-South Korean military drills had "beclouded the atmosphere". Bae, a Korean-American tour operator whose Korean name is Pae Jun-Ho, was arrested in November 2012 as he entered the hardline communist state's northeastern port city of Rason. North Korea, which bans religious proselytising, said Bae was a Christian evangelist who brought in "inflammatory" material. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labour earlier this year on charges that he was trying to topple the North Korea regime, and speculation has mounted that Rodman would try to use his budding friendship with Kim to help free the jailed American. "I'll be back over there. I'm going to try to get the guy out," the heavily tattooed Rodman told celebrity news website TMZ in May.