North Korea could be inching toward military drills

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 5 (Reuters) - Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari stood up for specialist dribbler Neymar on Tuesday, saying the flamboyant forward's reputation for falling down easily was undeserved and exaggerated. "He gets fouled 10 times a match, and possibly one or two of those free kicks shouldn't be awarded, but then that is normal in football," Scolari told a news conference on Tuesday. "The coaches who criticise Neymar, who claim he falls over or simulates fouls, do that because it's an easy way out for them. ...

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Dennis Rodman worms his way into North Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Former NBA star Dennis Rodman brought his basketball skills Tuesday and flamboyant style — neon-bleached hair, tattoos, nose studs and all — to the isolated communist country with possibly the world's drabbest dress code: North Korea.

Arriving in Pyongyang, the American athlete and showman known as "The Worm" became an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Or maybe not so unlikely: Young leader Kim Jong Un is said to have been a fan of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, when Rodman won three championships with the club.

Rodman is joining three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team for a Vice Media production to air on HBO in early April, Vice founder Shane Smith told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the group's departure from Beijing.

Smith said the Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" by running a basketball camp for children and playing pickup games with locals, and by competing alongside top athletes of North Korea — formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Smith, who is host of the upcoming series. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing."

Rodman might seem an odd fit for an impoverished country where male fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and growing facial hair is forbidden. During his heyday in the 1990s, Rodman was a poster boy for excess. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" — and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.

Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"

But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships — a feat that quickly overshadowed his antics for at least one small North Korean group of basketball fans.

Rodman's is the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.

Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.

Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.

North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.

Vice, known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the "VICE Guide to North Korea." The HBO series, which will air weekly starting April 5, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.

The Americans also will visit North Korea's national monuments, the SEK animation studio and a new skate park in Pyongyang.

The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea and urges U.S. citizens contemplating travel there to review a travel warning on its website.

In a now-defunct U.S.-North Korean agreement in which Washington had planned last year to give food aid to Pyongyang in exchange for nuclear concessions, Washington had said it was prepared to increase people-to-people exchanges with the North, including in the areas of culture, education and sports.

Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.

The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture. But they know Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman's when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.

During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong Il, famously an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.

North Korea even had its own Jordan wannabe: Ri Myong Hun, a 7-foot-9 star player who is said to have renamed himself "Michael" after his favorite player and moved to Canada for a few years in the 1990s in hopes of making it into the NBA.

Even today, Jordan remains well-loved here. At the Mansudae Art Studio, which produces the country's top art, a portrait of Jordan spotted last week, complete with a replica of his signature and "NBA" painted in one corner, seemed an odd inclusion among the propaganda posters and celadon vases on display.

An informal poll of North Koreans revealed that "The Worm" isn't quite as much a household name in Pyongyang.

But Kim Jong Un was a basketball-crazy adolescent when Rodman, now 51, was with the Bulls, and when the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team, kept up a frenetic travel schedule worldwide.

In a memoir about his decade serving as Kim Jong Il's personal sushi chef, a man who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto recalled that basketball was the young Kim Jong Un's biggest passion, and that the Chicago Bulls were his favorite.

The notoriously unpredictable and irrepressible Rodman said he has no special antics up his sleeve for making his mark on one of the world's most regimented and militarized societies, a place where order and conformity are enforced with Stalinist fervor.

But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind.

__

Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report from Washington. Follow AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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Don King aims for boxing match in North Korea

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'http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/showbiz/don-king-profile/index.html' : 'http://www.cnn.com'+location.pathname;cnnad_newTileIDGroup(['607x95_adlinks','336x280_adlinks']); EDITION:  INTERNATIONAL U.S. MÉXICO ARABIC TV:   CNNi CNN en Español Set edition preference Sign up Log in Home Video World U.S. Africa Asia Europe Latin America Middle East Business World Sport Entertainment Tech Travel iReport Share this on:FacebookTwitterDiggdeliciousredditMySpaceStumbleUponLinkedInViadeo Don King aims for boxing match in North KoreaBy Kim Segal and John Zarrella, CNNAugust 25, 2012 -- Updated 1327 GMT (2127 HKT)if (typeof cnnArticleGallery=="undefined"){var cnnArticleGallery={};if(typeof cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList=="undefined"){cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList=[];}}var expGalleryPT00=new ArticleExpandableGallery();expGalleryPT00.setImageCount(7);//cnn_adbptrackpgalimg("Don King: Through the years", 1);.cnn_html_slideshow_metadata > .cnn_html_media_utility::before{color:red;content:'>>';font-size:9px;line-height:12px;padding-right:1px}.cnnstrylccimg640{margin:0 27px 14px 0}.captionText{filter:alpha(opacity=100);opacity:1}.cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a,.cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a:visited,.cnn_html_slideshow_media_caption a:link,.captionText a,.captionText a:visited,.captiontext a:link{color:#004276;outline:medium none}.cnnVerticalGalleryPhoto{margin:0 auto;padding-right:68px;width:270px}Don King, 81, sits at his desk at his South Florida office, which is more like a museum than an office. Known as a boxing promoter, King says he aspires to use the sport "as a catalyst to bring people together." cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList.length]={"currentPicture":true,"x":0,"y":0,"pos":1,"title":"Don King: Through the years"}Before gaining fame as a boxing promoter, Don King -- seen here in 1978 -- ran an illegal gambling operation on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. He got his first big break in 1974 after organizing the "Rumble in the Jungle," the heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList.length]={"currentPicture":false,"x":0,"y":0,"pos":2,"title":"Don King: Through the years"}In the 1980s, King became inextricably linked to heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson, seen here during the 1988 World Boxing Council convention in Mexico City. 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Al Sharpton during a celebration honoring the 37th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C.cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList.length]={"currentPicture":false,"x":0,"y":0,"pos":5,"title":"Don King: Through the years"}With Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie by his side, King speaks at a 2004 victory celebration for newly re-elected President George W. Bush. King says he is not loyal to either political party. "I'm a 'Republicrat' and that means that I'm for the American people first and the party second." cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList.length]={"currentPicture":false,"x":0,"y":0,"pos":6,"title":"Don King: Through the years"}King shows off his "Only in America" denim jacket at a 2003 press event. While he publicly embraces the caricature of himself that he has spent decades creating, King is often quiet and deep in his thoughts when he's out of the limelight, according to his son, Karl.cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList.length]={"currentPicture":false,"x":0,"y":0,"pos":7,"title":"Don King: Through the years"}HIDE CAPTIONDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the yearsDon King: Through the years<<<1234567>>>Event.observe(window,'load',function(){if(typeof(cnn_adbptrackpgalimg) == 'function' && typeof(cnnArticleGallery) != 'undefined'){cnn_adbptrackpgalimg(cnnArticleGallery.currentImageList[0].image,"Don King through the years");}});STORY HIGHLIGHTSDon King, who turned 81 this week, is still promoting boxing matchesHe hopes to sponsor a boxing and music event in North KoreaHis office in South Florida is a virtual museum of his legacy"I'm a guy that uses boxing as a catalyst to bring people together," King told CNN

Hollywood, Florida (CNN) -- He's known for his big hair and his big personality and at 81 years old, legendary boxing promoter Don King is still hard at work trying to turn his big dreams into reality. His latest endeavor: a boxing and music event in North Korea.

"This came about by me thinking about Korea and feeling that Korea, that it should be one Korea," said King. When asked about the odds of this event actually coming together, King says, "It's very difficult to believe, I understand that."

Understanding King may help explain why he believes he can make this event happen.

The hallways of the Don King Productions office in South Florida are lined with photographs of him posing with world leaders, celebrities and athletes. There are old boxing posters and newspaper articles framed and hanging on the walls.

It feels more like a museum than an office building. For decades, King has appeared alongside boxing greats including Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield -- promoting legendary matchups that have catapulted many boxers into lifelong fame.

Boxing has always been more than a sport to King, who contemplates the photos.

"Gen. David Petraeus, that was my friend," said King, pointing to a photo signed by the former Army commander, now CIA director. "I went to Iraq with him."

On the other side of the room is a picture of King with a young Michael Jackson, who "told me that music is the ribbon that ties humanity together," King recalled. "And I added to that boxing is a catalyst that brings humanity together to be tied."

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"I am not a Democrat and I am not a Republican," explained King. "I'm a 'Republicrat' and that means that I'm for the American people first and the party second."

He is a fan of President Barack Obama and believes that Bush paved the way for an Obama presidency: "George Walker Bush had the most diversified Cabinet in the history of the nation."

Another photo shows King with former Ohio Gov. James Rhodes, who gained fame after sending National Guard troops to Kent State in 1970. Rhodes pardoned King in 1983 for a prior manslaughter conviction. The boxing promoter spent four years in prison for the fatal beating of a man who King says owed him money.

King admits this wasn't the only man he killed during his early years, when he was running an illegal gambling operation on the streets of Cleveland. He had no problem describing what happened when an intruder entered his home in 1954:

"I was shooting him and he's shooting at me," recalled King, "he goes downstairs and into the alley somewhere and falls dead in the alley." King claimed he fired in self-defense and the case was ruled a justifiable homicide.

For both of them, I suffered deep contrition," said King, adding, "How do you expiate for that? You expiate for that by helping others and that's what my life is dedicated to."

That life is reflected in his hallway of photographs chronicling nearly every moment of King's rise to fame.

Another photo shows King wearing a prison number, not his, but 46664 -- the prison number of former South African President Nelson Mandela. King said Mandela asked him to wear the black T-shirt with the number printed across the front.

"What I take from him, he says you can do more for world peace," King said, recalling the day they met. Mandela spoke to King about bringing people together through sports.

That concept of sports diplomacy is what King hopes to achieve on the Korean peninsula. A phone call from South Korea's ambassador to the United States interrupts our guided tour of King's hallway of photos.

King heads back into his office, asking the ambassador the progress of the North Korea project.

"You took the statement both to North and South ambassadors?" King asks on speakerphone. "I wrote a letter to Kim Jung Un and have we heard anything back from the supreme leader?"

King explains he met with the ambassador and a North Korean representative during a trip to New York and he recently sent his proposal to Kim. He has not heard back from officials in North Korea.

Cult of personality surrounds new North Korean leader

Before hanging up the phone, King thanks the ambassador and says, "I will call you back because I have to move on to the rest of the world, God bless you and God bless Korea."

Not one to sit around and wait for things to happen, after talking to the ambassador, King leaves his office for the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, where he was promoting a fight.

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King likes his props, especially the flags. For this outing he made sure he also had the Seminole Tribe of Florida flag to carry with him. He also likes the attention he gets from the public, gladly stopping every few feet to pose for pictures, as he makes his way to the event hall, where his boxers are getting ready for a fight.

"Our customers, our guests, they're as interested in being exposed to Don as they are the fight card itself," explained Jim Allen, chief executive officer of Hard Rock International's casinos and restaurants.

King publicly embraces the caricature of himself that he has spent decades cultivating. He is a public figure whose name alone can evoke adoration or abhorrence.

When he's out of the limelight, King is a family man often quiet and deep in his thoughts, according to his son, Karl King.

Karl, 55, is one of three children King had with his wife of over 50 years, Henrietta. She passed away in 2010 at age 87. During King's time in prison, it was Henrietta who protected the children and kept the family together.

"We moved out of the city where he was so well known ... to a rural part of Ohio," recalled Karl.

After his father's prison stint, Karl King said his mother continued to hold the family together while his "workaholic" father financially provided for the family during his rise to fame as Don King the promoter.

"I think it's what gives him life," explained the younger King. "The art of closing a deal, the art of waving the flags and being something more than just a boxing promoter who puts on boxing shows."

King's life at 81 seems to continue as it has for decades, with him being at the center of the ring, taking on projects that may seem impossible to others. King knows the odds of the North Korea endeavor are not in his favor.

But he says it's not about the fight.

"I'm not a boxing guy," King explained. "I'm a guy that uses boxing as a catalyst to bring people together."

CNN's John Zarrella contributed to this report

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