{"id":16373,"date":"2013-11-25T02:11:10","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T02:11:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:16:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:16:25","slug":"dennis-rodman-planning-basketball-tour-in-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=16373","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Rodman planning basketball tour in North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dennis Rodman is preparing to thrill North Korean fans during an exhibition basketball tour there late next month.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though he ducked questions in an interview with The Associated Press about whether his Christmas-time visit would be used for propaganda purposes by Kim Jong Un, the 29-year-old leader of one of the world\u2019s most repressive regimes, <strong>Rodman said he\u2019ll be accompanied on the trip by a dozen or so former NBA players. But he refused to name names.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Back in the news as a self-appointed ambassador and friend of Kim, Rodman returned Thursday to where he won the last three of his five NBA championships playing alongside Michael Jordan.<\/strong> On a promotional tour to pitch a vodka brand, Rodman, 52, held court downtown amid camera flashes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rodman said he wouldn\u2019t talk about his relationship with Kim or North Korean politics, including its widely condemned human-rights record and secretive nuclear weapons program.<\/strong> Though he eventually touched on those subjects, Rodman glossed over several related questions and largely ignored a challenge to his answer about whether North Korea was holding U.S. citizens as hostages, including 85-year-old Korean War veteran Merrill Newman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Swedish Embassy is negotiating on behalf of Newman because the U.S. has no diplomatic ties to North Korea.<\/strong> Rodman\u2019s friendship with Kim has afforded him the kind of access denied statesmen from the West and even U.S. President Barack Obama. Rodman came under criticism for being &#8220;naive&#8221; during a previous visit to North Korea, where he was photographed often with Kim, and some members of the diplomatic community fear his antics could further aggravate already-sensitive negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>Rodman said his reasons for returning were much more personal and beyond that, Kim\u2019s motives were not his concern.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0k_zAaAlT_c\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Source AP<\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dennis Rodman is preparing to thrill North Korean fans during an exhibition basketball tour there late next month. Though he<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[2124],"tags":[2125],"class_list":["post-16373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-interview"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Dennis Rodman is preparing to thrill North Korean fans during an exhibition basketball tour there late next month. Though he","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Interviews"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":103,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-2124\">Interviews<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}