Kim Jong-Un an ‘awesome kid’, says Rodman

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman continued to laud North Korea’s ruler as an “awesome kid” and his father and grandfather as “great leaders” at the end of his basketball diplomacy mission to Pyongyang.

At a time of US-North Korea tensions following Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test, the man who once dated Madonna became the most high-profile American to meet Kim Jong-Un, with whom he watched a basketball match.

Kim “is like his grandfather and his father, who are great leaders. He is an awesome kid, very honest and loves his wife so much,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Rodman as saying before he left for Beijing yesterday.

While Pyongyang actively promotes the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, many North Koreans remain trapped in poverty and are malnourished or even starving to death, according to aid workers and defectors.

Little is known about Kim’s fashionable wife Ri Sol-Ju, who caused quite a stir when she emerged on the national scene last July.

“You have a friend for life,” Rodman told Kim in a speech after Thursday’s game between a North Korean side and a US team featuring members of the Harlem Globetrotters, which ended in a diplomatic 110-110 tie.

Meanwhile, the US state department criticised North Korea for “wining and dining” Rodman while its own people go hungry.

Spokesman Patrick Ventrell distanced the US government from Rodman’s visit to Pyongyang this week and his praise for the nation’s leader and his predecessors.

“You’ve got the regime spending money to wine and dine foreign visitors, when they should be feeding their own people,” said Ventrell.