North Korea is skilled at playing what KCNA calls the “reptile media.” Pyongyang’s latest wheeze, to send cheerleaders with its athletes to the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea in September, has gained it plenty of coverage. As usual some of this is sadly ill-informed.

If you believe the Independent, once a serious newspaper, this goes to show that “Communist leaders are fans of the American tradition.” Communist? American? Anyone expecting pom-poms and skimpy outfits had better think again. The DPRK variant is modesty incarnate.

In the current dire state of inter-Korean relations, anything that brings the two sides