NK’s Kim Jong Un Rides a Coaster With a Bunch of Powerful Men and a White Dude, Goes Viral

Welp.

If this isn’t the most unusual thing to happen the last week, I’m not sure what is. North Korea’s new ruler Kim Jong Un flocked to a theme park last week, showing a very different side to him that the outside public’s not used to seeing.

One detail of this event that went viral, though, is the white man smiling like nothing among some very powerful people. This week, his identity was revealed:

Mother Jones has confirmed through multiple sources that he is Barnaby Jones, a junior diplomat with the British Embassy in Pyongyang. (Jones was identified in the Los Angeles Times around the time of Kim Jong Il’s death as the embassy’s “first secretary.”)

Reached by phone, an official in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London confirmed Jones’s identity. The office would not make Jones available for an interview, citing his busy work schedule. In a follow-up statement sent by email, a spokesperson described the event at the amusement park as “unusual.”

 

Life’s good.

source: Mother Jones