“North Korea’s football manager, wearing a badge of the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il on his plain blue suit, sat on a bar stool in the French provinces and proclaimed: “We’d like to surprise the world.” In truth, North Korea already has. In Le Mans this week the hermit kingdom played its first international football match in Europe since 1966. The country has not engaged this much with the world since endorsing John Kerry for American president in 2004. In football if nowhere else, North Korea is embracing globalisation.” (FT)