PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea presented a detained American student before the media on Monday in Pyongyang, where he tearfully apologized for attempting to steal a political banner — at the behest, he said, of a member of a church back home who wanted it as a "trophy" — from a staff-only section of the hotel where he had been staying.
North Korea announced in late January it had arrested Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia undergraduate student. It said that after entering the country as a tourist he committed an anti-state crime with "the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation."
(CNSNews.com) – Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday hailed Iran's "glorious" elections for parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a powerful body that will pick his successor, declaring that the turnout showed "the brilliant face of religious democracy to the world."
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), meanwhile, called the election participation – the regime reported a turnout of more than 60 percent – "devastating for [Iran's] enemies," led by the United States.
