Ex-NBA star Rodman heads to North Korea as private citizen

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The 56-year-old Rodman, who won five National Basketball Association championships as a player with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls, previously traveled to North Korea in January 2014.

Rodman also visited North Korea in January 2014, just weeks after Kim made a stunningly violent move to strengthen his grip on power - executing his uncle and onetime No. 2 Jang Song Thaek for alleged treason. CNN reported earlier that Rodman was at the Beijing airport.

Rodman tweeted that his trip was being sponsored by Potcoin, one of a growing number of cybercurrencies used to buy and sell marijuana in state-regulated markets.

Rodman, who has met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on past trips to Pyongyang, declined to answer questions when he was seen by CNN reporters at Beijing International Airport, the network said.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has test fired 16 ballistic missiles this year, and is detaining four Americans.

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CNN, citing two unnamed North Korean officials, said Rodman was expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday, but gave no additional details on the goal of the trip. He's likely to face similar accusations now: His visit comes amid global condemnation over North Korea's accelerating efforts to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, which poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Donald Trump.

Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon also told reporters in Tokyo that the US has issued travel warnings to Americans suggesting they not travel to North Korea for their own safety. -North Korea basketball game in honor of his buddy Kim's birthday. On the same trip, he suggested that an American missionary was at fault for his own imprisonment in North Korea, remarks for which he later apologized.

He traveled to North Korea for the first time in February 2013 with the Harlem Globetrotters for an HBO series produced by VICE television. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the ministry had not issued a formal statement. Rodman returns to North Korea at a time of great tension between Washington and Pyongyang, as four Americans are now being held in the Asian country.

Americans are regarded as enemies in North Korea because the two countries never signed a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. But that was before Celebrity Apprentice's executioner in chief became President of the United States and sent his real-estate-developer son-in-law to Iraq to meet with its prime minister.

Americans have been sentenced to years in North Korean prisons for such seemingly minor offenses as stealing a political banner and likely could not expect leniency if the country's drug laws were violated.

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