North Korean Hotline!

In our series on the continuing adventures of fearless Leader Kim Jong-ill we have word that senior envoys from the US and North Korea are set to meet in Geneva next week to finally discuss normalizing relations. The talks follow a multilateral deal in February, in which Pyongyang was promised aid and diplomatic benefits if it disabled its nuclear programme.

The US is expected to seek assurances no uranium enrichment is taking place, while North Korea wants to be removed from the US list of terrorism sponsors. Analysts say the two sides are still far from resolving their differences.

Meanwhile, the eldest son of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, is reported to have returned home after several years in exile in a move that has raised speculation over a possible power succession.

Kim Jong-nam, 36, has taken on an influential post in the ruling communist party, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo said on Monday.

Kim Jong-nam was widely believed to have fallen out of favour in 2001 after he was caught entering Japan on a fake passport saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. (He was given diplomatic immunity while the two hookers with him were expelled.)

The publicity – and ridicule- the case attracted was said to have embarrassed his father, and the younger Kim has since spent most of his time living in China and the gambling enclave of Macau.

Meanwhile, with grey apartment blocks, bugged hotel rooms, an erratic electricity supply and rumours of a secret nuclear arsenal - North Korea is not every one's idea of a perfect holiday destination. But plenty of South Koreans signed up for their first chance to visit the North's capital Pyongyang this week, and they are not the only tourists trekking to this isolated communist state.

North Korea is also one of the world's most secretive nations. For a North Korean, contact with a foreigner can land one in jail… or worse.

But, there is one embarrassing secret that is hard for the government to hide, literally.

It's the Ryugyong Hotel in the Potong District of North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang. It's difficult to hide because it's a massive, 105-story structure which dominates the city's skyline.

It's an embarrassment because it's a complete engineering failure… its empty, dilapidated husk lurks over the capital, mocking the citizens of the proud country.

The Ryugyong or "Capital of Willows" Hotel stands 1,083 feet tall, and it was planned to have 3,000 rooms and seven revolving restaurants. It has a total of 3.9 million square feet of floor space.

The hotel would be the tallest hotel and seventh largest building in the world if it were finished. It would also have been the first building with over one hundred floors outside of New York or Chicago.

The first event scheduled to be held at the hotel was June 1989's World Festival of Youth and Students. The hotel was nowhere near ready for that event.

Its construction was plagued with problems, and after five years construction completely ground to a halt due to a shortage of everything… especially funding and electricity.

Work on the hotel has never resumed; the project was abandoned, leaving a lonely construction crane perched on its peak.

Today, few North Koreans are willing to discuss the hotel with outsiders. The hotel, which was once found on city maps before the construction even began, has now been completely stricken from the official maps. Tour guides usually claim not to know where it is.

Either a majority of the country is in a state of denial about the whole thing, or they avoid the subject for fear of reprisal. Since the government's embarrassing monument is visible from practically every point in the city, it's most likely the latter.

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at http://www.god-101.com/