What Hillary Clinton has to put up with

No doubt Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be delighted that Bill Clinton's mercy mission to Pyongyang has been so spectacularly successful, with the two American women journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, spared a fate worse than death in a North Korean prison camp.

But not only has the former president's mercy dash totally overshadowed the start of her 11-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa, it comes only a fortnight after a North Korean foreign ministry official launched a barrage of insults against her.

It all began when, during an interview with ABC News last month, Mrs Clinton compared North Korea's nuclear test and the missile launches earlier this summer to the behaviour of attention-seeking teenagers.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry objected to her "vulgar remarks" and called her "a funny lady" who was neither intelligent nor diplomatic. "Sometimes she looks like a primary-school girl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," a spokesman said.

Hillary should not be too offended: the North Koreans have a habit of throwing colourful insults at American politicians. Of George W Bush - who famously included North Korea along with Iran in his "axis of evil" speech - it was said he looked like "a chicken soaked in the rain," while former VP Dick Cheney was described as "mentally deranged" and a "blood-thirsty beast". Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was both a "political dwarf" and "human scum."

As for Mrs Clinton's trip to Africa, should anyone be interested she's in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, for trade talks today, and will be taking in South Africa, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde on her whirlwind tour. ·