Putin and Kim Embrace New Era of Alliance, Signing Mutual Defense Pact in North Korea

It must be somebody pretty important in your life to warrant a personal airport pickup at 3 a.m. But that’s the honor North Korean “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un paid to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday morning, greeting the Russian President on a red carpet-laid runway in the wee hours and then riding with him through Pyongyang streets festooned with roses and murals of his stout, balding guest, whom Kim had earlier hailed as an “invincible comrade-in-arms.”