We were fascinated by today’s Christian Science Monitor profile of the man Kim Jong-un hired to perform public relations duties for the People’s Republic of North Korea. That still-mysterious country is one of the few things on the planet Earth that remains less popular than the Kardashian family.

His name is Alejandro Cao de Benós, he’s a Spanish man with “aristocratic roots”, and his official blog features a lot of stories about “Corea del Norte”. What else? He appears to have been an enthusiastic North Korean sympathizer for some time, and as the only non-Korean employee of the nation’s foreign ministry, it’s his job to travel around the world, speak to various media outlets and try (in vain) to convince people that Kim Jong-un isn’t as bad as we all seem to think he is. Cao de Benós’s only real messaging strategy is to insist that “everything you’ve heard is a lie” and that every supposedly bad thing North Korea does is in direct response to an aggressive action from the West (aka America).

Oof.

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As expected, former VP Xi Jinping officially assumed the presidency after receiving a ridiculous 99.8% of the vote in The People’s Congress. Xi posed as a reformer, and his primary goal is to convince the growing number of Chinese citizens who aren’t happy with their government that his administration is more concerned with improving quality of life than lining its own pockets.

In order to do this, he’s taking some steps right out of the political PR playbook that will look familiar to anyone who has suffered through an American presidential campaign.

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North Korea‘s Kim Jong-un takes a novel approach to the challenge of better serving the people who never directly supported him in the first place: today his nation’s state-run media let the world know that he sent every single North Korean child 2.2 pounds of candy in celebration of his own mysterious birthday (no one can agree on his age).

While this tradition is unusual, it’s nothing new: it began with the current dictator’s own grandfather. The logic behind the strategy is perverse, but we have no doubt that these yearly gift baskets serve as bright spots for the citizens of a nation as restricted and suppressed as North Korea.

Now we’re curious about Google‘s “don’t be evil” co-founder Eric Schmidt, who arrived in the world’s evil-est country today alongside former New Mexico governor and United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson. What’s he doing there, exactly?

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This one comes to us from the tragically, hilariously misnamed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and its news agency, KCNA (don’t even bother clicking on the link if you want to retain your sanity).

According to the amazing release we’ve captured via screenshot below, archaeologists representing the DPRK and its Very Important History Institute “have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom (B.C. 277-A.D. 668).” Note the use of the word “reconfirmed”–it was there all along, but they just had to make sure.

Does it get better? Oh yes.

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Today, however, we also note that the editors of the Daily seem to be missing a crucial snark detector. A quick glance at the site’s English landing page reveals a feature based on the recent Onion spoof naming North Korean Communist dictator-by-birth Kim Jong-un as “The Sexiest Man Alive”, reprinted with nary a hint of irony.

The best part about it? The editors didn’t just run the story—they added their own 55-page slideshow to highlight all the best things about their favorite ally/supreme leader/murderous despot.

Did they really not get the joke? The fact that they reprinted this ridiculous quote in full makes us wonder:

“With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.”

And here’s a picture of him riding horseback, because that’s just the kind of thing sexy men do.

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In short: they pay for it.

We’re not talking about traditional Party mouthpieces like Pravda and The People’s Daily. This matter concerns stories carried by familiar American media outlets like The Huffington Post and CNBC, which recently posted op-eds by “independent” businessmen proclaiming Russia to be “Europe’s Bright Light of Growth”, calling the government’s approach to the worldwide recession “a model of restraint” and naming Russia “the most dynamic place on the continent.”

An investigation by ProPublica, a research organization dedicated to facilitating “Journalism in the Public Interest”, found that Ketchum planted these complimentary pieces in order to improve Western perceptions of two-time Russian President Vladamir Putin’s government and the nation’s business culture. Ketchum, one of the world’s largest PR firms and PRWeek‘s 2012 agency of the year, has represented the Kremlin since 2006.

Ketchum’s filings with the US Justice Department reveal that, while the company’s employees did not write the stories themselves, they did reach out to the authors and arrange for the placement of their op-eds on prominent websites in order to encourage “foreign investments” in Russian companies.

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An interesting study in Communist Party PR unfurled this week. For the past year or so, Chinese politics has revolved around the sort of organized transfer of power that occurs once every decade; most observers believe that current President Hu Jintao will hand the reins off to his VP, Xi Jinping.

The transfer, already plagued by the arrest of top official Bo Xilal and his wife on charges of fraud and murder, ran into even more controversy thanks to a recent New York Times expose focused on the finances of prime minister Wen Jibao‘s family–a proudly humble clan that has somehow managed to accumulate billions of dollars in assets over recent years via assorted business alliances.

Like the Wen family’s finances, the Party’s damage control plan is all over the map: First censors blocked web access to the Times site throughout China; then they scanned the popular Chinese Twitter equivalent Sina Weibo in order to scrub all references to the number 2.7 billion (the supposed financial worth of the PM’s family). After relying on the government to implement a “nothing to see here” approach, members of the Wen family pivoted, directly addressing a story that they’d previously tried to erase and threatening legal action against the Times for reporting on “corporate and regulatory records” that were available to the public. What’s more, the family never directly addressed any of the story’s particulars–and the Times report did not allege any sort of illegal activity.

This completely ineffective response to the scandal hints at the complexity of Chinese politics: in an unelected government, public perception is invaluable because brute force can only accomplish so much.

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