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Google’s Schmidt in North Korea

With former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, arrived in North Korea on Monday. Schmidt is in the country as part of a delegation led by the former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson. Richardson described the four-day trip as a private humanitarian mission, during which he hopes to meet with an American citizen who was detained in the country for “hostile acts.” Richardson said Schmidt is “interested in some of the economic issues there, the social-media aspect.” Schmidt is a proponent of Internet connectivity and openness, but North Korea’s population is mostly blocked from the Internet. The U.S. State Department had previously called the delegation’s trip “unhelpful.”