Khan: We Said build Great Wall, Not Demolish it

from our own correspondent who, having finally fled Karakorum, is hiding out in Shanghai awaiting a fast junk to anywhere

An astonishing rumour was spreading last night through the bazaars in Karakorum that the main pledge given by President Ghengis Khan to the Golden Horde that helped secure his election last year was utterly and completely misinterpreted. At the time Khan was said to have declared, to rousing cheers from many tribesmen wielding scimitars,

We're gonna knock down that wall that stops us riding into China and doing what the hell we want, and the goddam Chinese can pay for the lot, we've had it up to here with paddy fields and writing and that **** philosophy - all that true Mongols want is to ride around on horses slaughtering people and we're gonna do that all the way up to the kingdom of the Khmer going one way and the the Kingdom of the Franks going the other.

Certain parchments being read to bemused goat-herders at the Gate of the Foreign Devils seem to contradict these words. The parchments are said to be transcripts of a meeting between Khan and Chinese Emperor Bing at the Summer Palace in Beijing three months ago. The key passage reads

The Emperor, inspired by the benevolence and wisdom of the gods, enquired graciously if the President intended the militaristic threats against the Kingdom of Heaven. The President said he had been entirely misquoted, that it was fake news and that what he really said was that anything the Chinese wanted was all right by him, but not to tell anyone until the election was over. The Emperor condescended to nod and smile, inscrutably.

No word was available from the President's spokesman because the post remains unfilled following the execution of every available candidate.

[This will be the final despatch from the Mongol Empire unless we can find anyone stupid enough  with the right credentials to be appointed to the Court of the Great Khan. Which, quite frankly, seems pretty unlikely: Ed]