That is what some North Korean watchers are thinking considering that she has been out of the public spotlight for the past 7 months:
Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has not shown up at public events for over seven months, an analysis of the North’s media reports showed Sunday.
Ri’s public activity was last reported by the North’s media on March 28, 2016, when she accompanied Kim on his visit to a newly built commercial district and health complex in Pyongyang. At that time, Kim and Ri met with officials and employees at the Mirae Shop and the health complex.
Earlier, Ri accompanied Kim 18 times in 2012, 22 times in 2013 and 15 times in 2014. But the number fell sharply to seven last year and three this year, according to the analysis.
“Ri showed up at public events every two months last year but has not appeared in public for over seven months this year. That’s quite extraordinary,” said a North Korea watcher. “Some sources speculate Ri’s disappearance may be linked to a check on her activities by Kim’s younger sister Kim Yo-jong.”
Other watchers are raising speculation about a possible pregnancy or marital rift. [Korea Times]
The more I read about Choi Soon-sil the more I realize she is basically President Park’s Huma Abedin, but she has no official government position. Fortunately for Huma Abedin if she ever has to show up for questioning by the FBI I doubt they would allow a media circus like this to occur:
Choi Soon-sil, who is suspected of having meddled in state affairs and peddled influence on various state projects by exploiting her decades-long friendship with President Park Geun-hye, passes through a huge group of reporters to enter the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul for questioning on Oct. 31, 2016. (Yonhap)
The 60-year-old’s appeared at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office a little over a day after she returned from Europe, where she had been residing for nearly two months.
“I am so sorry,” she told reporters before entering the prosecutors’ office. “I have committed a deadly sin. Please forgive me.”
Her lawyer Lee Kyung-jae later said she was trying to express her feelings, adding her statements cannot be deemed as holding any legal meaning.
“She deeply regrets the fact that she caused such a huge confusion,” he told reporters in front of the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office. “She thinks she should receive due punishment if there was any (violation of law).”
As she got out of a black sedan in black clothes, covering her face with a black hat and a scarf, some hundreds of reporters who had been waiting since early morning surrounded her. It was the first time she appeared in public after the scandal surfaced.
Some citizens engaged in surprise protests as she showed up, chanting and picketing “Down with Park Geun-hye!” and “Arrest Choi Soon-sil!” [Yonhap]
I guess it was only a matter of time before some sex scandal became part of the whole Choi Soon-shil mess in South Korea:
Ko Young-tae
The investigation by the prosecution on the influence-peddling scandal surrounding Choi Soon-sil, President Park Geun-hye’s confidant, shed light on Choi’s clandestine relationship with a host bar worker.
Ko Young-tae, 40, had voluntarily turned up at the prosecutor’s office for questioning late Thursday after entering the country earlier in the day. After a 40-hour prosecutorial investigation over how confidential documents including the President’s speeches reached Choi, he returned home around noon Saturday but was summoned again Sunday.
No details about the interrogation are available.
Ko is suspected of managing The Blue K and Widec Sports _ paper companies Choi set up in Korea and Germany allegedly to funnel money away from the Mir and K-Sports foundations.
Little is known about Ko.
He is a former member of the national saber team, winning a gold medal at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.
Being through with sports, Ko worked at well-known host bars in Gangnam, southern Seoul, according to reports and witnesses. A host bar is an establishment where female customers are served by male hosts who engage in conversation as well as sometimes barter for sexual services. The two are believed to have met and become close at one such host bar, around 2006.
“Ko made a lot of money with his good looks,” said an anonymous man who introduced himself as Ko’s coworker at the bar during Kim Hyun-jung’s “NEWS SHOW” on Christian Broadcasting Service (CBS) Radio, Friday.
“I assume that Choi was one of Ko’s close customers as they are on friendly terms with each other despite the 20-year age gap between them,” he said. Choi is 60 years old, and the friendly terms despite a two-decade age difference can indicate an intimate relationship, according to reports. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but like the Anthony Weiner mess causing ripples in the US Presidential election, the tablet found in the trash by cable news channel JTBC that contained the edited Presidential speeches may have belonged to Ko. If so this means that Ko may have been privy to classified information without a security clearance. What a mess.
This year the US finally sanctioned as many North Korean entities as Zimbabwean. Still waiting on Obama-promised additional sanctions. https://t.co/d0jqiSNJJP
South Korean reporters wait for officials from government and private companies to be summoned to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in southern Seoul on Oct. 30, 2016, as the investigators said they will call in a number of figures related to the Choi Soon-sil scandal. The longtime confidante of President Park Geun-hye is suspected of peddling influence and interfering in state affairs. Choi returned to South Korea on the same day, after nearly two months of hiding in Europe. (Yonhap)
Here is an interesting read from Barbara Demick in the LA Times about the bizarre kidnapping of a South Korean actress and film director by the North Koreans that has come back into the public’s focus with the release of tapes that feature the voice of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il:
The voice on the tape recording is squeaky and excitable, the speaker using such a strong dialect that it is difficult even for native Korean speakers to understand. What comes across is that the man speaking in a rapid clip is anxious about his own shortcomings, and his country’s.
The speaker, in fact, is Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. Tape recordings of him from the 1980s are featured in a new documentary, “The Lovers and the Despot.” Although Kim died in 2011 and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un, the tapes provide rare insight into the psyche of the North Korean regime, both its audaciousness and its insecurity.
It is one of the strangest stories out of a strange country: In 1978, the South Korean film actress Choi Eun-hee was kidnapped during a business trip to Hong Kong and brought to Pyongyang on the orders of Kim Jong Il. When her former husband, Shin Sang-ok, a leading film director, went to look for her, he was captured as well. Reunited, they were coerced to make movies for Kim Jong Il, gradually earning his trust to the point that he allowed them to travel to Eastern Europe, then still part of the Soviet block, to shoot films and attend film festivals. In 1986, the pair escaped to the U.S. embassy in Vienna.
Shin feared rightfully that nobody would believe this outlandish story, so he and Choi secretly taped Kim Jong Il. With a microrecorder stashed in Choi’s purse, they captured Kim, who was then in charge of the film industry, pouring out his insecurities about how his country lagged behind capitalist rival South Korea.
“Why do all of our films have the same ideological plots? There is nothing new about them. … We don’t have any films that get into film festivals. In South Korea, they have better technology. They are like college students and we are just in nursery schools.”
In the tapes, Kim also confesses that he had ordered the couple to be kidnapped so that they could make movies for him.
“I asked my adviser, who’s the best director in the south? He said that his name is Shin.”
Later, Kim apologized to Shin for the mistreatment he endured from the agents who kidnapped him, and for the fact that the couple were kept apart for four years.
“I didn’t tell them about my plan to use you and collaborate with you. I just said bring them to me.” [LA Times]
It looks like the usual suspects from the Korean left such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has given up protesting the THAAD deployment and moved on to the Choi Soon-shil issue that seems to have more traction with the Korean public:
Thousands of citizens took to the streets in downtown Seoul on Saturday, demanding President Park Geun-hye step down, in protest of an ongoing influence-peddling scandal surrounding her confidante.
Groups, including the country’s largest umbrella labor union, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which had been at odds with the president on a host of issues in the past, jointly held a candlelight rally in Cheonggye Stream Square.
About 20,000 took part in the demonstration, according to the organizers, although the police put the number closer at 9,000, with 8,000 officers mobilized to deal with contingencies.
Police and politicians have been casting watchful eyes on the rally as it was the first mass movement after the president apologized in a nationally televised address over allegations raised against her confidante, Choi Soon-sil.
In the apology delivered Tuesday, Park admitted to the leak of dozens of presidential speeches to Choi before they were made public, acknowledging her ties.
Still, the scandal has only been snowballing as a series of media reports claimed Choi’s possible intervention in other state affairs, including some related to sensitive policy issues. Choi holds no governmental post.
A 24-year-old college student, who asked not to be named, said he joined a demonstration as he was “so frustrated and disappointed” about the latest scandal.
Others like Chris from Australia who works as an English teacher here said it seemed very meaningful that the public came out to send a message to the government. He asked for his last name not to be used for privacy reasons. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the Australian quoted in the article may want to stay out of Korean political affairs because foreigners have been deported before in the past for this.
