Tag: Kim Jong-un

The fact that watching South Korean dramas was added to the charges of these officials likely had nothing to do with their purge, it was just something throw in as a point of emphasis to everyone else not to watch these dramas that the Kim regime views as subversive media:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seeking to erase the remaining influence of his dead uncle, executing about 10 senior Workers’ Party officials on charges from graft to watching South Korean soap operas, according to an aide to a South Korean lawmaker.

The deaths by shooting are part of Kim’s latest round of purges, said Lim Dae Sung, a secretary to ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo who attended a briefing at the National Intelligence Service yesterday in Seoul. Kim had Jang Song Thaek, his uncle and de facto deputy, killed in December last year. Lee didn’t say when the executions took place, or who the officials were. [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link.

The South Korean intelligence is probably pretty accurate on this:

South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 6-week public absence, which set off a frenzy of wild speculation around the world.

The National Intelligence Service told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min. The aide said the spy agency also told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.  [Associated Press]

So I wonder if we will see a number of retractions from all the people claiming a coup happened or other theories that were floated around with no evidence to support them?

Now, after several painful weeks with no Kim Jong Un photos at all (the young despot was incommunicado, thought to be recovering from either gout or an ankle injury), the hard-working men and women of the Korean Central News Agency have gifted us with one of the finest specimens in months. Behold, via the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor, Kim Jong Un and stern North Korean officials visit the Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage:  [VOX.com]

This picture is just begging for a caption contest. What is Kim Jong-un looking at?

This Week's Tongil Sinbo is out | @KCNAWatch http://t.co/YGXR54t2C2 pic.twitter.com/tZxDdIeANL

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) October 25, 2014

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the newly completed Yonphung Scientists Rest Home, south of Pyongyang, in this Rodong Sinmun photo released on Oct. 22, 2014. (Yonhap)

So much for all the “coup” talk, Kim Jong-un has reappeared. He was seen walking with a cane which confirms he likely was recovering from a surgery of some kind possibly to his ankles or knees:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made his first public appearance in more than a month, giving a “field guidance” at a newly built housing complex, according to Pyongyang’s state media.

The visit to the Wisong Scientists Residential District marked the first time Kim has appeared in public since he attended a musical concert on Sept. 3.

“Watching the exterior of the apartment houses and public buildings nicely decorated with diverse color tiles, he was very pleased to see them. He said they looked very attractive, presenting fantastic scenery,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim’s prolonged absence from public view, including his failure to show up at important national events, has spurred speculation and rumors ranging from health problems to a military coup, though the U.S. has dimissed rumors of a coup as “false.”  [Yonhap]

I wonder if the next time Kim Jong-un drops out of view for a while the same people will be publishing sensational articles again of a coup?  Unfortunately when it comes to North Korea it seems a lot of people’s wishful thinking is mistaken as analysis.

Kim Kyong-hui (inside the red circle), the aunt of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is shown on state television on Oct. 12, 2014, reinforcing views that she hasn’t been removed from the country’s power elite despite the execution of her once powerful husband, Jang Song-thaek. (Yonhap)

N. Korean leader fails to show on key national celebration http://t.co/pF8bPfhqTs

— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) October 10, 2014

Via One Free Korea comes this article from the Guardian that is one of the few trying to tamp down the coup and regime collapse theories that are popular in the media currently:

But there is a less dramatic explanation. Based on the video evidence of his limp, it is widely accepted that Kim is now receiving medical treatment – possibly at one of the family’s well-appointed villas. The Seoul-based defector group, North Korea Intellectuals’ Solidarity, claims that Kim Yo-jong, his younger sister who acted as an aide to their father Kim Jong-il during his final years, is signing off on decisions in his absence.

Yet claims that Kim has been toppled are not supported by reports of internal North Korean lectures explaining the surprise visit to the Games. DailyNK, a South Korean media organisation staffed in part by defectors who have sources in the North, says civilians were gathered at workplaces and housing complexes on Saturday afternoon to hear the government’s explanation for the trip.

“Senior party and military cadres were dispatched all the way [to the Asian Games] for our athletes, who, without exception, honoured the Fatherland with their indomitable fighting spirit,” one lecturer explained. “With his great love and compassion, Marshal Kim Jong-un personally organised their dispatch, and provided them with a special plane,” she added.

The text for these lectures, a regular feature of life in North Korea, is produced centrally for dispatch throughout the land, and delivered without deviation. Not attending public lectures and teaching sessions is, officially at least, not an option – as mandated by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-ideology System.

The result is that almost all North Koreans hear the same stories and lies, and remain on-message, however far they may be from the capital. In the absence of verifiable information on Kim’s status, they offer vital insight into what Pyongyang wants the country’s people to believe.

The suggestion that he is still at the helm, nominally at least, is supported by Choson Sinbo, an online publication run by the pro-North association of Korean residents in Japan, which reported that the visit to Incheon was “made possible by the resolve of Kim Jong-un”.  [The Guardian]

You can read more at the link.