Category: Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un has his generals in stitches

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North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un seemed a world away from worry as he visited a fish food factory, amid reports of a shrinking economy and a UN ban on the import of luxury goods.

The autocratic leader laughed and joked with his generals as he was taken around the factory, at an undisclosed location, earlier this week. His inspection of the food manufacturing plant is just the latest in a series of factory visits, which are used as propaganda to portray the communist leader’s interest in state industry, according to the BBC.

Despite Kim’s jocularity however, the leader has been dealt a huge blow as the Swiss government imposed a ban on the export of luxury watches to North Korea, according to the US-backed Radio Free Asia. The Supreme Leader has long been fan of the country’s expensive timepieces.

[Daily Mail]

North Korea calls United States ‘heinous violator of human rights’

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North Korea denounced the United States as a “heinous violator of human rights” on Wednesday.

A Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman told state news agency KCNA: “The United States has proved once again it is the source of trouble, sweeping the world with acts of terror and human rights violations.”

“An atrocious nation of war criminals, violator of human rights, the United States needs to undergo a rigorous judgment of rights abuses and yet goes around pretending to be an ‘international judge,’ meddling in other countries’ affairs,” the statement read.

The North Korean spokesman also said the United States had attacked the country’s “highest dignity,” which is an “unforgivable crime.”

The verbal attack on Washington seems to be part of a series of reactions from Pyongyang regarding the U.S. decision to sanction Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses.

[UPI]

North Korea willing to talk denuclearization

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North Korea has said it was willing to talk denuclearization (but no one noticed).

On July 6 the U.S. Department of Treasury announced it had designated Kim Jong-un by name on a new list of individuals sanctioned for human rights violations.

In the dance of jubilation, few had the time or inclination to pay attention to a DPRK government spokesman’s statement released earlier the same day. That statement made clear what the North Koreans have been hinting at for some time—yes, they were willing to talk about denuclearization.

It is important to pay attention to the vehicle Pyongyang used to convey the latest position—a DPRK Government spokesman’s statement, among the highest on the North’s ladder of authority. Statements at this level are generally used to signal important new policies.

[Read full article, published on a blog of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS]

Number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South rises 22%

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The number of North Korean defectors who left the reclusive state this year reached 749, marking a 22 percent increase on-year, the Unification Ministry said Thursday.

This is the first significant rise in the number of the defectors since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took helm at the end of 2011, the ministry added.  The number had declined in recent years, from 2,706 in 2011 to 1,502 in 2012, 1,514 in 2013, 1,397 in 2014 and 1,276 last year.

The ministry said at the current rate, the number of the defectors is expected to reach 1,500 by the end of this year.

The South Korean government has said that the recent rise in the number of defectors is attributable to the strong sanctions slapped on the reclusive regime upon its fourth nuclear and long-range missile tests earlier this year.

They pointed to the increasing defections by North Korean workers sent overseas. A total of 13 workers from a North Korean restaurant in China entered the South on April 7, and another group of three North Korean restaurant workers in China defected and arrived in Seoul last month.

The ministry added that the total number of North Korean defectors settled in the South was on track to exceed 30,000 by October. The number currently stands at 29,543 as of the end of June.

[Korea Herald]

US sanctions North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

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The Obama administration today slapped sanctions on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and 10 other regime officials for their alleged complicity in human rights abuses against the North Korean people.

The move marked the first time Washington sanctioned Kim Jong Un personally. Administration officials said Kim was “ultimately responsible” for what they called “North Korea’s notorious abuses of human rights.”

“Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in a statement announcing the new action.

“As a result of today’s actions, any property or interest in property of those designated by (Office of Foreign Assets Control) within U.S. jurisdiction is frozen,” the Treasury Department said. “Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons involving the designated persons are generally prohibited.”

The sanctions also extend to five North Korean state entities, including the Ministry of People’s Security, which the report says oversees labor camps and other detention facilities, where torture, execution, rape, starvation and forced labor takes place.

U.S. officials briefing reporters on the new actions say they expected the sanctions to have “a worldwide ripple effect” making it harder for those on the list to do business with global financial institutions.

[CNN]

North Korea no longer a smoker’s paradise

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North Korea, one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, a country where just about every adult male can and does light up almost anywhere he pleases and where leader Kim Jong-un is hardly ever seen without a lit cigarette in his hand, is now officially trying to get its people to kick the habit.

Ri Yong-ok, a 57-year-old pharmacist whose heavy-smoking husband nearly died of lung cancer, is leading the charge. Her small anti-smoking center that she manages in Pyongyang has something you almost never see in the North — a no-smoking sign placed prominently above its entrance.

The potential health benefit to the nation could be tremendous. Ri estimated about 54 per cent of adult male North Koreans smoke — a higher figure than the 43.9 per cent given by a World Health Organization report released at the end of 2014.

North Korea has toyed with the idea of pushing harder to get smokers to kick the habit before — Ri’s humble anti-smoking center has been around since 2007. But it has stepped up its effort to at least provide more education of smoking’s health risks since an anti-smoking decree was made by Kim in April.

The start of the new drive prompted speculation in the foreign media that Kim himself had quit, since cigarettes were conspicuously missing from his hands in photos carried by the state media of his “on-the-spot guidance” visits around the country from around that time. The buzz didn’t last long. He was pictured smoking on a visit to a children’s camp in June.

[AP]

Kim Jong-un Swiss school days

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Kim Jong-un spent his early years in Berne, Switzerland, where as a “shy” student he learned German, French and English, and honed skills in skiing and playground dispute resolution.

“He was a shy and introverted young man who liked team sports. He used to really admire [US basketball player] Michael Jordan and [action film star] Jean-Claude Van Damme,” said former student Ron Schwartz from Canada.

He was humble and friendly with the children of American diplomats and often helped break up fights between classmates, explained a former school director. A car arrived every day after school to pick him up, the report said; classmates and school officials thought he was the driver’s son.

Kim studied at the International School of Berne in the 1990s, but left in 1998 at the age of 15 before taking his baccalaureate exam, the equivalent to a British A-level. The Swiss weekly news magazine L’Hebdo reported that he went by the pseudonym Pak Chol. The boarding school welcomes around 300 pupils from 40 different countries, half of which are the offspring of diplomats.

[swissinfo.ch]

Kim Jong Un fearful about his personal safety and image

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is so paranoid about his personal safety that he has developed insomnia, South Korea’s spy agency says.

The young leader lives in fear of assassination and spends his days gorging on food and drink, supposedly ballooning in weight from about 90 kilograms (198 lbs) when he took power in 2012 to around 130 kg (286 lbs) today, the National Intelligence Service reported to a committee of the national assembly on July 1.

Members of the Intelligence Committee said Kim, who in the past ordered his mentor uncle executed on grounds of treason, could well be suffering from lifestyle-related diseases as a result.

Recently, an aunt of Kim who lives in exile in the United States, granted an interview with The Washington Post and said of her nephew’s childhood: “He was short-tempered and had a lack of tolerance.”

Kim instructed North Korean ambassadors overseas to ensure that those details do not reach the masses in North Korea.

In North Korea, Kim Jong Un is portrayed as a boy genius who learned to drive a car at the age of three and excelled in sports and as an academic.

[Asahi Shimbun]

Kim Jong-un gets another new title

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been named Chairman of an organ called the Commission on State Affairs, a new body established under a revised constitution adopted by the parliament and which replaces the powerful National Defense Commission. Pundits speculate that the aim of restoring this agency is a decisive move away from the military-first doctrine, as part of Kim junior’s ongoing attempts to bring the unruly military to heel and gain full control of the state.

The North Korean leader now has nine titles, most amounting to the same thing, including:

  • Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers Party
  • Member of the standing committee of the Politburo
  • Workers Party chairman
  • Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army
  • Chairman of the military committee of the Workers Party
  • First Chairman of the National Defense Commission
  • Chairman of the Commission on State Affairs.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Kim Jong Un oversees successful launch of a ballistic missile

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Kim Jong Un oversaw what looks like the successful launch of a ballistic missile that reached an altitude of 1,000 km and got over half way to Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Experts said the launch, which came after five failed tests including one earlier the same day, marked progress in North Korea’s weapons program, and underlined Kim’s steely determination as well as his patience with scientists involved.

Reclusive North Korea’s state propaganda has painted Kim as a demanding but generous and understanding leader willing to forgive the failures of its scientists.

That contrasts with his reputation overseas as ruthless and impulsive, after he executed his own uncle, replaced his defense chief five times and defied the world with two nuclear tests.

Michael Madden, an expert on political leadership in the North who has contributed to the Washington-based 38 North think-tank, said rumors of technicians behind failures being shot or purged were “nonsense”.

“One thing to note is that people don’t get shot behind failures,” said Madden, who edits North Korea Leadership Watch. “They get shot because they lie in their reporting or refuse to accept responsibility.”

[Reuters]