Tag Archives: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un

Human Rights, Lifestyle

Dictatorship! North Korea leader Kim Jong Un bans leather coats outfits that resembles his look

Maravi Post Reporter

North Korea has reportedly banned people from wearing leather trench coats because dictatorial ruler Kim Jong-un doesn’t want his citizen dressing up like him.

First worn by Kim in 2019, the coat became popular among the North Korean elite who were keen to show their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and who could afford real leather.

But due to imitations of leather trench coats, fashion police have reportedly been deployed to shut down merchants selling them and take them off people amid fears it cheapens Kim’s look and undermines his authority.

‘[Police] say that wearing clothes designed to look like the Highest Dignity’s is an ‘impure trend to challenge the authority of the Highest Dignity,’ a source told Radio Free Asia, using a common honorific to refer to Kim.

‘They instructed the public not to wear leather coats, because it is part of the party’s directive to decide who can wear them.’

The outlet said knock-off versions of the coat first began appearing in September this year when unofficial trade between China and North Korea was reopened following a shut-down during the Covid pandemic.

That allowed traders to start acquiring synthetic leather to make the coats from.

Radio Free Asia claimed to have seen an import document from recent months that showed dozens of metres of the material being imported.

Kim first appeared in a leather coat in December 2019, around the time he was negotiating with Donald Trump over North Korea’s nuclear stockpile.

The styling was noted by South Korean media, which suggested it was indicative of Kim’s desire to break with tradition and forge his own identity.

He had largely styled himself after his father and grandfather, the founder of North Korea by wearing Mao-style jackets and horn-rimmed glasses.

Lifestyle, Regional

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un apologises for killing of South Korean-“Very sorry”

Lloyd M’bwana
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has apologised to the South over the fatal shooting of a fisheries official earlier this week [File: KCNA via Reuters]
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has apologised to the South over the fatal shooting of a fisheries official earlier this week [File: KCNA via Reuters]

PYONGYANG-(MaraviPost)-North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has apologised after the fatal shooting of a South Korean fisheries official by the military earlier this week, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday, September 25, 2020, citing the presidential office.

In a formal letter sent to Seoul, the North conveyed Kim’s message that he felt “very sorry” for “disappointing” South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Moon is facing intense political pressure over the incident, which coincided with a renewed push for policy to engage Pyongyang.

The official disappeared from a fisheries patrol boat on Monday when it was about 10km (six miles) south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a disputed line of military control that acts as the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas.

South Korea said on Thursday the man had been shot dead by North Korean troops and his body burned.

The North said it had conducted its own investigation into the incident and found that soldiers near its western sea border had fired at least 10 shots at the South Korean, Yonhap said.

The man was intruding into the North’s waters and the military acted in accordance with regulations, the letter added, saying it was not the official’s body they had burned but the flotation device he had been using.

“The troops could not locate the unidentified trespasser during a search after firing the shots, and burned the device under national emergency disease prevention measures,” Suh Hoon, Moon’s security adviser told a briefing, referring to the North’s letter.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA, NEWS AGENCIES

Health, Law and order, Lifestyle

Shocking!!North Korea shot dead first Coronavirus patient

Lloyd M’bwana
North Korea leader Kim Jong-un

North Korea has executed its first citizen to test positive with the coronavirus.

Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship is dealing with the virus with an iron fist after the man was put to his death for dodging quarantine to go to a public bath.

The patient was arrested by officers and immediately shot as the country takes sickening measures to avoid the killer outbreak spreading.

South Korean Dong-a Ilbo newspaper reported that the man – a government official – had been placed in isolation after traveling to China.

Kim Jong-un imposed military law to enforce a lockdown to combat the virus despite not experiencing any confirmed cases.

Source: ghanamma.com

Politics, Regional

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seeks ‘nice, neutral site’ for Trump-Kim talks

Maravi Post Reporter

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the first meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should take place at a “nice, neutral site.”

According to indiatvnews.com, Tillerson is suggesting China would not be an ideal place.

Tillerson says it should be held somewhere that “both parties will feel confident.” But he says that doesn’t mean China won’t have a role in the broader process. Tillerson says China “is going to have a stake in how this all this all turns out.” He says Russia, South Korea and Japan will as well.

Tillerson says the first meeting will be about Trump and Kim “getting a sense of one another” and determining whether there is the space and will to accomplish something together on the North’s nuclear weapons program.

Tillerson says the United States has “not heard anything directly back from North Korea” since President Donald Trump accepted leader Kim Jong Un’s invitation for a meeting. But he says the US does expect to hear directly from Pyongyang.

Tillerson says many steps must occur before the meeting between Trump and Kim. He says that it’s in the “very early stages.”

Tillerson says nothing has been agreed about the location for the meeting. He says it’s “very important that those conservations are held quietly” between North Korea and the US.

He says it’s time now to “remain patient and see what happens.”

Politics

North Korea imposes more demands on South Korea over Olympics

Maravi Post Reporter

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is huddling Tuesday with nations that fought on America’s side in the Korean War, looking to increase economic pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons even as hopes rise for diplomacy. (Jan. 16)

A week after North Korea said it would send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, the regime’s demands have taken on a sinister pattern.

Reports emerged Tuesday that North Korea demanded the South return defectors who fled the totalitarian regime. That came after requiring that South Korea pay the North’s Olympic costs and an agreement by the United States and South Korea to suspend a planned joint military exercise.

The demands came to light since last week’s talks between North and South Korea — the first sit-down between the two countries in more than two years.

“This is why all those crotchety hawks evinced such skepticism at North Korea’s talks,” tweeted Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University in South Korea. “We all saw this coming.”

The South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo reported Tuesday that the North demanded the return of 12 women who escaped in 2016 from their jobs at restaurant in Ningbo, China, a demand the paper said the South is legally bound to refuse.

South Korea’s government said the timing is too sensitive to comment, the newspaper said.

The North has warned that it will not agree to more reunions for families split by the Korean War unless the defectors, and another woman who fled from elsewhere, are returned.

The talks last week occurred after the U.S. agreed to South Korea’s request to postpone a large military exercise, which usually involves 30,000 American troops and 200,000 South Koreans, until after the Olympics are held Feb. 9-25. in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

On Friday,a North Korean state-run publication issued a demand for a “permanent halt” to U.S.-South Korean military drills while inter-Korean talks continue, according to The Strait Times of Singapore.

“Inter-Korean talks and war drill can never be compatible,” the North Korean publication, Uriminzokkiri, declared.

North Korea, which is under sanctions by the United Nations and U.S. aimed at ending its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs, also succeeded in getting South Korea to agree to fund its Olympic delegation, which will include as many as 500 athletes, performers, officials and reporters, according to The Hankyoreh, a South Korean online publication.

South Korea will pay the entire delegation’s expenses, said author and Korea analyst Gordon Chang.

“This is typical. (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s) family playbook goes back several decades,” Chang said. “First they refuse to talk to South Korea. Then they make a bold overture. Next comes demands and then they throw a tantrum.”

If the Trump administration puts enough pressure on North Korea, the Kim family might agree it has no choice but to disarm, Chang said. But the White House has yet to impose sanctions where they would be most effective — on its top two trading partners, China and Russia, he added.

The North Korean demands were revealed as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met Tuesday in Vancouver with foreign ministers from 20 nations that sided with the U.S. during the Korean War, which ended in 1953, to discuss how to pressure North Korea to quit its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

“We must increase the costs of the regime’s behavior to the point that North Korea must come to the table for credible negotiations,” Tillerson said in his opening comments.

Tillerson called for interdiction operations at sea.