Defector: Kim Jong Un ordered aunt be poisoned

A North Korean defector -- believed to be the highest level official to escape the country in years -- tells CNN Kim Jong Un ordered his aunt be poisoned, an action which he says has even shocked regime insiders used to purges.

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Kim Jong Un executes army general in latest purge of officials

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General Pyon In Son/
nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com

By Sam Kim

Bloomberg News

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un executed an army general last month in his latest purge of senior officials.

General Pyon In Son, head of operations in the Korean People's Army, was killed for expressing an opinion different to that of Kim, a South Korean official told reporters in Seoul on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity as per government policy. The official didn't say what they disagreed on.

Kim still mistrusts the military, the official said, adding that senior officers are growing increasingly uneasy. The "Supreme Leader" also removed Ma Won Chun, a National Defense Commission official overseeing construction design, from office in November for alleged corruption and a failure to follow orders.

Kim has relied on purges to consolidate his grip on power since he took over a country with a nuclear arms program and 1.2 million troops in 2011. After killing his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song Thaek in 2013, he executed about 50 officials last year on charges ranging from graft to watching South Korean soap operas.

"The purge of Pyon sends a message that helps to discipline the military," said Kim Yong Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "The execution is a symbol that will help tighten loyalty."

Pyon was promoted to a four-star general in March last year and then removed from office in November, according to the North Korea Leadership Watch blog. South Korea's Unification Ministry's website still identifies him as a general who oversees military operations.

Kim's younger sister Kim Yo Jong may be married and even pregnant, the official said, saying she has a ring on her finger and has recently been seen wearing comfortable shoes in public.

Yonhap News said on Jan. 2 that she married one of party secretary Choe Ryong Hae's sons, citing two unidentified people in China. The official said it's unlikely she wed Choe's son because that would concentrate too much power in Choe.

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea said it wouldn't agree to talks with the U.S. and is now focused on its ability to destroy the country with conventional, nuclear and cyber-warfare attacks.

Kim's regime accused the U.S. of "inching closer to the stage of igniting a war of aggression" by stepping up its sanctions, holding military drills with South Korea and predicting the future collapse of the administration, the official Korean Central News Agency said, citing a statement from the National Defense Commission.

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Kim Jong-Un Reportedly Drunk When Ordering Execution of Aides

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By Robert Wilde 

The ruthless dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, was reportedly “very drunk” when he gave the execution order to kill two close aides of his uncle, Jang Song-Thaek. Kim was “upset” that the two aides questioned his decision to turn over a business to the military and said that they should check with “Director Jang” first. 

Shortly after the aides' execution, Kim’s Uncle Jang was removed from his high ranking leadership position and executed for “anti-state” crimes. He played a crucial role in transferring power from the father, Kim Jong-Il, to Kim Jong-Un following the former dictator's death.

Jang was accused at a military tribunal of having his own political interests and that he had engaged in drug activity, womanizing, and gambling. Subsequently, a South Korean online media outlet reported that many of Jang’s family and friends had been arrested as a result of “guilt by association.”

Jang’s aides, Ri Ryong-Ha and Jang Su-Gil, were among the first well known North Korean figures to be killed in a high profile house cleaning detail by Kim. The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported, "Those who were close [to the two aides] were surprised by their execution, and made phone calls to their friends living abroad, and the South Korean government [spy agency] wiretapped their phone conversations.”

One researcher in Seoul, South Korea told the Washington Post on Wednesday that Jang Song-Thaek being put to death “means Kim Jong-un punishes his political rivals more severely than Kim Jong-il.” The fact that Kim Jong-Un executes those who were previously close to him should come as no surprise to anyone. In August, the North Korean supreme leader reportedly ordered the execution of his ex-girlfriend by firing squad.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye characterized the recent events that have taken place in North Korea as a "grave and unpredictable situation."

Purge in Pyongyang

breitbart

By Sydney Williams 

AP

Kim Jong-un’s killing of his uncle is a big deal. It is not as though Jang Song-thaek was one of the “White Hats” of North Korea. (There are none that we know of.) He was a notorious thug, a brother-in-law and accomplice of former dictator Kim Jong II. 

Mr. Jang was instrumental in upholding the policy that no one in North Korea can travel, speak or worship freely. He was there when North Korea experienced the “great famine” of 1995-97, which saw between 2.5 million and 3.7 million people starve to death. (That represented between 10% and 15% of the population.) Jang Song-thaek was described at his trial as “despicable human scum” who was “worse than a dog.” The expediency with which he was arrested at the behest of Kim Jong-un, tried and dispatched suggests a tyrannical government led by a psychotic – not the preferred type of individual for leading a country with nuclear weapons.

Keep in mind, baby Kim is a man who took seriously, earlier this year, an article in "The Onion" calling him the “sexiest man in 2012.” Mr. Kim is a man who it was said in February had “moon-walked” – “the first to do so since Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972.” The man is certifiable, yet he controls a nuclear arsenal and his country is developing missiles capable of reaching our western shores. North Korea may be a client state of China; perhaps they are pulling the strings. Let us hope so. According to the current issue of The Economist, Kim Jong II was a “provocative menace, but he was at least predictable.” The son appears scarier. He reminds one of a psychotic killer in a thriller movie, the type who says menacingly, with the glaring eyes of a madman, "Whatever you call me, don’t call me crazy!"

The concepts of freedom and democracy that swept the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and which gave life, inspiration and hope to millions of people in places ranging from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia to South Africa, bypassed North Korea. Since those days that Francis Fukuama termed “the end of history,” dictatorships have strengthened in places like Pyongyang and radical Islam has been energized. It is a very different and far more dangerous world than the one in which we grew up during the Cold War. 

The Soviet Union, as a nuclear power, was a menace, and millions of people died because of the harshness of their regime, but their leaders engaged with the West. They had skin-in-the-game. One does not have the same confidence with nuclear armaments in the control of leaders in North Korea, Pakistan and, soon, Iran. Will containment work? Can we be certain that previous nuclear powers, like Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, will not rearm? If the United States is no longer the world’s policeman, is there not risk that South Korea will feel compelled to build nuclear weapons as a defense? Will Japan determine they can no longer count on the United States and go nuclear? In the Middle East, once Iran has the bomb, would you not expect Saudi Arabia and Turkey to become nuclear powers?

One of the more chilling aspects of North Korea is how the place is treated by mainstream media, in what David Feith of the Wall Street Journal has termed a “trivialization of horror.” A good example is ex-basketball player Dennis Rodman’s well-publicized trips to Pyongyang and his references to Kim Jong-un as a “friend for life.” He is there now, on his third trip of the year. A month ago, Elle magazine cited “North Korean Chic” as one of the top fashion trends for the fall of 2013. 

The plight of North Koreans has never captured the imagination of Americans, in the way, for example, apartheid did in South Africa. In part, that has to do with the fact we identify more with the West and, as a country, we understand White-Black tension and conflict. But it also has to do with the fact that the Kim family has done everything possible to cut off all communication with the outside world. North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom. When looked at by satellite at night, North Korea is the black space separating South Korea from China. In addition, our apparent lack of awareness has to do with the fact that very few have escaped. North Korea’s only land boundaries are with South Korea and China, both of which are heavily secured.

One of the few to escape was Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in a prison camp in 1982 and who escaped in 2005. His story was told in a book by Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14. Mr. Shin, who is the same age as Dennis Rodman’s “friend for life” Kim Jong-un, recently sent a public message to Mr. Rodman asking him to speak up on behalf of the thousands imprisoned in slave-labor camps. It remains to be seen if he will. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

During the one-day trial of Jang Sang-thaek – he was executed later the same day – he was accused of perpetrating “thrice-cursed acts of treachery.” He was told that “it is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with a sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty.” The latter words sound ominous to me, as they echo what we hear from Washington. I fear we are losing the meaning of freedom in a nation that places dependency above responsibility. Physical comfort is enticing but is no match for liberty and the freedom it brings. I worry that we no longer understand and appreciate the meaning of our “unalienable rights.”

A hundred years ago next summer, World War I broke out. It changed the course of the 20^th Century, producing the bloodiest century in the history of the world. In Europe, civilization had blossomed, as did trade and economies. The plane, the automobile and electricity had all been recent inventions. Global trade and international banking, as well, helped lift living standards to levels far beyond what they had been a generation earlier. Yet that period of tranquility came to an abrupt end. For the industrial revolution had also brought with it far more effective means of killing – machine guns, tanks and mustard gas. Countries re-armed, not because they expected war to break out, but to defend their far-flung empires. It was bit-players in the Balkans that lit the tinder that inflamed the world for four years, killing an estimated 37 million people. (For comparison purposes, equivalent deaths today would exceed 100 million.) 

We, too, live in a time of economic progress. Technology has revolutionized the way we communicate. Much of the world lives in relative comfort. Free market capitalism has lifted millions out of economic deprivation. A global war seems unthinkable. But there are rogue governments – places like Iran, North Korea and other states with totalitarian regimes that have kept their people in ignorance and poverty. Nuclear weapons are proliferating among those unstable nations. There are state-less Islamic extremists that have become more powerful in the past two decades. What is happening in the Ukraine is indicative of a Russia that looks to reassert itself as a global power. China has made menacing moves in the East and South China Seas. But North Korea is the place to watch. The country has a population of about 25 million, but an army, including reservists, of over 9 million – the largest military organization on earth.

The Atomic bomb has only been used twice – both times by the United States, as a way to convince Japan to surrender. The threat of mutually assured destruction has kept such weapons silent for almost seventy years. Will that continue with rogue nations who support terror now in control of such weapons? As I wrote back in February, in a piece entitled “Kim Jong-un – a Tinderbox,” the “most dangerous of tyrants are those that are stupid.” Nuclear weapons in the hands of a certifiable maniac become even more unpredictable and more ominously dangerous.

North Korea reportedly threatens — by fax — to attack South Korea 'without notice'

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

Menacing language from North Korea is nothing new. Neither is its office technology.

A South Korean news agency reported Friday that the North has threatened a “merciless” attack without notice in response to anti-North rallies this week — and that it sent the warning by fax.

It’s the latest provocation from North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, who, at 30 years old, was born not long before the fax entered its golden age of curling paper, smudgy printing and shrieking modems.

The threat was sent by the North Korean military, according to the Yonhap news agency. It arrived, apparently without a paper jam, at the South Korean National Security Council.

NBC News was unable to independently verify the report.

The military apparently condemned rallies by several conservative groups and North Korean defectors that took place in the South on Tuesday, saying they insulted North Korea’s “highest dignity,” referring to Kim.

The rallies were held on the second anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the younger Kim’s father, who was known as the Dear Leader and ruled the North from 1994 until his death in 2011. At the demonstrations, to protest authoritarian rule and North Korean human rights abuses, some people burned photos of the younger Kim.

More at  worldnews >>

North Korea executes uncle of leader Kim Jong Un: report

NBC News

By Hasani Gittens

Young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's previously powerful uncle has been executed as a traitor, the country's state-run news service said Thursday. 

According to KCNA, the uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was guilty of "attempting to overthrow the state."

On Monday, the isolated regime announced that Jang had been dismissed from his vaunted official post for a string of criminal acts, including corruption, womanizing and drug-taking. 

"All the crimes committed by the accused were proved in the course of hearing and were admitted by him," KCNA stated on Thursday — in a report that claimed that "people throughout the country broke in to angry shouts" when they heard of Jang's alleged crimes.

The over-the-top report goes on to call Jang "despicable human scum."

South Korea's spy agency last week said it believed Jang, long regarded as the second most powerful man in the secretive state, had been relieved of his posts in November.

The moves indicate Pyongyang is undergoing its biggest leadership upheaval since the death in 2011 of former leader Kim Jong Il, the younger Kim's father.

Tensions are still high on the Korean Peninsula following a torrent of threats in March and April by Kim Jong Un's government against Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, including vows of missile and nuclear strikes and warnings that Pyongyang would restart nuclear bomb fuel production.

Jang was married to Kim Jong Un's aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, the younger sister of Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Un’s uncle dragged away from meeting, erased from documentary

KCTV / Yonhap via EPA/
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's uncle Jang Song Thaek, center, is arrested during an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang on Sunday.

KCTV / Yonhap via AFP - Getty Images

Jang Song Thaek was taken from his chair by two police officials.

photoblog

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

This is the dramatic moment showing the once-powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un being hauled away by police from a political meeting.

The stunning purge of Jang Song Thaek, 67, once considered the force behind the young leader, delivered a chilling message: No one is beyond Kim's reach, not even family. 

North Korean state-run news agency KCNA announced Monday that he had “led a dissolute and depraved life” and said he had been dismissed for a string of criminal acts including corruption, womanizing and drug-taking.

"Jang and his followers committed criminal acts baffling imagination and they did tremendous harm to our party and revolution," the agency said in a report following a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party politburo on Sunday.

Kim Jong Un attended and "guided" the meeting which decided to dismiss Jang from all his posts and expel him from the Workers' Party, KCNA said. 

"Affected by the capitalist way of living, Jang committed irregularities and corruption and led a dissolute and depraved life," the news agency added, saying the decision to remove him was also based on his mismanagement of the country's financial system and corruption. 

"Jang pretended to uphold the party and leader but was engrossed in such factional acts (such) as dreaming different dreams and involving himself in double-dealing behind the scenes," KCNA said.

'TERROR CAMPAIGN' Report: N. Korea executes dozens over Bibles, films

foxnews

As many as 80 people were publicly executed in North Korea earlier this month, some for offenses as minor as watching South Korean movies or possessing a Bible.  

South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported that the so-called criminals were put to death in seven cities across North Korea on Nov. 3, in the first known large-scale public executions by the Kim Jong-un regime.

A source, who is familiar with internal affairs in the North and who recently visited the country, told the paper that about 10 people were killed in each city.

Eight people -- their heads covered with white bags -- were tied to stakes at a local stadium in the city of Wonsan, before authorities shot them with a machine gun, according to the source. 

Wonsan authorities gathered a crowd of 10,000 people, including children, at Shinpoong Stadium and forced them to watch the killings.

“I heard from the residents that they watched in terror as the corpses were (so) riddled by machine-gun fire that they were hard to identify afterward,” the JoongAng Ilbo source said.

Most of the Wonsan victims were charged with watching or illegally trafficking South Korean videos, involvement in prostitution, or possessing a Bible.

Relatives or accomplices of the execution victims implicated in their alleged crimes were sent to prison camps.

There is no clear reason for the executions. One government official noted they occurred in cities that are centers of economic development. Wonsan is a port city that Kim is reportedly planning to make a tourist destination by building an airport, hotels and a ski resort on Mount Masik.

Simultaneous executions in seven cities could suggest an extreme measure by the North Korean government to quell public unrest or any capitalistic inclinations that may accompany its development projects.

The common theme of the persecution was crimes related to South Korea -- like watching South Korean films -- or corruption of public morals, especially sexual misconduct. North Korean law permits executions for conspiring to overthrow the government, treason and terrorism. But the country has also been known to order public executions for minor infractions such as religious activism, cellphone use and stealing food, in an effort to intimidate the public.

Some experts questioned whether the executions were related to earlier executions of members of the Unhasu Orchestra, a state-run orchestra that First Lady Ri Sol-ju used to participate in, according to the report.

“As the news that people were brutally killed in public executions spread in the countryside, the people have been spreading rumors that say that Kim Jong-un has started a terror campaign in response to the Ri Sol-ju’s pornography scandal,” the source told JoongAng Ilbo.

There were no executions in the capital of Pyongyang, where Kim depends on the support of the country’s elite. The young leader continues to build luxury and recreational facilities in the capital, including a new water park.

North Korea Rushes to Finish Lavish Ski Resort

(AP) NKorea rushes to finish lavish ski resort
By ERIC TALMADGE
Associated Press
MASIK PASS, North Korea
The secretary-general of North Korea's ski association views the sprawling alpine landscape before him with unabashed pride. Facing a strong, cold wind, he points to a dip in the rugged, tree-covered mountains and says the sunrise there is a sight of unmatched beauty, worthy of the nation's supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.

This is the Masik Pass ski resort, North Korea's latest megaproject, the product of 10 months of furious labor intended to show that this country, so often derided for its poverty and isolation, is as civilized and culturally advanced as any other.

The complex of ski runs, resort chalets and sleigh rides will formally open Thursday, though late last month the main hotels appeared to be little more than shells, potholes filled the access roads and foundations were still being dug for secondary buildings.

Who will ski here? Perhaps Kim Jong Un, who reportedly enjoyed the sport as a teenager studying in Switzerland. By the estimate of the ski official, Kim Tae Yong, there are only about 5,500 North Korean skiers in this country of 24 million _ a skiing population of 0.02 percent.

Even so, as he sweeps his hand over the scene, the official displays no doubt that what his country really needs right now is a multimillion-dollar ski resort in the secluded depths of North Korea's east coast. Kim bristles at the suggestion Masik will be a playground for the nation's elite and a trickle of eccentric tourists.

This, he says, is his country at work. It is proof of the great love of the great leader.
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Mt. Baeku Ski resort (North Korea) from Nevasport.com on Vimeo.

Dennis Rodman returns to North Korea to see "friend" Kim Jong-un

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