A food crisis and a terrible famine plague North Korea, while its leader Kim Jong Un has devoted himself to holiday entertainment, NK News reports, quoted by standartnews.com.
He enjoys the 80-meter yacht bequeathed by his father, which was renovated last year and is now brand new, furnished with all the technological screams of modern times.
Satellite photos from Planet Labs show that Kim’s personal boat is on the east coast near the city of Wonsan for the first time since 2019.
Since the leader disappeared from public view, the yacht has shown increased activity.
The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-un, held a meeting in June with high-ranking members of his Labor Party, Reuters reported.
According to the World News Agency, which quoted a television report in Pyongyang, the topic of yesterday’s meeting was the economic development of the Asian communist country in the second half of this year.
“Kim Jong Un presented to his interlocutors a plan aimed at improving North Korea’s economic situation and the well-being of North Korean citizens. We must work hard and selflessly, “he said.
“The country has been experiencing huge economic difficulties for decades. The crisis has been compounded by the periodic closure of China’s border with North Korea. Beijing is isolating itself from its neighbor because of the spread of COVID-19. China has recently opened its borders and the movement of people and goods has resumed.” the world news agency.
“North Korea claims that only one case of the infection has been reported in the country since the beginning of the global pandemic. Sources in Seoul periodically say that COVID-19 is taking victims in North Korea and the situation there is almost uncontrollable,” Reuters reported.
Appeals to the population
“Today, when everything is complicated and difficult, people need to stand even more confidently behind the party, including women, who are” half the population. ” Therefore, according to Kim’s instructions, women should be devoted daughters-in-law and mothers, raise their children according to state doctrine, read the state media daily, wear traditional Korean clothes, sing revolutionary songs, and engage in rabbit breeding. meat production, etc.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the letter could be seen as Kim’s attempt to mobilize the population for times of crisis, as the coronavirus pandemic has put North Korea to a particularly severe test. The state leader himself has repeatedly described the country’s situation as dire. At the Workers’ Party’s congress in January, he made no secret of the fact that “almost all industries have lagged behind their goals.”
But there are also analysts who say the declaration of a “major crisis” is an attempt by Kim to ask for foreign aid – including vaccines against COVID-19. If the virus has indeed spread widely, it will be another blow to the regime and to the severely affected economy.
In April, Kim mentioned a “torturous march,” recalling the greatest famine that struck North Korea in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country’s mainstay. It was only recently that Kim acknowledged that after the damage caused to the crop by bad weather, food security “creates tension”.
