It has not been officially reported by the North Korean govt, but long running rumors are now being reported by various serious media that Trump’s big pal Kim Jong Un has recently killed the top 5 officials of his govt who set up his failed summit with US President Trump.
According to sources I watch there has been a massive crop failure this year in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic (DPRK). The big issue there is if the local, semi-allowed private markets in ag will save the population from outright starvation. At this time this is not known.
So this difficult situation may be partly responsible for Kim Jong Un killing the top five negotiators with the US on nuclear weapons for the summit in Hanoi. In addition, reportedly five more senior officials have been sent to rural labor, or something like that.
The lead official word from the DPRK side is that the person Kim Jong Il killed was Kim Hok Choi, I apologize if I have misspelled his name. But I have it close, and I send my best regards to his family and the families of those others whom were also reportedly killed. As well as this unfortunate team, four more beyond Kim Hok Choi were executed, and five more were sent to rural labor camps, including one alleged to be a “right hand man” of Kim Jong Un.
The unclear question is how much will the unofficial private markets in DPRK will save people from outright starvation/famine. The deepest sources ai have followed say that it is unclear. DPKR is not a “normal” country, and we have no way to know what is actually going on there now.
Given that his nation is facing food shortages, it is not surprising that he may be facing an internal challenge, and now we see that manifested by him overcoming any inside opposition by killing these five individuals. Reportedly five more individuals suffered being expelled to the countryside, including Kim Jong Un’ s “right hand man.”
A serious and unresolved issue at this point is how the unofficial private markets may save people there from starving to death.
Barkley Rosser
Hmm.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/03/asia/north-korea-kim-yong-chol-intl/index.html
I should note coming from comments on Econospeak on this matter that this has not been verified by US intelligence, and apparently the top official who was supposedly purged has reappeared in public. But so far none of the five reportedly executed have made an appearance, and nobody in the MSM has even commented on the bad harvest or how that might be affecting this situation.
BTW, my source on the harvest problems is the blog nkeconwatch, which I highly recommend.
I tend to get my NK news from Daily NK. There seem to be two takes:
Take 1 – Supposedly, there is rice in the markets and the price has been stable. Consumers have been switching from white rice to barley rice and cutting back on meat. Meanwhile, the government has been releasing rice from the military stockpile.
Take 2 – A lot of farmers are not starving to death, but are too hungry to work during this planting season. Needless to say, this means that the economy is taking a productivity hit, even if there isn’t a rising death count, at least not yet.
I read the Daily NK with a jaundiced eye, but they do seem to have sources inside NK and in China north of NK.
P.S. As a bonus, the NK salt production industry is having its own problems. I keep forgetting the geopolitics of salt. When I was in Bhutan, they noted that Bhutan has no internal salt supply. Historically salt was brought in from Tibet. Ever since the Chinese took over, this flow has stopped. Bhutan and China do not have diplomatic or trade relations, Bhutan gets its salt from India in exchange for hydro-power and tourism. I do keep forgetting about salt.