Badges depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, a key symbol of his personality cult, are disappearing from peoples' chests in the country, South Korean officials said yesterday.
Seoul's Unification Ministry confirmed that lapel badges of Kim were no longer worn by North Koreans travelling to China on official business.
In the past, they wore either a badge portraying Kim or a similar badge portraying his father, Kim Il-sung who died in 1994.
"North Koreans travelling to and from China who formerly wore the badge of either Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il on their chests, have stopped wearing the Kim Jong-il badge," ministry spokeswoman Yang Jong-hwa said, citing an internal report from the ministry's information analysis bureau.
"They are wearing only the Kim Il-sung badge," Yang said.
Ten years after his death the elder Kim is still revered in the North where he is frequently described as president for eternity.
But the pervasive personality cult built around his son appears to be shrinking. Reports of the disappearing lapel badges follow recent confirmation that Kim Jong-il's portraits have vanished from key sites visited by foreigners in Pyongyang.
The ministry is still analyzing the nature and significance of these changes, Yang said.
Media reports in the South said the phasing-out of the Kim Jong-il badges was widespread and affected business people, diplomats and other North Koreans who come into contact with foreigners.
"We learned recently that North Koreans at the country's foreign missions and trading companies, as well as those guiding foreigners inside the North are not wearing the Kim Jong-il badges," an unnamed Seoul official told the Seoul-based Joong-Ang Ilbo.
The official said Kim Jong-il himself ordered the Mansudae Art Studio, the North's main producer of propaganda materials, to stop manufacturing his badges late last year. He said North Koreans were told to take off their Kim Jong-il badges for the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's death in July this year.
The apparent downsizing of the Kim cult of personality has led to speculation that changes may be taking place in the power structure of the tightly controlled communist country.
But Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei (
"The politics are stable, the economy is developing and the leaders are thinking seriously about economic reform," Wu Dawei told a briefing in Beijing as he described his September visit to Pyongyang.
Choson Sinbo, run by the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, said the measures reflected the "noble will of General Kim Jong-il who wants to hold up only President Kim Il-sung aloft."
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS