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."
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS