In her first known official statement, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday leveled diatribes and insults on South Korea for protesting over her nation’s latest live-fire exercises.
Believed to be in her early 30s, Kim Yo-jong is in charge of propaganda affairs and has frequently appeared at her brother’s major public events, including summits with US President Donald Trump and other regional leaders, but her statement carried by state media, the first of its kind, indicated that her political status has been further elevated.
In the statement, she criticized the South Korean presidential office, or Blue House, for expressing strong concerns over North Korea’s drills and urging it to stop such an act that does not contribute to efforts to reduce military animosities.
Photo: AP
“As far as I know, the South side is also fond of joint military exercises and it is preoccupied with all the disgusting acts like purchasing ultra-modern military hardware,” Kim Yo-jong said. “They meant they need to get militarily prepared, but we should be discouraged from military exercises. Such a gangster-like assertion can never be expected from those with a normal way of thinking.”
Describing the Blue House as “a mere child” and “a burnt child dreading fire,” she went on to say: “How come can all its words and acts be so perfectly foolish in detail.”
Kim Yo-jong did not mention by name South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who she met several times.
“The South side’s response is so regretful and disappointing, but it is somewhat fortunate that it was not a direct statement of the president,” she said.
Earlier, state media said that Kim Jong-un supervised a live-fire rocket artillery exercise in an apparent reference to the two short-range ballistic missile launches reported by South Korea’s military a day earlier.
North Korea on Saturday last week said that Kim Jong-un guided an artillery drill aimed at testing the combat readiness of military units.
The back-to-back firing exercises were an apparent show of force by Kim Jong-un, who had earlier vowed to bolster his nuclear deterrent and warned of “shocking action” over now-stalled nuclear negotiations with Trump.
The latest firing drills were his first weapons tests since late November last year.
Kim Yo-jong’s statement was issued in her capacity as a first vice-department director of the Workers Party’s Central Committee. She also serves as an alternate member of North Korea’s Politburo and a member of parliament.
South Korean officials and experts said that she is virtually North Korea’s top propaganda official.
Kim Yo-jong’s statement “suggests that her status and influence have been expanded to such an extent as to express her opinions externally and beyond playing a role of assisting Chairman Kim Jong-un on his public activities,” Cheong Seong-chang said at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
RSS