Michael Everett wrote:Changing the subject, the Eternal Beloved Leader Kim Jong-Un appears to no longer be eternal.
According to (unconfirmed) preliminary reports, KJU died due to unforeseen complications during heart surgery (although some reports have him in a coma/vegetative state). China has dispatched some doctors to North Korea.
According to unconfirmed rumors, his sister, Kim Yo-Jong, may take his place as Supreme Leader, meaning that one of the most repressive countries in the world will have a female leader, which is sort-of amusing given that one of the most freedom-loving countries had a chance at a female leader a few years back and decided not to raise her to the White House.
A Cane and Abel storyIt's a soap opera. Kim jon-un has his OLDER brother kim-jong nam assassinated. Nam was supposed to have inherited the power. The method of assassination was by a very potent nerve gas called VX nerve agent. It's categorized as a WMD. I suppose it's okay to assassinate your brother for power if he's only a half brother. He only had the unroyal half assassinated, unfortunately for the royal half though. But the unroyal half had to go because be was thought to have fallen out of favour after embarrassing the regime in 2001 with a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport, although Kim Jong-nam himself said his loss of favour had been due to advocating reform.
The
successor story is as amusing as any found in the Honorverse and on Grayson. Kim's sister is called No. 2. But this is a patriarchal country.
Oh, it gets even better. She is the leader of, get this, the Propaganda and Agitation department. Doesn't that suspiciously sound as irritating and ominous as the Committee of Public Safety?
Kim Yo-jong's wiki file is interesting in itself.
She was blacklisted for human rights violations. Ruling with an Iron Curtain. She is "part of the agency in North Korea who's responsible for propaganda, for censorship, controlling information so that the people of the country do not know about the rest of the world," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski.
At any rate, I don't think Kim-un is dead. He's just scared shitless of exposing himself to Covid-19, especially when his body's immune system is naturally weakened from surgery. Plus, his health wasn't exactly the best to begin with. Best he stay out of the sun and Covid-19's way. But if he's dead, what a soap opera will overtake the country and the Princess.
How ironic it would be if a virus is the vengeance of an assassinated Nam at the hands of chemical warfare. Especially if the virus turns out to be engineered as well.
The assassination happened in broad daylight
at an airport in Kuala Lumpur at the risk of collateral damage.
Wow. You just can't make this stuff up.