Intelligence report says Kim's younger sister is now responsible for the nation's relations with the US and South Korea.

"Kim Yo Jong is a de facto second-in-command," Ha [Tae-keung, an opposition party legislator on the South Korean parliament's intelligence committee] added, in a transcript of remarks seen by the Reuters news agency.

More authority on economic and military policy has also been delegated to several other senior officials, although at a lower level, possibly to reduce strain on Kim Jong Un as well as help him avoid blame for any failures, Ha said.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This article basically has no information in it whatsoever. It's incredibly vague and like, she has been given "power", what the fuck is power exactly?

    If they just told people the responsibilities of the roles each person has within the system it obviously wouldn't function as the massive propaganda it's intended to function as, but it's really annoying. I will have to wait to speak to some Korean comrades to actually get any detailed information on the specifics of the topic because they intentionally leave them out so liberals can fill in the blanks with whatever the hell their minds want to fill in.

    Roles within EVERY government have very specific responsibilities and limits of their authority. These are extremely easy to discuss in and objective manner. I understand why they don't, but I wish they would. It's infuriating.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I think that the internal workings of the DPRK are opaque enough that the responsibilities are not well known outside of the government and possibly ROK intelligence, but I'm not sure. Definitely wish we could have more info though.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        There used to be some online databases maintained by south korea for dprk's domestic legislation but those all stopped getting updated sometime in 2012/2013. Yeslaw.com for example has a lot, but the content is obviously going to be outdated on new news. The constitution sets out their basic legal framework and the over-arching roles and responsibilities of the presidium, cabinet etc.

        I wish we had more up to date access, just for the sake of curiosity really. Articles like this are so vague they're essentially useless.

        • Dear_Occupant [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Speaking completely unironically here, I have been reading the r/Pyongyang sub when DPRK comes up in the news because at least it gives me some idea of what the government says about itself to the West. It's mostly Pyongyang Times articles which you can just read for yourself on their site. I imagine if you want the good scoops for what's going on inside the country you probably need to learn to speak Korean.

          • Awoo [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            That sub is a joke though right? I remember when it started years and years ago they built publicity for the subreddit by banning people anywhere on reddit that said anything remotely negative about dprk. That then led to people roleplaying in the subreddit. You find it useful anyway regardless of its intent as parody?

            • Dear_Occupant [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              That is a completely different story from my recollection. The whole, "You have been banned from /r/Pyongyang" thing was just a meme. I don't know of anyone who said they were actually cross-banned from there, and keep in mind, I was a mod of SubredditDrama during some of this time. To the best of my knowledge, it was just Reddit's usual repetition of an already worn-out sitewide joke. The only actual background I have heard about it from a journalistic source was that one of the mods was from Portugal or somewhere in Southern Europe. Looking at the modlist now, it's only got one mod whose name I don't recognize and I know there used to be at least five at one point.

              I am pretty sure it's official, and if it's not, then it's run by some OG Juche Gang. It follows a hard line in any case, and while the mod(s) have always tolerated le Reddit memey joking in the comments, the irony levels are limited to positive statements about the Kims or the government. It's been run in that exact same way for years that I know of, which is another reason to think it might be official. If it's not official, then the mods have pretty consistently kept up the act for a very long time, whatever their intentions.

              • Awoo [she/her]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Interesting! That's weird, I was sure it was real back then. It gave me the inspiration to kick off the whole subreddits-as-hashtags thing via spamming /r/hailcorporate on content to force a meme. I didn't realise I was imitating something that wasn't real.

                I don't know what to believe! If it is real I still don't really understand what the goal or point is.