SEOUL, Aug 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – North Korean state media on Wednesday
showed leader Kim Jong Un at a meeting of a top committee issuing warnings
about the coronavirus and a looming typhoon, following international
speculation over his state of health.
Kim’s comments come amid conjecture over his condition after South Korea’s
spy agency said he had delegated some authority to his sister Kim Yo Jong to
relieve his “governance stress”.
A former aide to late South Korean president Kim Dae-jung even said on
Facebook he thought the North’s leader was in a coma, though with no apparent
evidence. But Kim presided over a meeting Tuesday of a top committee of the
ruling Workers’ Party, the official KCNA news agency reported, where he
assessed “defects in the state emergency anti-epidemic work for checking the
inroads of the malignant virus”.
The impoverished North — whose crumbling health system would struggle to
cope with a major virus outbreak — has not confirmed a single case of the
disease that has swept the world since first emerging in neighbouring China.
Pictures in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim addressing the meeting,
wearing a white suit and in one image apparently smoking a cigarette. Kim
addressed “some shortcomings” in the preventive efforts and called for
stronger measures to eliminate “defects”, KCNA said.
Last month Pyongyang imposed a lockdown on the city of Kaesong, close to
the border with the South, claiming a defector who had returned was suspected
of carrying the virus. The restrictions were lifted earlier this month and
the infection was never confirmed.
The meeting also discussed emergency measures to prevent crop damage or
casualties from Typhoon Bavi, which is forecast to hit the country this week.
There have been days of heavy rain across parts of North Korea, which is
vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been stripped of
vegetation, allowing water to flow downhill unchecked.
Kim laid out tasks for various departments, saying thoroughly preventing
casualties and crop damage was “crucial”, KCNA reported. Several analysts
have played down suggestions that Kim’s health is deteriorating and Seoul’s
intelligence agency has a mixed record with its past pronouncements on
developments in the North.
Earlier this year Kim was absent from public view for nearly three weeks,
missing a key celebration in April for the birthday of his grandfather, the
North’s founder — the most important day in the country’s political calendar
— prompting widespread questions over his condition.