North Korea releases images of a healthy-looking Kim Jong-un chairing meet amid reports that he's in a coma
Kim Jong-un once again quashed rumors that he's been in a coma for months and ceded power to his sister Kim Yo-jong as he appeared rather healthy-looking in new photos released by North Korea's state news agency. According to the Korean Central News Agency, the pics show Kim leading a meeting of the politburo of the Workers Party on Tuesday in a bid to call for measures against COVID-19 and a devastating typhoon.
The images were syndicated through the Associated Press, which noted that the photos couldn't be independently verified as independent journalists weren't granted access to the event. But KCNA said in a statement that the meeting addressed “some defects in the state emergency anti-epidemic work for checking the inroads of the malignant virus."
While North Korea hasn't reported any confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, Kim said last month said the contagion “could be said to have entered” the country and ordered the country to be shut down after a man was reported to have symptoms. According to the World Health Organization, test results on the man were inconclusive.
In the meeting, Kim also discussed the state's emergency measures to deal with the imminent Typhoon Bavi and keep crop damage and casualties to a minimum. According to the report, the Hermit Kingdom's economy has suffered a major blow due to flood damage and recent border closures amid the pandemic.
Meanwhile, speculation about Kim's health continued to swirl this week.
Chang Song-min, a former aide to the late South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, told South Korean media that based on the intel he’d received, Jong-un was in a coma but not deceased. The aide continued, "A complete succession structure has not been formed, so his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period."
As per the same report, North Korea's own National Intelligence Service (NIS) mentioned that although Kim still is the “absolute power”, he would gradually begin to transfer authority to Kim Yo-jong to "ease stress." Seoul’s spy agency, NIS, said on August 20 that managing state affairs had caused Jong-un recently to delegate some of his powers to select a group of senior officials, as reported by Yahoo News. At a meeting held on August 20 with the Workers' Party, Kim showed concerns over South Korea’s economy and its policies. Yahoo News reported that he said the country was facing dual challenges fending off the pandemic and repairing damage from torrential rains that caused devastation.
The 36-year-old's past stories of purported death have often cast doubts on his declining health. In April, rumors over his death ran commonly in media portals after Kim suddenly disappeared and did not show up in the public sphere until May where he was pictured after attending completion of a fertilizer plant in the capital, Pyongyang. Back in 2014, the leader did not appear in public for six weeks after which the state media reported that he was suffering from an "uncomfortable physical condition". In 2009, concerns loomed over his ill health floated online that suggested he was a diabetic and suffered from hypertension. Nonetheless, state-sanctioned photos released earlier this month showed Kim arriving in a luxury SUV to tour a North Korean village that was devastated by the recent floods.