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Kim Jong-un 'so fat he has fractured his ankles'

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Reply 20

Greg Jackson

North Korea is best Korea

Reply 21

Fullofsurprises

I wonder how she will be covering the Dear Young Leader's weight problem?

Reply 22

Comus

Original post by Fullofsurprises

Although the NK media did apparently call for “tearing the traitor Jang’s body to pieces and throwing them into a boiler.” So the nice hungry doggy story might not be so ridiculously far from the truth. :rolleyes:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/inside-the-tale-of-north-korea-execution-by-ravenous-dog/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

From the same source:

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"In a possible sign of how speculative the dog story might be, it was not picked up by South Korean news media, which does report many other stories from the north... no official in Seoul has come out to lend credence to this report."

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"It is worth noting that feeding people to animals... is not at all normal in North Korea"

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Other (unconfirmed and therefore on a par with the original articles claim) reports gave different but more conventional methods of execution. (paraphrased)

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"Firing squads are the usual method of execution in North Korea"

Personally, I hope that the NK regime falls very quickly and I often find satire of that regime very amusing (though its slavish media often succeeds in being a parody of itself anyway), but spreading misinformation is not helpful. The fact is we don't know how Kim Jong Un's uncle was executed but that particular method seems unlikely.

Reply 23

scrotgrot

Original post by Fullofsurprises

I wasn't calling it treason, I was just wondering about it. I would hate to be one of those doctors. I realise that in the ideal view, doctors should treat everyone, but in the real world, presumably money has changed hands and these doctors have been flown in for substantial fees by NK. I'm assuming this - maybe I'm wrong - but if I'm right, it appears to be offering help for money to the worst regime on the planet. I don't think that's right.

Well, people have always had to pay doctors in some way or another in order to receive their care. I expect the doctors have been approached individually and made their choice rather than through a company which has commanded them to do it. It's no different to European tyrants like, I don't know, William the Conqueror or Oliver Cromwell or Leopold II retaining the best physicians in the land.

We have in many areas a professional detachment from politics. I was quite aggrieved that North Korea were allowed to play in the 2010 World Cup, and before that Iraq would always play games sanctioned by FIFA and the AFC despite the fact that Uday would torture the players if they lost. Still, as we saw with sport in apartheid South Africa, there are also instances where it is judged appropriate for politics to come into other things. Similarly, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that one of these doctors might break his oath and poison Kim.

But if Kim has any sense whatsoever he will keep the doctors around for a few weeks afterwards to check this hasn't happened.