BEIJING - "The riots are expanding even into North Korea. Hundreds of protesters have collided with the authorities," said South Korea's largest-selling Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Thursday, as top news on its website. Now finally, the global cascade of "Jasmine revolutions" in the Middle East and North Africa appears to have entered North Korea.Chosun posted a North Korea map with large red circles around multiple cities to mark "riot zones", adding more drama to the report.
One of the circles is the town of Sinuiju on the border with China. "Hundreds of people clashed with security forces ... The military was deployed to quell the demonstration, leaving some protesters wounded," said Chosun. While the protest was sparked by a crackdown in a market, it was "an eruption of long pent-up discontent", it said.
South Korea's online newspaper Daily NK reported on Wednesday that North Korea had created a special mobilization force to prevent any demonstrations similar to the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.
Another daily, JoongAng Ilbo, said on Thursday that the authorities had begun purging elites who had studied abroad in Russia for fear of a possible coup by people "who were exposed to a Western lifestyle".
Yet another vernacular newspaper, Donga Ilbo, on Thursday ran a piece on the "dramatic increase" of North Korean females choosing prostitution amid worsening economic hardship, linking it to the growing social instability of the country.
As Libya goes, so goes North Korea? We can only hope. Until then I'll take the reports of the Nork's decline with a grain of salt.