...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...reported a new "epidemic" of an intestinal disease on Thursday, an unusual announcement from the secretive country that is already contending with a COVID-19 outbreak and severe economic turmoil.
It's unclear how many people are infected in what the official Korean Central News Agency said was "an acute enteric epidemic" in southwestern Haeju city.
The agency didn't name the disease, but enteric refers to intestinal illnesses, such as typhoid, dysentery and cholera, which are caused by germs in contaminated food or water or contact with the feces of infected people. Such diseases routinely occur in North Korea, where there is a shortage of water treatment facilities and the public health system has been largely broken for decades.
Some observers said the purpose of the announcement was not so much to report the infections themselves as to mention that leader Kim
PudgeJong-un
...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished...
donated medicine from his personal stock — an apparent effort to burnish his image at a moment of extreme hardship.
The official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim donated medicine from what it referred to as his family's reserves. The country's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried a front-page photo showing Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, looking at saline solutions and medicine that the paper said they donated.
In a country where power is concentrated is the hands of a small ruling elite and hospitals often lack even basic supplies, defectors say it's common for anyone who can to keep stocks of medicine in their homes — and bigwigs are typically able to stockpile more than ordinary citizens. Observers also said the donated medicine may have simply come from state storage facilities but was distributed in Kim's name.
"The outbreak of measles or typhoid isn't uncommon in North Korea. I think it's true there is an outbreak of an infectious disease there, but North Korea is using it as an opportunity to emphasize that Kim is caring for his people," said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focusing on health issues in North Korea. "So it's more like a political message than medical one."
Last month, North Korea reported a rising number of patients with fever. At the time, South Korea's spy agency said that "a considerable number" of the cases included those sick with measles, typhoid and whooping cough.