The images were released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency as Jong-Un's second-in-command has reappeared in official television footage, contradicting reports that the young dictator had ordered his execution
North Korea: The New Generation Losing Faith In The Regime -- The Guardian
After decades of absolute control, Pyongyang's iron grip on the lives of ordinary citizens is finally slipping. Tania Branigan meets the people who no longer believe the propaganda
If she is lucky - if her husband or children can slip away unnoticed to the riverside, nearer the Chinese phone masts - Chae Un-ee can talk to her family each day. “Talk” is perhaps an exaggeration; her loved ones end the call, made on a smuggled handset and SIM card, almost as soon as it begins.
“They have to be very quick because otherwise the phone can be tracked down,” she said. “It’s mainly just to hear their voice and know that they’re okay. If they don’t call me I worry, because the situation is very tense there.”
“There” is North Korea. Chae is not a dissident, not even a defector; only a mother working abroad in China to feed her family. Yet the North’s control of its citizens is such that even this work, in the country’s only significant ally, could result in harsh punishment.
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My Comment: The Soviet Union collapsed when even the elites and those who supported them no longer believed in the lies .... instead they became more focused on using the power of the state to maintain their lifestyles and their privileges. This is what is now happening in North Korea. With time .... the hope is that a new leader and his entourage will come to power with a certain desire for reform .... but that is not going to happen with Kim Jong-un, and it certainly is not going to happen in the next few years.