Dear (Almost Departed) Leader

Following up on previous postings on this site, it now appears that Chairman Kim's days are numbered:

According to exiles, North Korean agents in Beijing and Ulan Bator are frantically selling assets to raise cash — an important sign, says one activist, because “the secret police can always smell the crisis coming before anybody else”.

He was never intended to be more than a Chinese puppet anyway, and since he's now causing them grief ... well, if he hadn't already figured what was gonna happen, you knew he wouldn't be able to last. Good riddance when he's gone.

Also of note is who is quietly making friends amongst the NK refuguees:

“They know there is a Christian network to put them in contact with the underground, to break into embassies in Beijing or to get into Vietnam. They know, but you have to pay a lot of money to middlemen who have the Christian contacts.”

Her knowledge was remarkable. North Korean newspapers are stifled by state control. Televisions receive only one channel which is devoted to the Dear Leader’s deeds. Radios are fixed to a single frequency. For most citizens the internet is just a word.

Yet North Koreans confirmed that they knew that escapers to China should look for buildings displaying a Christian cross and should ask among Korean speakers for people who knew the word of Jesus.

It may be a sidebar to the current story, but I wouldn't discount its long-term implications either, in spite of the irony of refugees from a communist country looking for a sign of the cross in order to escape to another communist country.