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Agence France-Presse

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has carried out a major reshuffle of his State Affairs Commission, official media reported on Monday, replacing more than one-third of its members.
Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since inheriting power in 2011.
He is chairman of the SAC – the North’s highest decision-making body – and five of its 13 other members were replaced at a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly parliament on Sunday, the state-run KCNA news agency reported.
“This is a rather large scale of SAC membership shuffle,” said former US government North Korea analyst Rachel Lee.

Pictures carried by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed hundreds of lawmakers sitting close to each other without wearing protective masks.
A cabinet report reiterated the North’s insistence that “not a single case” of the coronavirus pandemic that has swept the world since emerging in neighbouring China has been reported in the country.
Pyongyang put thousands of its own people and hundreds of foreigners – including diplomats – into isolation and mounted disinfection drives as it sought to prevent an outbreak, which experts say could be devastating given its weak health sector and widespread malnutrition.
“State emergency anti-epidemic campaign will continue to be intensified to prevent the spread of Covid-19,” the cabinet report said.

There was no mention on KCNA of Kim presiding over the meeting himself, and he did not appear in photos of it.
“The fact that North Korea went ahead with the SPA suggests the country’s confidence in managing the coronavirus situation,” Lee said. “The fact that the attendees were not wearing masks only reconfirms that.”
The new SAC members include Ri Son-gwon, a former senior army officer named as foreign minister earlier this year, while his predecessor, career diplomat Ri Yong-ho, was removed.
Another former foreign minister, Ri Su-yong, was also taken off the committee.

Under Kim the North has made rapid progress on its nuclear arsenal, launching missiles capable of reaching the whole of the US mainland, and has been subject to increasingly stringent UN Security Council sanctions as a result.
Talks with the US have been largely deadlocked since the collapse of the Hanoi summit last year over sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in exchange.
A budgetary report submitted to the SPA said 15.9 per cent of state spending this year would be devoted to defence, KCNA said, a marginal increase on 2019.
The cabinet report acknowledged that “serious mistakes” were found in its work last year.
“They taught a serious lesson that if the officials in charge of providing economic guidance fail to fulfil their duty,” the authorities’ economic goals will not be achieved, it said.
North Korea “apparently wants to show its institutions are working and national safety is under control, while trying to lower public expectations about the economy by blaming the ongoing global pandemic,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.


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North Korea

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un replaces almost half of top governing body in reshuffle

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attending a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. Photo: KCNA/DPA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance during his visit to a pursuit assault plane group under the Air and Anti-Aircraft Division in the western area in this undated image released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on April 12, 2020. KCNA/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. SOUTH KOREA OUT. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A woman walks past a screen showing file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on March 29, 2020. - North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on March 29, the fourth such launch this month as the world battles the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

This Sunday, April 12, 2020, photo provided by the North Korean government on Monday, April 13, 2020, shows a session of North Korea's parliament in Pyongyang. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Coronavirus: North Korea to convene legislative session amid pandemic

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervises a mortar firing drill in North Korea in a photo released on April 10, 2020. Photo: KCNA/Korea News Service via AP

North Korea’s Kim shuns coronavirus protective gear to ‘guide’ artillery drills

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seen in a picture released by North Korean Central News Agency following a military exercise. Photo: DPA

This picture taken on March 12, 2020 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 13, 2020 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) attending a drill by the military's artillery squads, at an undisclosed location. (Photo by STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP) / South Korea OUT / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT ---EDITORS NOTE--- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS / THIS PICTURE WAS MADE AVAILABLE BY A THIRD PARTY. AFP CAN NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE --- /

An artillery fire competition between the artillery units under the Korean People's Army Corps 7 and Corps 9 takes place at a training ground in North Korea, March 12, 2020 in this picture supplied by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) . KCNA via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. SOUTH KOREA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SOUTH KOREA.

In photos, North Korea’s Kim still wears no mask as coronavirus pandemic ‘threatens whole mankind’

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits an airfield in this undated image released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 12. Photo: Reuters

People walk in Pyongyang on April 10, 2020, as North Korea is expected to convene a session of the Supreme People's Assembly, its top legislature, the same day for the first time since last August. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

This picture taken on April 11, 2020 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 12, 2020 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) attending a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in pyongyang. (Photo by STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP) / South Korea OUT / ---EDITORS NOTE--- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS / THIS PICTURE WAS MADE AVAILABLE BY A THIRD PARTY. AFP CAN NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE --- /

North Korea says Trump wrote letter to Kim hailing ‘special relations’, offered coronavirus cooperation

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump shake hands during a meeting in June 2019. Photo: AFP

What sanctions? North Korea continues importing oil, cars and alcohol, UN says

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: Reuters

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as they meet at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. SOUTH KOREA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SOUTH KOREA.

This Saturday, May 4, 2019, photo provided on Sunday, May 5, 2019, by the North Korean government shows tests of weapons systems, in North Korea. North Korean state media on Sunday said leader Kim Jong Un observed live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and unspecified tactical guided weapons, a day after South Korea's military detected the North launching several unidentified short-range projectiles into the sea off its eastern coast. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

This photo taken on November 21, 2017 shows a general view of North Korean coal piled up on a dockside at the port in Rason. At the northeastern tip of North Korea, where the isolated, nuclear-armed country meets its giant neighbours China and Russia, United Nations sanctions on the regime over its weapons programmes are having an impact. And with the North facing further sanctions following its ICBM missile test on November 29, things are unlikely to get any easier for traders involved with the remote region's Rason Special Economic Zone (SEZ). / AFP PHOTO / Ed JONES / TO GO WITH NKorea-China-trade-sanction-diplomacy, FOCUS by Sebastien BERGER

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Asia

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Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since first inheriting power in 2011, aged in his 20s
The reshuffle came as a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament was held on Sunday, with hundreds of lawmakers pictured not wearing masks



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since inheriting power in 2011.


Kim Jong-un

North Korea sanctions

Coronavirus pandemic

Diplomacy

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un replaces almost half of top governing body in reshuffle

Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since first inheriting power in 2011, aged in his 20s The reshuffle came as a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament was held on Sunday, with hundreds of lawmakers pictured not wearing masks

Kim has established an iron grip over the levers of authority in his nuclear-armed country since first inheriting power in 2011, aged in his 20s

The reshuffle came as a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament was held on Sunday, with hundreds of lawmakers pictured not wearing masks