Kim Jong-un Executes Own Family Member

If you work in North Korea, now might be a good time to defect: State-run media reported today that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s uncle has been executed for crimes against the state. While reliable reporting from within North Korea is almost impossible to come by, South Korean intelligence said earlier this month that Jang Song Thaek, then vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and thought by some to be the second-most powerful man in the country, had been purged from the country’s government.

"Despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him,” the characteristically-bombastic North Korean news report read. “From long ago, Jang had a dirty political ambition."

The report, which doesn’t talk about the supposed execution itself, goes on to call Jang an “anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster” who opposed the succession of Kim Jong-un to the country’s leadership and had planned, along with other dissidents, to overthrow the government. It also claims that he was convicted of treason in a military court and “confessed” to his crimes, although that (and everything North Korea says about its legal system) ought to be taken with a grain of salt.