Andrei Lankov

Andrei Lankov is director of North Korea News, professor of history at Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea, and the author of The Real North Korea.

Lil’ Kim: should the West prepare for chaos in North Korea?

From our UK edition

On 24 June, North Korean state TV aired a short interview with an unnamed Pyongyang resident. The man, who appeared to be in his fifties, said that his fellow countrymen had all been left heartbroken and in tears when they saw the new, ‘emaciated’ look of Kim Jong-un. The country’s hereditary dictator, who hadn’t been seen in public for a month, recently re-emerged looking rather different. Even now it’s a bit of a stretch to call him ‘emaciated’, since his estimated body weight is nearly 19 stone. Still, it is a big drop from the 23 stone he weighed only a month earlier. However, it was not Kim’s weight loss but the interview itself which was truly surprising.