Watching North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waddle around inspecting things, it’s sometimes hard to believe that he’s in charge of one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

In his ninth year in power, Kim Jong Un, who serves as chairman of the States Affairs Commission and head of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, continues to exercise almost total political control.

North Korea is one of the most secretive states on Earth, and when news of the goings-on there does manage to ‘sneak’ past the state-run media, it’s usually a display of military capability or a missile test designed to flex the country’s nuclear strength.

Their attempts to control the distribution of information and their ongoing feud with South Korea came to a head earlier this month when they threatened to permanently shut down the liaison office in the border town of Kaesong, managed by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea.

Now, it appears, they’ve bombed it.

CNBC reports:

South Korea has accused North Korea of demolishing an inter-Korean liaison office building just north of the border between the two countries on Tuesday morning as tensions continue to escalate on the Korean peninsula.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry […] confirmed to NBC News that the liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong was demolished “by bombing” on Tuesday afternoon local time.

North Korea was reportedly angry that South Korea had failed “to prevent activists from sending anti-North Korean leaflets across the border”.

Last week, North Korea cited the same reasons for axing all communications with South Korea, a move analysts believe could be an attempt to manufacture a crisis and force concessions from its neighbor.

North Korea’s military on Tuesday threatened to move back into zones that were demilitarized under inter-Korean peace agreements in 2018 as the country continued to dial up pressure on Seoul amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.

Both Trump and Kim left without the “deal” that the US president promised he’d secure.

On Sunday, South Korea held an emergency meeting after Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, one of his top aides and possibly the most terrifying woman in the world, threatened military action against South Korea in the latest escalation of tensions between the two countries.

She also threatened to demolish the “useless” inter-Korean liaison office, and it looks like she did:

The Telegraph’s slightly longer video shows rising smoke visible from over the border city of Kaesong at the 28-second mark:

North Korea is desperate for aid due to harsh US-led sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, which is why experts predict that they’re ramping up tensions with South Korea to gain access to what they need to battle the virus.

Whatever their reasons, this could be the start of something with the potential to turn very nasty, very quickly.

[source:cnbc]