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

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. Ever since Kim came to power in 2011, his health has been a topic of speculation for the western media — he is obese (with a reported passion for Swiss cheese), smokes like a chimney and is thought to drink excessively.