Saturday, February 18, 2012

[UPDATED] Kim Jong-nam cut off?

[source]

If what The Telegraph is saying is true, someone in Pyongyang may be retaliating for Kim Jong-un's older half brother Kim Jong-nam shooting his mouth off about the Prodigious Progeny not being ready for prime time:
Well-known playboy and occasional critic of his father’s regime, Kim Jong-nam has been kicked out of luxury hotel in the Chinese gambling hub of Macau, according to a Russian newspaper.

The Arguments and Facts weekly claimed Jong-nam ran up a bill of £9,500 but was unable to pay because his credit card had been cancelled.

Jong-nam’s decadent lifestyle saw him ditched as the heir-apparent in favour of his younger half-brother Kim Jong-un.

“He gave us his Visa Gold card but it ended up having no money on the account,” the mass-circulated paper quoted an unnamed source at the hotel as saying.

The management of the five-star Grand Lapa Hotel, run by the Mandarin Oriental chain, then expelled the 40-year-old from his 17th-floor room, the paper said.
If he really has fallen out of favor, that's a serious problem for the oldest son of the Dearly Departed Leader. Does that mean he's vulnerable to be taken out physically? If he (literally) dodges that bullet, will he have to get a job? Just what can this guy do for gainful employment?

Maybe he can team up with Hines Ward.

UPDATE 1:
Joshua at One Free Korea is suggesting that maybe the CIA might be willing to offer KJN a lavish life in Vegas in exchange for information on the Norkremlin.

UPDATE 2:
The Korea Times is suggesting that Kim Jong-nam might defect to South Korea if he is completely cut off. I'm not sure how secure that would make him feel, given the high-profile assassination of Ri Hanyŏng (리한영), a nephew of Kim Jong-il's mistress whose own mother raised Kim Jong-nam, after North Korea's Number-Two Hwang Jang-yŏp defected in the mid-1990s, as well as the attempt in 2010 to kill Hwang himself.

Come to think of it, given that Kim Jong-nam himself grew up with Ri Hanyŏng, maybe this has steeled him for what might come, though on the other hand it might give him pause regarding defecting.

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1 comment:

  1. If he's cut off financially, I hope this means he needs to start start looking for a paycheck... and trading on his inside knowledge of North Korea by publishing books and books about North Korea and the royal family.

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