{"id":44646,"date":"2020-04-30T13:25:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=44646"},"modified":"2020-04-30T14:32:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T05:32:58","slug":"north-korea-issues-first-kim-jong-un-signed-director-two-week-hiatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-issues-first-kim-jong-un-signed-director-two-week-hiatus\/","title":{"rendered":"N. Korea issues first KJU-signed directive after two week hiatus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea broke a two-week hiatus in releasing directives personally signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un yesterday, Daily NK has learned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In normal times, Kim reportedly released these directives every Wednesday or Thursday to provincial party committees and government agencies, according to a Daily NK source in the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Suspicions about something amiss with the North Korean leader have further been sparked by the fact that the format and tone of the Apr. 29 directive is different than before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While past directives usually contained seven or more specific orders, the Apr. 29 document contained only three orders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe document released on Apr. 9, for example, had a total of 10 orders,\u201d Daily NK\u2019s source in the country explained.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Apr. 29 directive\u2019s content was also more broad than usual, repeating familiar themes such as emphasis on the nation providing support for the construction of the Pyongyang General Hospital; a call to &#8220;energize&#8221; the activities of soldiers and the ordinary people; and ordering the \u201ctimely sowing of seeds\u201d by the country\u2019s agricultural workers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Past directives were usually formatted so that the orders Kim had made verbally were listed along with the dates in parentheses denoting when they were handed down, but the Apr. 29 directive failed to follow this format.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, none of the orders in the directive reflected Kim\u2019s responses to proposals made by government agencies, which has usually been a feature of these documents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cNo one in North Korea is allowed to reproduce the tone of Kim\u2019s statements, which may explain why the directive is different than usual,\u201d a former high-level North Korean government official told Daily NK. \u201cIf Kim has indeed relinquished his leadership duties over this period, it\u2019s possible we\u2019ll see various areas of the government move to fill the \u2018governance gap.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korean government officials who saw the directive on Apr. 29 think the tone and format is strange, but are refraining from publicly linking it with speculation surrounding Kim\u2019s ill health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cA lot of people in Pyongyang hear news from the outside world, so they know that rumors are spreading [internationally] about Kim\u2019s illness,\u201d Daily NK\u2019s source in North Korea said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean, however, that people will voice their opinions about such rumors out loud,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>*Translated by Violet Kim<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/2%EC%A3%BC-%EB%A7%8C%EC%97%90-%EB%82%98%EC%98%A8-%EA%B9%80%EC%A0%95%EC%9D%80-%EB%B0%A9%EC%B9%A8%ED%8F%AC%EC%B9%98%EC%9D%B4%EC%A0%84%EA%B3%BC-%EA%B5%AC%EC%84%B1%C2%B7%EC%96%B4%ED%88%AC\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korea broke a two-week hiatus in releasing directives personally signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un yesterday, Daily NK has learned.\u00a0 In normal times, Kim reportedly released these directives every Wednesday or Thursday to provincial party committees and government agencies, according to a Daily NK source in the country.\u00a0 Suspicions about something amiss [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":42024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>N. 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