Dear readers, Walt assumes you follow the news assiduously -- local, national and international -- and heard or read yesterday's story about the downfall of Chang Song-thaek. Mr. Chang was -- note the past tense -- the uncle of North Korea's Dear Leader 3.0, Kim Jong-un.
Being an uncle of the Numero Uno (I don't know how to write it in Hangul script) doesn't necessarily make you loyal. Mr. Chang was accused of treachery and disloyalty and trying to organize a coup. If you were watching the TV news, you saw a video clip of two uniformed army types lifting Mr. Chang out of his seat at a special party meeting and frog-marching him out of frame to... well... to his death!
Today it is revealed that Mr. Chang was given a summary trial of sorts and promptly "executed". At least, that's what the English-language media are telling us. At first he was said to have been shot, in traditional Communist fashion. (The Chinese Communists make the family of the deceased pay for the bullet too.) But Agent 78, checking the Chinese media, tells a different story.
According to Agent 78, Mr. Chang was not shot, but eaten! A story published in a Hong Kong newspaper claims he was thrown into a cage of what 78 translates as "cheetahs", who made a meal of him...literally! It seems odd to Walt that there would be cheetahs in North Korea. [Try the Canadian Senate. Ed.] Perhaps it was lions. Or wolves. Or pigs. But it does seem like a fitting end for a corrupt politician.
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