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DO OR DIE: North Korea locks down capital, executes people to stop spread of COVID

Korea

If you thought the United States had strict lockdown protocols, wait until you hear about what’s going on in North Korea. 

According to reports from South Korea’s spy agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has issued a lockdown for the entire capital city of Pyongyang, banned fishing at sea, and has even called for the execution of at least two people in an effort to protect his borders from the coronavirus. 

Kim also reportedly told North Korean diplomats around the world not to act in any way that could potentially provoke the United States and is gearing up for a different approach toward North Korea from the media’s president-elect Joe Biden. 

Ha Tae-keung, one of the lawmakers briefed by South Korean officials, said Kim is displaying “excessive anger” and taking “irrational measures” in fear that the pandemic will bring economic turmoil to North Korea. One of the people executed last month was reportedly a high-profile currency changer in the nation’s capital, who Kim blamed for the falling exchange rate of the North Korean currency. 

For the last 9 months, North Korea has boasted that the government has not found a single case of COVID-19 within its borders, a claim that has been widely contested by observers and experts around the world. Despite this, the country has still been forced to close its border with its largest trading partner: China. North Korea’s current trade with China has totaled only about 25 percent of the numbers it did last year, a massive blow to the North Korean economy, according to Just The News. 

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