With his plump hands in the pockets of his double-breasted winter coat, Kim Jong Un beams as he visits a brand new potato factory in North Korea.
Donning his trademark fedora, the despot poses on the gleaming factory floor, in a shed jam-packed with potatoes, and in a pristine food shop on the site in Samjiyon, near the Chinese border.
The carefully staged photos, shared with the world by North Korea’s state news agency, give the impression the communist state is thriving as sparkling new factories produce an abundance of food.
The government boats this one was built in just a month and can produce 4,000 tons of potato starch every year.
But the reality is far different as North Koreans, ravaged by food shortages, are rationed just 300g of food of day – equivalent to a packet of hobnobs.
Despot: With his plump hands in the pockets of his double-breasted winter coat, Kim Jong Un beams as he visits a brand new potato factory in North Korea
Leader: Kim outside the factory before his tour. These carefully staged photos were shared with the world by North Korea’s state news agency
Delight: Kim poses in a pristine food shop on the site of the factory in Samjiyon, near the Chinese border
Beaming: The despot poses on the gleaming factory floor as he takes a tour with his advisers around the factory
It is said that the severe food shortage is forcing desperate fisherman go further and further out to sea to find more food – resulting in many dying and their ships being washed up abroad.
In November 28 ‘ghost ship’ fishing vessels – boats without men – washed up in Japanese waters, the highest monthly number since records began in 2014.
Exacerbating the phenomenon is the fact that North Korea has sold fishing rights to China in a bid to raise hard currency, forcing fishermen – often sailing rickety vessels – further out towards Japan in search of a catch.
There has been a record number of North Korean fishermen rescued alive – 42 this year compared to zero in 2016 – but there are still cases of ‘ghost ships’ packed full of bodies, with 18 corpses recovered so far this year.
A wooden boat is left after being washed ashore in Tsuruoka, Yamagata prefecture, northern Japan on Monday
Japanese authorities say it is often hard to determine exactly how they died as the boats often drift for months before washing up in Japan.
‘Fishermen are desperate to meet annual catch goals, which are elevated to higher levels every year,’ Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor emeritus of Waseda University and North Korea expert, told AFP.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un ordered an increase in fishing when he took power in 2013, analysts noted.
‘Since then, fishermen have been frantically trying to meet (annual) catch goals, but what’s different this year is that they are travelling to distant waters in their fragile boats,’ said Pyon Jinil, a leading North Korea watcher and writer based in Japan.
The skeletal remains of eight men were discovered on this wooden fishing boat which washed up in Japan on Monday and is believed to have come from North Korea
It is just the latest North Korean boat to have ended up in Japanese waters this month, as mystery remains over why so many have found themselves adrift
‘North Korea last year sold part of its fishing rights in the Yellow Sea to China to get foreign currency, so their fishermen have been kicked out of the western part of their waters,’ he said.
‘So this year, Kim Jong-Un ordered his people in a New Year address to ‘establish a fishing base in the Sea of Japan’,’ Pyon said.
Yang Moo-Jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, concurred, adding: ‘Because they can’t fish in their own waters, they have to go farther out.’
‘North Korea’s fishing boats are quite old and they don’t have much fuel… so they naturally end up adrift and float into Japan,’ said Yang.
This boat was discovered on Monday, another washed ashore on Friday, while four were discovered the previous week – including two which capsized
There is also the backdrop of a severe food shortage, partly linked to international sanctions, analysts said.
Food rationing has been stepped up with ‘every North Korean person now receiving only 300 grams of food per day,’ noted Pyon.
‘In order to plug the shortages of staple food like rice and corn, they want to buy from China, but they don’t have hard currency to buy food, either,’ he said.
North Korea’s foreign reserves have shrunk to one third of what it held last year because of new rounds of sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council – two this year and nine in total, he noted.
Eight North Korea squid fishermen were discovered on this vessel last week and said they had been adrift for a month after losing engine power
Three North Koreans were rescued while another seven drowned after two vessels were found capsized between November 15 and 17, Japanese media said