Kim Jong-un Photographed Holding A Cigarette Despite North Korean Anti-Smoking Campaign

It looks like Kim Jong-un is not setting a very good example for North Korea’s recent anti-smoking campaign:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is known to be a heavy smoker, has held a cigarette for the first time in months in public, a photo released by the North’s mouthpiece newspaper showed Saturday.

A snapshot of him smoking at the remodeled Mangyongdae Children’s Camp in Pyongyang was published in Rodong Sinmun. Kim was there to promote “Pyongyang Speed,” a term referring to the North’s rapid industrialization, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He was last seen smoking more than 80 days ago at a test evaluating the heat stability of a homegrown North Korean rocket.

Experts speculated that Kim may have refrained from smoking in front of cameras because the North’s media have been campaigning against that behavior. Rodong Sinmun, in fact, published several stories reiterating the harmful effects of cigarettes between April and May. At one point, local women appeared on the Korean Central Television to denounce smokers as “imbeciles who upset their surroundings.”  [Yonhap]

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