SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s premier offered a rare public apology after the country’s currency revamp triggered social unrest and starvation and worsened economic difficulties, a South Korean newspaper reported today.
Some people have started dying of hunger in the country’s mountainous northeast where authorities suspended food rations, activists and analysts say.
Friday, Premier Kim Yong-Il apologized for the aftermath in a meeting with government officials and local village leaders, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified source in North Korea.
Kim is believed to be the North’s No. 3 man in the country’s power hierarchy after autocratic leader Kim Jong-Il and Kim Yong-Nam, president of the People’s Assembly.
