North Korea leader Kim Jong-un holds politburo meeting, discusses anti-virus measures

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, discussing anti-coronavirus measures, budget issues and organizational matters, a state-media report said on Sunday.

The politburo meeting held on Saturday suggests that a key session of the country’s Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), which was supposed to take place on F

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, discussing anti-coronavirus measures, budget issues and organizational matters, a state-media report said on Sunday.

riday, has been postponed for unclear reasons because a politburo meeting usually takes place on the eve of an SPA session, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported.

Saturday’s meeting discussed anti-virus efforts, budget issues and other organization matters, and a resolution was adopted “on more thoroughly taking national measures for protecting the life and safety of our people to cope with the worldwide epidemic disease”, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in the report on Sunday.

The politburo meeting also called for consistently taking “strict national countermeasures to thoroughly check the infiltration of the virus in the light of the development of the steady expansive spread of the worldwide epidemic disease”, it said.

North Korea is among just a few countries in the world that claim to have no coronavirus infections, but many outside observers suspect that Pyongyang might be hushing up an outbreak.

Pyongyang has taken relatively drastic anti-virus measures by closing its borders with China, where the coronavirus originated in late December.

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