Juche Says: Smoking Bad for Dear Leader

If the famine doesn't kill you, the smoking will. The Telegraph reports that the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, has banned smoking in Pyongyang:

In most cities, smoking bans are intended to protect the non-smoking majority from the minority who insist on lighting up.

In Pyongyang, the latest and most unlikely international capital to be subject to a ban, it is the other way round.

The ban is to protect one man from the effects of his puffing compatriots, but since that man is the reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, it is still likely to be vigorously implemented.

Kim's health has been the subject of intense speculation across the border in South Korea all year, and in particular since he was rumoured to have had heart surgery in May. Kim himself is said to have given up cigarettes—and brandy—on doctor's orders back in 2000.

Story on Kim Jong's-illness here.

My previous post on North Korea, cell phones and the death penalty here.