North Korea's Kim Jong-il bans smoking

A North Korean lights his cigarette with one borrowed from a soldier patrolling the banks of the Yalu River. North Korea has imposed a smoking ban at all venues used by its leader Kim Jong-Il after doctors advised him to stop smoking and drinking, a former South Korean lawmaker said Tuesday(AFP/File/Frederic J.Brown)


North Korea's Kim Jong-il bans smoking

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 6:17pm BST 24/07/2007
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.
But as he recovers from the surgery, or whatever other condition is said to have caused him to lose weight and hair in recent months, no chances are being taken.
Sang Jong-min, a former South Korean MP and academic who has visited Pyongyang and monitors developments there, says he was told about the ban by a Chinese diplomat.
"Kim's home, office and all other places he goes to have been designated as non-smoking areas. Even the highest-ranking officials are going outdoors to smoke," he said.
North Korea is said to have one of the highest smoking rates in the world, with one estimate saying 40 per cent, or nine million of its 22 million people, are smokers.
One of its few major foreign investers is British American Tobacco, which jointly runs a cigarette factory in the country.
Little is known definitively about Kim's health. But the reports of his suffering heart problems and diabetes have been confirmed by South Korean intelligence, who add that these conditions do not as yet affect his ability to function as leader.



Kim Jong-il's health has deteriorated recently