The North Korean authorities have recently displayed pictures with the portrait picture of President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea (south) dumped with cigartte butts. This made the normally pro-North Korean supporters of President Moon in Seoul very angry.
Recently, the North Korean regime, mostly led by Vice Chairperson Kim Yo-jong of the (North) Korean Workers Party, stepped up its anti-South campaign to discredit the government of President Moon by taking a series of actions that were considered unprecedented in recent years of detante between Moon and Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea.
The sudden change in the attitude on the part of Vice Chairperson Kim Yo-hong and other leaders gave rise to various speculations in Seoul.
Some attributed the sudden change of the North Korean leaders' change of attitude toward Moon to possible spread of COVID-19 epidemic in North Korea.
The seriously contagious diseases started in Wuhan in China and spread out to all parts of the world, including the United States and the Republic of Korea (south).
Sources suspected that North Korea must be in a 'very bad' situation as it directly borders on China and is heavily reliant on that country for economic cooperation as the North is suffering from extremely difficult economic difficulties due to economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations in resposne to developnment of nuclear weapons by North Korea.
Soruces indicated that North Korea is trying to turn the attention of the people to confrontation with the South in order to divert the attention of the people away from the COVID-19 problem and economic difficulties.
