Kim Jong Un has returned from his short absence (intelligence authorities now believe he had a substitute dictator as he recovered from had ankle surgery), and those who flouted his authority while he was unable to properly discipline them are paying the price. Ten North Korean officials have reportedly been executed because they tuned in to some South Korean soap operas to pass the time. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seeking to erase the remaining influence of his dead uncle, executing about 10 senior Workers’ Party officials on charges from graft to watching South Korean soap operas, according to an aide to a South Korean lawmaker.

The deaths by shooting are part of Kim’s latest round of purges, said Lim Dae Sung, a secretary to ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo who attended a briefing at the National Intelligence Service yesterday in Seoul.

Apparently, Kim Jong Un’s six weeks out of the spotlight proved to be terrible for approval ratings, and he’s had to undertake a new round of executions to prove to North Korea that, despite falling victim to weak ankles, he’s still in charge. He’s also expanded his prison camps, and although a deputy minister had agreed to closer talks with South Korea, those talks have yet to happen, and North Korea threatened to call them off completely after South Korea distributed leaflets near the border between the two countries.