Kim Jong-un's Sister Cements Top Position

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un chaired a Politburo meeting on Saturday that reinstated his sister Yo-jong to "alternate" member of the top decision-making body of the Workers Party, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday.

Kim Yo-jong was first appointed to the position in 2017 but lost it last year after the collapse of a second North Korea-U.S. summit. The reinstatement puts an official stamp on her ascent in the repressive regime, where she has already to all intents and purposes become the second most powerful person.

Economics woes seem to have dominated the agenda at the meeting. KCNA said the coronavirus pandemic is "a great disaster threatening the whole mankind, regardless of borders and continents."

It added that the regime set goals of "continuously intensifying the nationwide emergency anti-epidemic services and pushing ahead with the economic construction and increasing national defense capability and stabilizing the people's livelihood."

Although the regime insists that the impoverished country remains free of coronavirus infections, it now acknowledges that its economy has been impacted by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un toured an airbase in the western part of the country ahead of the meeting, the Rodong Sinmun reported.