GFP Note: In this recent article, it was reported that ArchAngel Michael said that both Kim Jong-Un and his military chief, Ri Yong-ho, are in containment but the general became unstable and had to be removed from office.
huffingtonpost.com
By HYUNG-JIN KIM 07/16/12 01:53 PM ET 
In this Sunday, April 15, 2012 file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, smiles with the Korean People's Army senior officers, Vice Marshal and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Choe Ryong Hae, center, and Vice Marshal and the military's General Staff Chief Ri Yong Ho, during a mass military parade in Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate the centenary of the birth of his grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency
SEOUL, South Korea —
Seven months ago, he was the guardian figure always at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's side, a top military official whose experience and position lent the young new ruler credibility with the troops. Now, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho is out, dismissed from several powerful posts because of illness, state media said Monday in a brief surprise announcement just days after he last appeared in public.
However, Ri did not appear ill in recent appearances, feeding speculation abroad that Kim purged him in an effort to put his own mark on the nation he inherited when father Kim Jong Il died in December. At the same time, there was no sign of discord at Ri's last public appearance at a high-level event, barely a week ago.
The decision to dismiss the 69-year-old from top military and political posts was made at a Workers' Party meeting Sunday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. It was not immediately clear who would take Ri's place, and the dispatch did not elaborate on his condition or future.
Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea analyst at the International Crisis Group, was skeptical of the illness claim. He noted that Ri won his major promotions at a September 2010 party conference but received none in April, stirring speculation about his future.
"There's a very high probability that it wasn't health issues, but that he was purged," sending a strong signal to anyone seeking to challenge Kim Jong Un – even if Ri never directly defied the new leader, Pinkston said.
To read the rest of this story, visit huffingtonpost.com
