Kim Jong UN shakes up North Korea’s military, dismisses defence minister

BREAKING: Kim Jong Un shakes up North Korea's military hierarchy, dismissing the country's defence minister as the regime unveils new combat weapon systems.

North Korea's defence minister is out. Kim Jong Un just fired him.

This came out of a top-level military meeting in Pyongyang, and you can see the room here, Kim at the head of the table, generals lined up taking notes. Somewhere in that session, the man in charge of the entire armed forces lost his job. No explanation given, because Pyongyang doesn't do explanations.

And the timing is the part worth chewing on. The dismissal landed alongside the unveiling of new combat weapon systems. So on the same day the regime shows off fresh hardware, it also reshuffles the people who command it. In North Korea, a defence minister is less a policymaker and more a man surviving from one meeting to the next, and this one didn't.

Kim has churned through defence ministers before, and each purge tells you the same thing. In Pyongyang, the weapons are permanent. The men holding them are not.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.