Kim Jong Un's Sister Gets in the Smack-Talk Game

North Korea's rare party congress meeting ended Tuesday, but not before leader Kim Jong Un's sister had some things to say about South Korea. Kim Yo Jong, who was apparently demoted during the meeting, spoke out after Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that signs of a military parade in the north had been detected Sunday night. "We are only holding a military parade in the capital city, not military exercises targeting anybody nor launch of anything. Why do they take trouble craning their neck to follow what's happening in the north," Kim said of what she called South Korea's "idiot" authorities, per CNN. "The southerners are a truly weird group (and) hard to understand."

"Do they really have nothing else to do but let their military body make 'precision tracking' of the celebrations in the north?" she continued, calling such spying "hostile." CNN notes that such parades, which Kim's comments appeared to confirm, can in fact offer important clues about Pyongyang's weapons. Meanwhile, the AP takes a look at Kim's apparent demotion, and notes that it's still not clear why she was removed as an alternate from North Korea's powerful politburo. While policy failures could be to blame, experts say Kim Jong Un could also be attempting to slow his influential sister's rise. Too much talk that she's his "heir apparent" could "raise the issue of Kim’s hold on power and health inside North Korea," one analyst says. (More on what it could mean here.)