Several hundred relatives of Jang Song-thaek, executed recently on charges of plotting to overthrow the North Korean state, have been rounded up and sent to political prison camps. 
 
 It is common in North Korea for family members of anyone found guilty of a crime to be punished, but the scale of these arrests underline the lengths to which Kim Jong-un is going to eradicate his uncle and former mentor from the nation's history. 
 
 "At around 10pm on the night of [December] 13, the day after Jang was executed, armed men from the Ministry of State Security arrived in the Pyongchon area of Pyongyang, where a lot of his relatives lived," a source in the North Korean capital told the Daily NK newspaper. 
 
 "They took away a few hundred people," the source told the newspaper, which is run by defectors from the regime. 
 
 "It was not just his close relatives who were taken away, but distant members of his family too, like relatives of his father. 
 
 "In these circumstances, even his relatives outside Pyongyang are not safe," he added. 
 
 Mr Jang was charged with no fewer than 24 abuses of power or contraventions of North Korean law with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the leadership. 
 
 These ranged from "gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party" to "dreaming different dreams" and "creating illusion about himself." 
 
 Also accused of "committing irregularities and corruption that led to a dissolute and depraved life," having "improper relations with several women" and "squandering foreign currency at casinos, Mr Jang was summarily executed. 
 
 As soon as he was arrested, however, relatives and anyone with links to a man who had previously been seen as untouchable realised that the state's retribution would not end with him. Execution is the likely punishment for his closest relatives or political allies, while others will be dispatched to labour colonies for the rest of their lives. 
 
 Some of those at risk volunteered to submit themselves to "revolutionisation" by going to labour in mines or on farms. 
 
 "It seems like they are trying to take self-imposed punishment in order to evade a more stringent one, but they will find it difficult to escape that way," the Daily NK said. "Jang's crimes are 'anti-party, counter-revolutionary factionalism,' so of course they will have to say that his family challenged the system. 
 
 "For this reason, severe punishment awaits." ||||| A disturbing new rumor has emerged about the fate Jang Song Taek, the recently deceased uncle of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. So disturbing that it probably isn't even true — and it's certainly impossible to confirm — but also too outrageous to ignore. 
 
 A pro-government Chinese paper, Wen Wei Po, has reported that Kim Jong-un's uncle Jang Song Taek was sentenced to "quan jue," or death by dogs. Specifically, he and five other "co-conspirators" were tossed naked into a cage filled with 120 ravenous dogs who had been starved for three days prior to the event. The dogs then ate them up "completely" while Kim patiently watched for over an hour. Singapore's Strait Times laid out Wen Wei Po's claim and helped them spread like wildfire around the globe. 
 
 The allegation was met with horror, yes, but mostly with skepticism. No other outlets have been able to corroborate the report, and the Strait Times explained in their coverage that China may have ulterior motives in (further) smearing the DPRK's regime: 
 
 In purging a top official known for his close ties with Beijing in such a brutal manner, Pyongyang did not hide its antagonism towards China. The official litany of Jang's treason implicated China three times. Jang was accused of underselling coal and other natural resources for which China was virtually the sole customer. He was also charged with "selling off the land of Rason economic and trade zone to a foreign country for a period of five decades under the pretext of paying debts." Finally, he was accused of selling precious metals, thus disrupting the country's financial stability. In fact, China purchased some of North Korea's gold reserves several months ago. 
 
 So if you weren't already skeptical of the story, the paper may have a motive for making it up. Even in early December, before Jang's execution had been confirmed, there were rumblings of an upcoming fallout between the nations. Time's Emily Rauhala wrote on December 9 that Jang's removal could mean bad news for Sino-North Korean ties: 
 
 Jang was the principal North Korean backer for a joint economic zone near the Chinese city of Dandong. The site, officially called the Hwanggumpyong Island Special Economic Zone, is supposed to bring North Koreans to work in Chinese factories and even play host to some banks. 
 
 There's also way the story spread. The original report is more than a week old, but did not receive much attention until yesterday, when journalists on Twitter attempted to unpack the implications of the single-source allegation, and the meaning of the delayed reaction to such a provocative accusation. Even allowing for the slowness of translation, that's a stretch. 
 
 @margafret and this report is from december 24th. i doubt it would've gone unnoticed for 9 days if it were true. — Slade Sohmer (@SladeHV) January 3, 2014 
 
 Some on Twitter dismissed it outright: 
 
 North Korea is a bizarre place. We get that. But Kim Jong Un DID NOT kill his uncle via starving dogs. Who comes up with this crap? — Benjamin R. Young (@DubstepInDPRK) January 3, 2014 
 
 Notably, the point of contention is not whether or not Jang was killed, but how. North Korea took responsibility for the killing, saying Jang deserved what he got for doing treasonous things like "attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab supreme power.” Probably, he was just trying to take on a larger role in the country's mineral export business. 
 
 Unfortunately, it's unlikely that we will have clarity over the issue. But like so many or the stories that come out of North Korea, the crazier they are, the more Westerners want to believe. We know so little about the country (by their own design), that almost anything we hear about them seems plausible. The "Hermit Kingdom" is notorious for making their own outrageous claims about of their own powers, and China's own press transparency is questionable at best. But we do know that awful, unspeakable things happen in North Korean prison camps, so maybe the regime might be be capable of a punishment this sick? 
 
 No matter the truth, reports like this one point out, again, the scope of North Korean dysfunction. That we are even considering the possibility that Kim killed his uncle by throwing him in a pit of starving dogs (instead of traditional execution by firing squad) attests to both that nation's madness and our own obsessions with it. ||||| North Korean authorities reportedly have arrested several hundred relatives of the recently deposed uncle of the nation’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un. 
 
 The Daily NK newspaper reports that a source in the North Korean capitol city of Pyongyang said the arrests occurred on Dec. 13, a day after Jang Song-thaek was executed for a variety of crimes against the state. 
 
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 "They took away a few hundred people," the source told the Daily NK. "At around 10 p.m. on the night of [December] 13, the day after Jang was executed, armed men from the Ministry of State Security arrived in the Pyongchon area of Pyongyang, where a lot of his relatives lived." 
 
 "It was not just his close relatives who were taken away, but distant members of his family too, like relatives of his father.” 
 
 Song-thaek was a leading official in North Korea before his death, and married to the only sister of Kim Jong-il, the nation’s former supreme leader and the father of Kim Jong-un. 
 
 The Telegraph reports Song-thaek was charged with 24 crimes, from "gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party" to "dreaming different dreams." 
 
 He was also reportedly charged with "creating illusion about himself," to "committing irregularities and corruption that led to a dissolute and depraved life," having "improper relations with several women" and "squandering foreign currency at casinos.” 
 
 The Daily NK is run by defectors from the totalitarian regime and focuses on North Korean news and affairs. ||||| North Korea 's leader Kim Jong-un was "very drunk" when he ordered the execution of two aides close to his purged uncle, according to Japanese newspaper reports. 
 
 The young leader ordered the execution of two aides after they reportedly failed to respond immediately to a request to hand over a profitable business to the military. 
 
 The two aides were close to Jang Song-thaek, Kim's uncle, who only weeks later was dramatically stripped of his powerful posts and executed in an effort by the leader to consolidate his grip on power. 
 
 The failure of Ri Ryong-ha, the first deputy director of the administrative department of the state's ruling Workers' Party, and Jang Su-gil, a deputy director in the same department, to respond quickly to his order reportedly left Kim "upset". 
 
 They were believed to be among at least eight aides from Jang's circle who were believed to have been executed in the run-up to his own execution this month, the Yomiuri Shimbun added. 
 
 As a result, the purging of Jang was reportedly predicted by the South Korean government, which apparently learnt of the executions of his aides via wiretapping conversations. 
 
 "Those who were close [to the two aides] were surprised by their execution, and made phone calls to their friends living abroad, and the South Korean government [spy agency] wiretapped their phone conversations," the newspaper said. "The South Korean government then concluded that the purge of Jang Song-thaek was inevitable, based on the testimony of people involved with the case." 
 
 South Korea's spy chief briefed parliament on the purges, claiming Jang Song-thaek stemmed from his attempts to take control of the country's lucrative coal export business. 
 
 Nam Jae-Joon, the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, said Jang's attempts to secure control of state-run natural resources businesses played a big part in his downfall. 
 
 Nam, briefing members of parliament's intelligence committee on the situation in the North, also said the young ruler currently "appears to have no problem" in his grip on power - but may stage armed provocations against the South sometime between January and March to rally domestic unity. 
 
 "Jang intervened too much in lucrative state businesses...related to coal, which drew mounting complaints from other (related) state bodies," lawmaker Jung Chung-Rae, a member of the committee, quoted Nam as saying at the closed hearing. 
 
 Jang for years handled the country's mineral exports, which go mostly to China. 
 
 The impoverished but mineral-rich North has sought for years to bolster its crumbling economy by increasing exports of coal and other minerals, which account for the bulk of its exports to China. 
 
 But Jang and his associates angered other top party officials by rapidly expanding their control over the coveted mineral businesses. 
 
 "Kim Jong-Un was briefed about it and issued orders to correct the situation," Mr Jung said.
– Authorities have rounded up hundreds of relatives of Kim Jong Un's recently executed uncle and ferried them to prison camps, according to a report out of Seoul. The night after Jang Song Thaek was executed, "armed men from the Ministry of State Security arrived unannounced in the Pyongchon area of Pyongyang where a lot of his relatives lived," an insider tells the Daily NK, which is run by defectors, Fox News notes. "It was not just his close relatives who were taken away, but distant members of his family, too." Observers say family members could be executed or spend life in prison (though things appear OK for Kim's aunt). In other news from Pyongyang: The Telegraph lists some of the 24 charges against Jang, which apparently included "gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party" and "dreaming different dreams." He was also blamed for "improper relations with several women" and "squandering foreign currency at casinos." But Pyongyang's claims that Jang was executed over his plans to seize power are likely inaccurate, says South Korea's head of intelligence: The real problem was Jang and his associates' push to take control of major business deals—for instance, coal sales to China, the official said in a closed meeting, as noted by the New York Times. After Jang's rivals complained, Kim ordered Jang's associates to drop certain deals, but they refused; Kim believed his authority was being questioned. In less consequential North Korea news, Dennis Rodman has exited the country, having wrapped up his third "fun" visit. He didn't get to see his pal Kim this time around (he was training basketball players), but tells CNN, "I'm not worried about it. I'll see him again. I will be coming back in another week."