Out of all the governments of the world, that of North Korea would seem to be the one of the least qualified to lecture its citizens on matters relating to health and general well being. Yet it is doing so, according to its official news agency, apparently by withholding lectures from wannabe university students. The measure, which would deprive students who smoked of a place at university, was announced on Wednesday’s World No Tobacco Day. As the Guardian newspaper noted in its coverage of the story, Kim Jong-il, who quit smoking in 2003, once said smokers were one of the “three main fools of the 21st century”, the others being those ignorant of music and computers. A rare piece of self-criticism.

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