North Korea executes leader's powerful uncle in public

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North Korea has executed the powerful uncle of young leader Kim Jong Un, state media said on Friday, the biggest upheaval in years as the ruling dynasty sought to distance itself from responsibility for the isolated states's dire living standards.

Jang Song Thaek, considered the second most powerful man in the secretive country, was killed just days before the second anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the father of North Korea's current ruler.

North Korea's KCNA news agency released pictures of a handcuffed Jang being manhandled by guards and said he had been executed for trying to seize power and for driving the economy "into an uncontrollable catastrophe".

Jang was pictured in the ruling party's Rodong Sinmun newspaper without his Kim Il Sung loyalty badge on his lapel when he was led away, which would indicate his disloyalty to North Koreans who all wear lapel badges.

"Jang Song Thaek has been purged in a way that suggests Kim Jong Un wanted to make a point," Ruediger Frank, a North Korea expert, wrote in an article on Johns Hopkins University's U.S. Korea Institute website 38 North.

U.S. intelligence has limited knowledge about the country's young leader, but a senior U.S. official said of Kim: "Clearly he's still in charge."

While North Korea has purged many officials in its 65-year history, it is rare that anyone so powerful had been removed in such a public manner - suggesting a recognition of internal divisions and of competing factions surrounding Kim Jong Un.

"This is a man who could have competently executed a coup in North Korea," said Mike Madden, an expert on the North's power structure and author of the North Korea Leadership Watch website.

North Korea said this week it had stripped Jang of his power and positions and accused him of criminal acts including mismanagement of the state financial system, womanising and alcohol abuse.

"From long ago, Jang had a dirty political ambition. He dared not raise his head when Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were alive," KCNA said. "He began revealing his true colors, thinking that it was just the time for him to realize his wild ambition."