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. ||||| SEOUL, South Korea — The execution of the uncle of Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, had its roots in a firefight between forces loyal to Mr. Kim and those supporting the man who was supposed to be his regent, according to accounts that are being pieced together by South Korean and American officials. The clash was over who would profit from North Korea’s most lucrative exports: coal, clams and crabs. 
 
 North Korean military forces were deployed to retake control of one of the sources of those exports, the rich crab and clam fishing grounds that Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of the country’s untested, 30-year-old leader, had seized from the military. In the battle for control of the fishing grounds, the emaciated, poorly trained North Korean forces “were beaten — very badly — by Uncle Jang’s loyalists,” according to one official. 
 
 The rout of his forces appears to have been the final straw for Mr. Kim, who saw his 67-year-old uncle as a threat to his authority over the military and, just as important, to his own family’s dwindling sources of revenue. Eventually, at Mr. Kim’s order, the North Korean military came back with a larger force and prevailed. Soon, Mr. Jang’s two top lieutenants were executed. 
 
 The two men died in front of a firing squad. But instead of rifles, the squad used antiaircraft machine guns, a form of execution that according to South Korean intelligence officials and news media was similar to the one used against some North Korean artists in August. Days later, Mr. Jang himself was publicly denounced, tried and executed, by more traditional means. 
 
 Given the opaqueness of North Korea’s inner circle, many details of the struggle between Mr. Kim and his uncle remain murky. But what is known suggests that while Mr. Kim has consolidated control and eliminated a potential rival, it has been at a huge cost: The open warfare between the two factions has revealed a huge fracture inside the country’s elite over who pockets the foreign currency — mostly Chinese renminbi — the country earns from the few nonnuclear exports its trading partners desire. 
 
 Only a few months ago Mr. Jang was believed to be the second most powerful man in North Korea. In fact, American intelligence agencies had reported to the White House and the State Department in late 2011 that he could well be running the country behind the scenes — and might edge out his inexperienced nephew for control. In part that was based on his deep relationship with top officials in China, as well as his extensive business connections there. 
 
 His highly unusual public humiliation and execution on Dec. 12 set off speculation about the possibility of a power struggle within the secretive government. But in recent days a more complex, nuanced story has emerged. 
 
 During a closed-door meeting on Monday of the South Korean National Assembly’s intelligence committee, Nam Jae-joon, the director of the National Intelligence Service, disputed the North’s assertion that Mr. Jang had tried to usurp his nephew’s power. Rather, he said, Mr. Jang and his associates had provoked the enmity of rivals within the North’s elite by dominating lucrative business deals, starting with the coal badly needed by China, the North’s main trading partner. 
 
 “There had been friction building up among the agencies of power in North Korea over privileges and over the abuse of power by Jang Song-thaek and his associates,” Mr. Nam was quoted as saying. Mr. Nam’s comments were relayed to the news media by Jeong Cheong-rae and Cho Won-jin, two lawmakers designated as spokesmen for the parliamentary committee. 
 
 In interviews, officials have said that the friction described in general terms to the South Korean Parliament played out in a violent confrontation in late September or early October, just north of the western sea border between the Koreas. 
 
 There, the North harvests one of its major exports: crabs and clams, delicacies that are also highly valued by the Chinese. For years the profits from those fishing grounds, along with the output from munitions factories and trading companies, went directly to the North Korean military, helping it feed its troops, and enabling its top officers to send cash gifts to the Kim family. 
 
 South Korea was a major market for the North’s mushrooms, clams, crabs, abalones and sea cucumbers until the South cut off trade with the North after the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship in 2010, forcing the North Korean military to rely on the Chinese market. ||||| Story highlights Online betting company Paddy Power ends connection to Rodman 
 
 Rodman leaves North Korea after his third trip without meeting leader Kim Jong Un 
 
 He helped prepare North Korean basketball players for an upcoming exhibition 
 
 Rodman: "I will be coming back in another week" 
 
 Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman left North Korea without meeting the country's leader Kim Jong Un but praised the local basketball players he trained there. 
 
 "They are awesome," Rodman told CNN while in transit at Beijing Capital International Airport on Monday. 
 
 Rodman started his third visit to North Korea last week, spending four days in the isolated nation to assist setting up an exhibition game featuring North Korean players and a dozen NBA veteran players whose identities have not yet been announced. The friendly game is planned for Kim Jong Un's birthday on January 8. 
 
 Rodman's latest round of "basketball diplomacy" came less than a week after North Korea announced the dramatic purge and execution of Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, North Korea's No. 2 leader. 
 
 Jang's reported execution has caused confusion and uncertainty about what's going on in North Korea and worsened its tense relations with South Korea and the United States. 
 
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 Rodman struck up an unlikely friendship with the young Kim when he traveled to North Korea for the first time in February. That time he brought a team of Harlem Globetrotters for an exhibition game watched by Kim, who is a basketball fan. 
 
 Kim later met and dined with the eccentric basketball star, and Rodman told his host he "had a friend for life." 
 
 This time around, however, there was no meeting with Kim. 
 
 "No, I'm not worried about it. I'll see him again," the 52-year-old Rodman told CNN, adding that his goal was to try out the local players and prepare for the game. 
 
 "I will be coming back in another week." 
 
 Rodman has described Kim as a "very good guy" in the past despite international condemnation of the country's human rights record. 
 
 The former Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls star has avoided commenting on the human rights issue, telling the Associated Press he goes to North Korea "just to do a basketball game and have some fun." 
 
 North Korea: Reality vs. the world according to Dennis Rodman 
 
 Rodman's latest trip was sponsored by Paddy Power, but the online betting company later withdrew its connection to Rodman. 
 
 "We reviewed the project and, with the benefit of hindsight, recognized that we got this one wrong and so have decided to remove our name from the event," Paddy Power said. 
 
 "It's a response to the worldwide scrutiny and condemnation of the North Korean regime in recent weeks, which has resulted in us changing our mind. We will of course be honoring all our contractual commitments to Dennis Rodman and his team." 
 
 Earlier this month, Rory Scott, a Paddy Power spokesman, said that the trip was nonpolitical, but was intended "to prove once again that sport has the power to rise above all issues." 
 
 Rodman was criticized for his first trip during a period of political turmoil when North Korea was threatening missile strikes on the United States, South Korea and Japan. ||||| 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."
– 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."