North Korea is disintegrating in slow motion.

The biggest headline on the Hermit Kingdom today is the country’s womens soccer team losing to the Americans in a match in Dresden.  (The North Korean coach is dubiously claiming that his players were struck by lightning before the game.) But the bigger story is that Kim Jong-Il just shuttered all North Korean universities. The stated reason is a grand 10-month celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the communist regime’s founder’s birth, Kim Il Sung.  According to his son and successor, North Korea has now attained the goal of becoming “a great, prosperous and powerful nation” — as huge portions of its population starve to death.

The real reason for closing the universities is Kim’s fear that student demonstrations will ignite revolution in the country. Kim has a television and he has seen what young people can do when they get organized.  He also knows his population is growing desperate. More and more, according to reports, North Korean citizens are seeing smuggled video clips of what life is life outside their country’s borders, refuting years of propaganda and eroding faith in Pyongyang. That is a powerful incentive to rebel.

If history is any guide, hope and empty bellies will take the Kim dynasty down. The sooner the better.