EXPLAINER: What’s behind N. Korea’s biggest political event

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has opened its biggest political event in five years amid what some experts see as the most fraught moment of leader Kim Jong Un’s nine-year rule. The ruling party congress was revived by Kim five years ago after a 36-year hiatus. This one comes as North Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, faces what Kim has called “huge challenges and difficulties” brought on by an economy hammered by pandemic-related border closings,