I do have to wonder how reliable the Chosun Ilbo’s sources are for this story, but if this below story is true this is quite significant:

Small pockets of unrest are appearing in North Korea as the repressive regime staggers under international sanctions and the fallout from a botched currency reform, sources say. On Feb. 14, two days before leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday, scores of people in Jongju, Yongchon and Sonchon in North Pyongan Province caused a commotion, shouting, “Give us fire [electricity] and rice! ”

A North Korean source said people fashioned makeshift megaphones out of newspapers and shouted, “We can’t live! Give us fire! Give us rice!” “At first, there were only one or two people, but as time went by more and more came out of their houses and joined in the shouting,” the source added.

The State Security Department investigated this incident but failed to identify the people who started the commotion when they met with a wall of silence.  [Chosun Ilbo]

For those that have read about North Korea, the country maintains a system of self surveillance by its citizens on its each other in addition to the state security apparatus.  Some North Korean defectors have reported not telling their boyfriends or girlfriends about their true feelings about the regime because of the fear they may get reported.  Getting reported could land someone in one of North Korea’s gulags.  If citizens now have so little fear of being reported by their own fellow citizens than this is a large development, but like I said before you have to be skeptical of the source until more information becomes available to validate it.