In North Korea, all cash transactions have been frozen after the government's shocking decision to revalue the won currency in an attempt to crack down on the nation's trend towards free market capitalism.

According to the Times of London, "in the capital, Pyongyang, today, only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies, patronized by the privileged elite and the city's small foreign poulation, were open for business."

Until the revaluation is completed next week, all other enterprises and services based on cash, which includes markets, long-distance bus services, barbers, saunas and bath houses, have been suspended.

Chaos ensued after the announcement of the measure that requires North Koreans to swap existing won notes with new ones at an exchange rate of one to 100, slashing two zeroes off their value. There has been a cap of 100,000 won ($650) per family, which entails that anyone with significant holdings of cash will have their savings eliminated.

One South Korean news website quotes an inhabitant of the city of Sinuiju, near the Chinese border as saying that, "loud sounds of weeping in every house have not ceased since the news was released. Weeping and fighting between couples have not stopped anywhere. The atmosphere of the city is terrible now."

As reported by the Times, "the website the Daily NK, citing similarly unnamed sources, said that one elderly couple had kiled themselves in North Hamyong, a province adjacent to the Chinese border across which much illegal trading is carried out. It also reported anxiety among local officials that the currency revaluation would provoke civic unrest."

Yet, a Western diplomat based in Pyongyang claimed that apart from the closed-up shops, the announcement caused little impact on the city. Public dissent is nearly unknown since North Korea ranks as one of the world's most tightly-controlled and brutal totalitarian regimes.

To read the entire article from the Times of London, link here:

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