- Kim Jong Un’s sister warns North Korea is ready to act against U.S., South Korea PBS NewsHour
- North Korean leader’s sister threatens ‘overwhelming’ response to US, South Korea military exercises The Independent
- North Korea Warns U.S. Shootdown of Test-Fired Missiles Would Be “Declaration of War” Democracy Now!
- Kim’s sister warns U.S. over North Korea missile launch intercepts Axios
- Kim Jong Un’s mysterious sister, Kim Yo Jong, issued a rare public threat to the US on her brother’s behalf, hinting that she might be gaining influence Yahoo News
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Kim Jong Un’s Daughter Ju Ae Could Knock Out His Sister, Yo Jong, in North Korea Succession Feud – The Daily Beast
- Kim Jong Un’s Daughter Ju Ae Could Knock Out His Sister, Yo Jong, in North Korea Succession Feud The Daily Beast
- Why Kim Jong Un’s Daughter Is All Over North Korean Media | WSJ Wall Street Journal
- Speculation swirls around North Korea leader Kim’s daughter after prominent appearance: Is she his successor? Fox News
- Kim Jong Un’s daughter likely ‘chosen one’ as successor, spelling doom for his sister New York Post
- North Korea forbids girls from having same name as Kim Jong Un’s daughter | Bizarre New Diktat Hindustan Times
- View Full Coverage on Google News
As Kim Jong Un’s Daughter Debuts, Multiple Signals Go Out To The World
North Korea did not name the girl, who is seen in photographs holding hands with her father Kim Jong Un.
North Korea hasn’t said whether she has any siblings. Her age remains a mystery. The world doesn’t even know her name. The important thing is that she’s the “most beloved” daughter of Kim Jong Un.
The young girl, who South Korean authorities believe is named Ju Ae and about nine years old, has suddenly been featured in North Korean state media alongside her all-powerful father. She most recently accompanied Kim on a photo op to celebrate the successful launch of the country’s most powerful ballistic missile — prompting “stormy cheers of ‘Hurrah!’,” according to a Korean Central News Agency dispatch published Sunday.
Despite all the mystery, the events sent clear signals to both the North Korean public and the wider world: First, the Kim regime is here to stay. Second, the ruling family won’t be bargaining away its nuclear arsenal any time soon.
Both points were driven home when Kim brought his daughter along to observe the launch a new intercontinental ballistic missile believed capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads anywhere on the US mainland. Photos released by state media included a shot of Kim looking down on his child with the rocket looming behind them.
The debut was remarkable on several levels. While parading heirs before the public has been a feature of hereditary monarchies the world over, the Kim family has been far more reluctant to reveal potential successors during its almost 75 years in power.
Kim Jong Un didn’t make his official debut until he was around 26. Before Ju Ae’s first appearance in state media on Nov. 19, North Korea hadn’t even acknowledged Kim had children. It’s still not known whether the regime views his “precious child” as Kim’s heir, or whether that status would belong to the older brother she’s rumored to have.
“The optics of Kim and his daughter observing the launch together seem to underscore recent messaging that the nuclear program is no longer conditional, and now involves the next generation as part of this success,” said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington. In September, Kim told North Korean lawmakers he would “never give up” his nuclear weapons while pushing through a law that would allow “automatic” strikes if his leadership was threatened.
Since taking power a decade ago at 27, Kim has defied predictions that his regime would falter. Instead, he boasts an increasingly diverse stockpile of weapons designed to target the US and its allies in Japan and South Korea. The reports featuring Kim’s daughter show he also has a possible heir to bequeath them to.
“It is the truth taught by history that only when we become the strongest, not the weak, in the present world where the strength in showdown just decides victory, can we defend the present and future of the country and nation,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying Sunday.
The NIS believed Kim may have wanted to assure people that he is responsible for the “security of the future generation,” South Korean lawmaker Yoo Sang-bum told reporters last week after a closed-door briefing with the National Intelligence Service. He added that agency believes that Ju Ae is the second of three children between Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju.
“Under the North Korean regime, the position of Kim’s children can be compared to that of prince or princess in a dynastic system,” said Cheong Seong-Chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute outside of Seoul.
North Korea’s ability to deliver a nuclear strike on the US and its allies in Asia has grown under Kim Jong Un to the point where there are calls to declare Pyongyang a nuclear weapons state and revamp a decades-old US policy of never allowing that to happen, while seeking the complete, verifiable and irreversible end of its atomic arsenal.
Kim has ignored the US’s calls to return to nuclear disarmament talks now stalled for more than three years.
Ju Ae’s debut is only the latest example of Kim’s willingness to share the spotlight with prominent women. Besides frequent appearances with his wife, he has made his sister, Kim Yo Jong, the face of the regime’s response to the US and South Korea. He also recently appointed, Choe Son Hui, to be the country’s first female foreign minister.
Still, it’s too early to say whether Kim Jong Un intends to make Ju Ae his formal heir. Such a move would likely face resistance from the country’s male-dominated political elite, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a regional issues manager at the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network.
“While Kim himself may be ready to appoint a female successor, those around him may not be, and he cannot altogether ignore the opinions of the country’s top-ranking leadership,” said Lee, who previously worked as an open source analyst for the CIA. “North Korea is a very traditional and conservative society, and Kim may not be confident that a female successor could navigate a male-dominant party, government, and military without jeopardizing regime security.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Kim Jong Un’s daughter appears again, fueling succession speculation
In one image, the father-daughter pair can be seen posing alongside uniformed soldiers before a truck loaded with a large missile, which state media said is the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. In others, the young child can be seen holding her father’s arm and clapping her hands while smiling.
The photos are the second set of such images to appear in just over a week. The girl’s first appearance in public took place on Nov. 18, when she was pictured with her father at a missile test launch site in Pyongyang, after years of secrecy surrounding her existence.
While the child was not named, observers believe she is called Kim Ju Ae. Her name was first revealed in 2013 by retired NBA star Dennis Rodman, who said after visiting North Korea that he had met the leader’s “baby” daughter.
The Associated Press, citing a South Korean lawmaker briefed on the assessment, reported that Seoul’s National Intelligence Service concluded that last week’s photos showed Ju Ae, the North Korean leader’s second child, and that she was about 10 years old.
North Korean state media said Sunday that Kim and his daughter had attended an event “of historic significance” with military scientists and factory workers credited with developing the Hwasong-17, the regime’s most powerful ICBM to date. The weapon is being designed to carry multiple nuclear warheads and has the capability of reaching the East Coast of the United States.
“When General Secretary Kim Jong Un appeared at the photo session venue together with his beloved daughter, all the participants broke into stormy cheers of ‘Hurrah!’” the Korean Central News Agency reported, in a news release that accompanied photographs.
Kim has been in power for 11 years and is the third generation of his family to rule the secretive nation since it was founded by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1948.
Few confirmed details exist about Kim Jong Un’s private life. South Korean intelligence officials say Kim has two other children. The oldest, a boy, was born in about 2010. Even less is known about the other child, who was born about 2017.
His young daughter’s public appearance is a break from the precedent established by his father and grandfather, whose children had not previously made such appearances until after they were designated as successors, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, an expert in North Korean propaganda.
Although the photographs have added to speculation over a potential successor to 38-year-old Kim, who was rumored to be in “grave” health in 2020, Lee said Kim’s decision to reveal his daughter could also be part of a propaganda effort to make the leader seem more relatable, exposing a more human, family-oriented side.
It is not the first time the North Korean leader has set aside some of the conventions established by his predecessors. Earlier this year, Kim spoke with relative candor in a documentary about the significant challenges facing North Korea, including a food crisis, striking a forthcoming tone never expressed by either his father or grandfather.
Kim has also appeared in public with close family members more frequently than either of his predecessors. Unlike his father — who did not reveal his wife and only appeared in public with his sister later in life — Kim Jong Un’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, was shown in state media six months after the leader ascended to power, and his sister, Kim Yo Jong, a top aide, has also played a significant role in public life.
Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Victoria Bisset contributed to this report.
Daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s is revealed to the world in first public appearance
Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch of “a new type” of intercontinental ballistic missile Friday, alongside his young daughter, whose existence had not previously been confirmed.
Striking photographs released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) appear to show Kim hand in hand with the girl, as the ICBM sits on its mobile launch platform nearby.
KCNA claimed that the “new” missile being viewed by the pair was a Hwasong-17, and said that it launched from Pyongyang International Airfield, flying a distance of 999.2 kilometers (621 miles).
Japan warned after the launch on Friday that the new missile appeared to have the potential range to reach the United States mainland.
Kim said the test was intended to “clearly demonstrate” his country’s ability to respond to what he termed the “hysteric aggression war drills by the enemies seeking to destroy peace and stability in the Korean peninsula,” according to the KCNA report.
“Kim Jong Un solemnly declared that if the enemies continue to pose threats to the DPRK, frequently introducing nuclear strike means, our Party and government will resolutely react to nukes with nuclear weapons and to total confrontation with all-out confrontation,” KCNA said.
Friday’s launch, which landed about 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of the Japanese island of Oshima Oshima, according to the Japanese officials, was not the first time North Korea has fired an ICBM that experts and officials have assessed could theoretically reach the US.
Friday’s missile was shorter in altitude and distance compared to Pyongyang’s missile test on March 24, which recorded the highest altitude and longest duration of any North Korean missile ever tested, according to a report from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) at the time. That missile reached an altitude of 6,248.5 kilometers (3,905 miles) and flew a distance of 1,090 kilometers (681 miles), KCNA reported.
And in 2017, then-US Defense Secretary James Mattis, said a missile launched by North Korea in that year demonstrated the ability to hit “everything in the world.”
Despite the missile’s theoretical range, Pyongyang’s ability to put a nuclear warhead atop it and deliver it on target remains unproven.
Ballistic missiles are fired into space before plunging back down to Earth. Experts have yet to see conclusive proof that North Korea can get a warhead to successfully the fiery reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.
Kim’s threats to the US and South Korea were also nothing new.
After a missile test in October, the North Korean leader warned adversaries his nuclear forces are fully prepared for “actual war.”
“Our nuclear combat forces … proved again their full preparedness for actual war to bring the enemies under their control,” Kim said in a KCNA report.
Very little is known about the private life of Kim Jong Un or his family.
Saturday’s news report did not name Kim’s daughter, who was appearing for the first time in state media. But in 2013, former basketball star Dennis Rodman told Britain’s the Guardian newspaper that Kim had a “baby” called “Ju Ae.”
Rodman said he spent time with the family, describing Kim as a “a good dad” and that he spoke to Kim’s wife, Ri Sol Ju.
“I held their baby Ju Ae and spoke with Ms. Ri as well,” he told the newspaper.
Speculation sprang up in 2012 that Ri might be pregnant after a photo carried by state media showed her wearing a long coat that could have been hiding a bump. But North Korean authorities kept quiet about the matter.
State media did not announce Kim and Ri’s marriage until July 2012, some three years after South Korean intelligence believe the wedding took place.
But that changed in 2018, when she was afforded the new title of “respected First Lady” by North Korean state media, a step up from the previously used “comrade” and a sign, according to analysts, that she was gaining her own personality cult.
Kim and Ri have three children together, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
North Korea has been ruled as a hereditary dictatorship since its founding in 1948 by Kim Il Sung. His son, Kim Jong Il, took over after his father’s death in 1994. And Kim Jong Un took power 17 years later when Kim Jong Il died.
Daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s is revealed to the world in first public appearance
Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
The daughter of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, was revealed to the world in a first confirmed public appearance on Friday, state media KCNA reported.
Pictures shared by the state agency show his daughter standing next to the leader in a white puffer jacket, holding Kim’s hand, as they look at military hardware.
State media did not name the girl, who appeared to accompany Kim as he oversaw a test firing of a missile on Friday, said KCNA.
The agency claimed that North Korea fired a “new kind” of intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday from Pyongyang International Airfield, flying a distance of 999.2 kilometers (621 miles).
Very little is known about the private life of Kim Jong Un. But in 2013, former basketball star Dennis Rodman told the British daily the Guardian that Kim had a “baby” called “Ju Ae.” He said he spent time with the family, describing Kim as a “a good dad” and that he spoke to Kim’s wife, Ri Sol Ju.
“I held their baby Ju Ae and spoke with Ms. Ri as well,” he told the newspaper.
Speculation sprang up in 2012 that Ri might be pregnant after a photo carried by state media showed her wearing a long coat that could have been hiding a bump. But North Korean authorities kept quiet about the matter.
State media did not announce Kim and Ri’s marriage until July 2012, some three years after South Korean intelligence believes the wedding took place.
But that changed in 2018, when she was afforded the new title of “respected First Lady” by North Korean state media, a step up from the previously used “comrade” and a sign, according to analysts, that she was gaining her own personality cult.
Kim and Ri have three children together, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Kim Jong Un’s sister tells South Korean president to ‘shut his mouth’
North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said on Friday South Korea’s president should “shut his mouth” after he reiterated that his country was willing to provide economic aid in return for nuclear disarmament.
Her comments mark the first time a senior North Korean official has commented directly on what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has called an “audacious” plan – first proposed in May and which he talked about again on Wednesday at a news conference to mark his first 100 days in office.
“It would have been more favorable for his image to shut his mouth, rather than talking nonsense as he had nothing better to say,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released by state news agency KCNA, calling Yoon “really simple and still childish” to think that he could trade economic cooperation for the North’s honor and nuclear weapons.
“No one barters its destiny for corn cake,” she added.
South Korea’s Unification Minister, who handles relations with the North, called Kim’s comments “very disrespectful and indecent.”
While Yoon has said he is willing to provide phased economic aid to North Korea if it ended nuclear weapons development and began denuclearisation, he has also pushed to increase South Korea’s military deterrence against North Korea. South Korea has resumed long-suspended joint drills with the United States, including major field exercises due to begin next week.
On Wednesday a U.S. State Department spokesman said Washington supports Yoon’s policies, but Kim said the joint drills show that the allies’ talk of diplomacy is insincere.
“We make it clear that we will not sit face to face with him,” she said of Yoon.
Kim Yo Jong has become a vocal critic of South Korea in recent years, seen by some experts as playing “bad cop” to her brother’s more subdued statements.
Friday’s statement is her harshest personal attack on Yoon to date, but this month she also released a profanity-laced tirade that blamed the South for a COVID-19 outbreak in the North and threatened “deadly retaliation” if there were further occurrences.
Experts say South’s latest economic plan is similar to proposals by previous leaders, including those during the summits between the then-U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
“Yoon’s initiative adds to a long list of failed offers involving South Korean promises to provide economic benefits to North Korea … These were the same assumptions that were behind a succession of failed efforts to jump-start denuclearisation talks,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said in a blog post on Thursday.
North Korea test-fired two cruise missiles into the sea on Wednesday, the first such test in two months. It came after the country declared victory over COVID-19 last week.
Zaporizhzhia: UN’s nuclear watchdog warns of ‘disaster’ at Ukraine power plant as shelling continues
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he was alarmed by the reports of damage and has demanded that an IAEA team of experts urgently be allowed to visit the plant, to assess and safeguard the site.
“I’m extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond,” Grossi said in a statement Saturday.
“Military action jeopardizing the safety and security of the Zaporizhzya nuclear power plant is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs,” he added.
Kyiv has accused Russian forces of storing heavy weaponry in and launching attacks from the plant, which they took over in early March and still occupy. Moscow, meanwhile, has claimed Ukrainian troops are targeting the complex.
Shelling on Friday damaged a power line and forced one of the plant’s reactors to stop operating, according to Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator, Energoatom, which later said there was no damage to the reactors themselves and the radiation situation was normal.
Attacks on the plant continued overnight on Saturday, according to Energoatom, striking various parts of the complex and injuring one Ukrainian employee. It claimed that Russian forces and employees of Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom, who have been on site since they seized the plant, took shelter in bunkers before the barrage began.
The rockets hit the site of the plant’s dry storage facility, where 174 containers with spent nuclear fuel are kept, and damaged three radiation monitoring detectors, making timely detection and response to leaking radiocative substances “currently impossible,” Energoatom warned.
“This time a nuclear catastrophe was miraculously avoided, but miracles cannot last forever,” it added.
While the security situation is stable and there is no immediate threat to nuclear safety, according to the IAEA, Grossi warned of the dire risk that further fighting at the site could pose.
“Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” Grossi said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly address on Saturday, again accused Russia of shelling the plant and using it to wreak terror in Europe.
“Unfortunately, we have a significant worsening of the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Zelensky said. “Russian terrorists became the first in the world to use a nuclear plant for terror. The biggest in Europe!”
Zelensky said Sunday that he had spoken with European Council President Charles Michel
CNN was unable to verify claims of damage at the plant, which occupies a sprawling site. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shelling.
‘Irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules’
The European Union’s top diplomat has slammed Russia’s military activities around the Zaporizhzya power plant and called for the IAEA to gain access to the complex.
“This is a serious and irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules and another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Saturday on Twitter.
Several Western and Ukrainian officials believe that Russia is now using the giant nuclear facility as a stronghold to shield their troops and mount attacks, because they assume Kyiv will not return fire and risk a crisis.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of using the plant to shield its forces, while Britain’s ministry of defense said in a recent security assessment that Russia’s actions at the complex sabotage the safety of its operations.
The Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, said in late July that Russian forces had been observed using heavy weaponry near the plant because “they know very well that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not respond to these attacks, as they can damage the nuclear power plant.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry warned on Friday that further attacks on the plant could be disastrous.
“The possible consequences of hitting an operating reactor are equivalent to the use of an atomic bomb,” the ministry said on Twitter.
Grossi has called for all parties to “exercise the utmost restraint in the vicinity of this important nuclear facility, with its six reactors.”
“The Ukrainian staff operating the plant under Russian occupation must be able to carry out their important duties without threats or pressure undermining not only their own safety but also that of the facility itself,” he added.
The IAEA has been trying to coordinate a mission of safeguarding experts to visit the plant since it was seized by Russian forces.
“This mission would play a crucial role in helping to stabilise the nuclear safety and security situation there, as we have at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and elsewhere in Ukraine in recent months,” he said.
The IAEA sent teams to Chernobyl nuclear power plant in late April and in May to deliver equipment and conduct radiological assessments of the site, which was held by Russian forces for more than a month before they withdrew in late March.
CNN’s Mariya Knight, Vasco Cotovio and Tim Lister contributed to this report.
Where the Hell Is North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un’s Eric Clapton-Obsessed Brother, Kim Jong Chul?
Where and why has North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s older half-brother, Kim Jong Chul, disappeared? Considering the persistent doubts about the health of Kim Jong Un and his own habit of vanishing for weeks at a time—that question assumes some urgency.
If 37-year-old Kim Jong Un were to die, Jong Chul, 40, never an active contender for power, would be a prime candidate to take over.
“In a succession scenario, his name would surely be on the table,” Greg Scarlatoui, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told The Daily Beast. The multi-tentacle Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) of the Workers’ Party—of which Kim Jong Un is chairman—would decide on a successor, leaving it to the coterie of generals and top party officials now surrounding Kim Jong Un to decide on policy.
“The Kim family are godlike figures. In North Korea the most important qualification is to be a family member.”
There would, said Scarlatoui, “be pluses being a direct descendant of the Paektu bloodline”—a reference to the Korean peninsula’s highest peak where Kim Jong Il, by North Korean mystique, was born in 1941 in a log cabin—“and minuses, his apparent ‘weakness’ compared to his brother.” That said, he observed, “There has always been a symbiosis between the Workers’ Party and the Kim family regime.”
“Jong Chul has an honorary position in the Organization and Guidance Department, but no reporting has ever demonstrated he contributed to a political action or decision,” Robert Collins, author of a book on the OGD after spending more than 30 years analyzing North Korea for the U.S. Command in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. “Kim Jong-un obviously tolerates his existence as long as he stays out of the way.
It was only after long-ruling Kim Jong Il deemed elder son Jong Chul “too effeminate,” according to Kim’s Japanese sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, that he designated younger brother Jong Un as successor roughly a year before dying in 2011. Ever since, it appears as though Jong Chul has been keeping his head down, playing his guitar with friends in ultra-secret surroundings in Pyongyang while Kim Jong Un makes unmistakably clear that he’s the boss and heads will roll if anyone gets out of line.
Nonetheless, the elevation of Kim Jong Chul “is a very feasible scenario,” Choi Jin-wook, president of the Center for Strategic and Cultural Studies in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. “The Kim family are godlike figures. In North Korea the most important qualification is to be a family member.”
That qualification is so vital that in February 2017, Kim Jong Un ordered the assassination of his 44-year-old oldest brother—and potential rival—Kim Jong Nam. Living in exile in Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the Chinese coast, Jong Nam had aroused Jong Un’s paranoid fears by criticizing Kim dynastic rule. After he had checked in for a flight from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, two young women smeared his face with what North Korean operatives had told the women, one from Vietnam, the other from Indonesia, was water, but was actually a VX chemical nerve agent concocted in Pyongyang.
Kim Jong Chul, not seen publicly in Pyongyang during Kim Jong Un’s rule, was last spotted in May 2015 attending an Eric Clapton concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A veritable Clapton groupie, he had also attended his concerts in Germany in 2006 and in Singapore in 2011. Thae Yong Ho, then North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, who defected to South Korea in 2016, has said he personally arranged for the visit, including two nights of Clapton shows and a luxury hotel costing more than $3,000 a night.
Ko Yong Hui, Kim Jong Il’s third wife or consort and mother of Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Chul, and younger sister Kim Yo Jong, died of breast cancer in Paris in 2004. The degree to which Jong Un is repressing Jong Chul, keeping him under wraps, watched and guarded, is not clear, but Thae has said he’s living quietly in Pyongyang.
“Kim Jong Chol remains out of the political limelight and in the shadows in Pyongyang,” Evans Revere, a former U.S. senior diplomat in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. “He is reportedly free to play his guitars and jam with friends.”
In North Korea, bloodline is what counts. “Without having any power, yes, Kim Jong Chul could take the titles. If Jong Chul does not make trouble, nobody hates him,” Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, said in an interview with The Daily Beast.
But what about Kim Yo Jong, the 34-year-old younger sister? Often outspoken, she ranks second to Kim Jong Un in actual power. Yo Jong “has played the role of second man,” said Kim Tae-woo, but she’s “already notorious in South Korea for her insulting comments” against South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in for approving military exercises on computers with U.S. forces while looking for dialog with the North.
Careful to maintain total respect for Kim Jong Un, Yo Jong, in charge of the publicity and information department of the Workers’ Party, was elevated in September to the real center of power, the state affairs commission. In a thoroughly male-dominated system, however, Kim Tae-woo believes her gender counts against her. Others in North Korea’s inner circle, he said, would not want a woman holding the country’s top posts.
“Yo Jong is danger waiting to happen,” said Collins. “North Korean society tolerating a female leader? Not likely. That would factionalize the NK elite faster than billion dollar bribes.”
Revere, however, is not so sure. Never has there been “a hint of excessive ambition on her part,” he said. “She is unfailingly deferential to Kim Jong Un in their appearances together. She also frequently speaks out on her own on key policy issues—which suggests a high level of self-confidence and her assuredness that she can speak on behalf of her brother and the regime.”
In complete contrast, Kim Jong Chul has not been known to display any desire to rule anything—a record that might make him a carefully harmless choice in internecine infighting that’s inevitable after Jong Un’s departure from the scene. In an environment in which hundreds of officials have been annihilated on orders of Jong Un and, before him, Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, survival depends on playing it safe.
Kim Jong Un, besides wiping out his older half-brother, ordered the public arrest in December 2018 live on state TV of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, married to his aunt, Kim Jong Il’s younger sister.
Glasses askew after a beating, Jang was shown being dragged by guards into a small courtroom before he was summarily executed. Once North Korea’s second highest leader under Kim Jong Il, he stood accused of corruption and numerous other crimes after having made the fatal mistake of wanting to hold real authority rather than merely advising as a humble servant.
Kim Jong Un, who’s got every top title from president to party chairman to chairman of the state affairs commission to commander of the armed forces, has ruthlessly consolidated power even as his health remains a matter of concern and speculation. Judging from photographs, he’s shed about 20 kilograms, down from 140 kilograms, but that’s still far too heavy for one who’s just 5 feet 8 inches.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, aggressively supporting President Moon’s bid for dialog and reconciliation with North Korea, has issued statements saying that doubts about his health are “groundless.” The NIS has also dismissed speculation that a body double has been filling in for him on occasion and denounced as “not true at all,” addressing a story emblazoned last month on the front page of the American supermarket tabloid Globe that Kim Yo Jong had taken over from her brother in a coup.
“Kim Jong Chul would not make a very effective leader.”
However, the credibility of the NIS, led by Park Jie-won, accused 20 years ago for his role in payoffs to North Korea to bring about the North-South summit in June 2000 between the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong Il, is open to question. “Moon’s number one objective with regard to North Korea from the beginning of his presidency,” Bruce Bennett, long-time Korea analyst at the Rand Corporation, told The Daily Beast, “has been to establish a condition of peaceful coexistence.”
Kim Jong Un’s “tremendous weight loss,” Bennett added, “raises serious questions about whether the pictures we are seeing are of one or more of Kim’s doubles.” In fact, “We don’t even know enough to dismiss what in other circumstances might be considered ridiculous suggestions. By failing to be open and with their history of using doubles, there will almost certainly be periodic speculation about problems in the North Korean leadership.”
Yet another issue is whether Kim Jong Chul, were he to emerge as a figurehead, could win the respect befitting the titles, however empty, that might fall to him.
“Kim Jong Chul would not make a very effective leader—he certainly would not be directing the Politburo and similar meetings the way Kim Jong Un does,” said Bennett. “Of course, the North could use a body double of him to maintain appearance while Kim Yo Jong ruled.”
Kenji Fujimoto, who satiated the culinary tastes of the Kim family for years, explained in a memoir why Kim Jong Il eliminated Kim Jong Chul from the succession. The kid, Fujimoto quoted Jong Il as saying, was “like a girl.”
Saudi official made death threat against UN’s Khashoggi investigator: report
A Saudi official reportedly issued what was perceived as a death threat against a United Nations investigator following her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Speaking to The Guardian, Agnès Callamard, the organization’s special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, said she was alerted to the threat by a UN colleague in January 2020. Two threats were allegedly made toward Callamard by a Saudi official during a meeting of senior UN officials in Geneva, in which the official reportedly threatened to have her “taken care of” if she was not reined in by the UN.
“A death threat. That was how it was understood,” Callamard said when asked how her colleagues saw the statement.
After UN officials voiced alarm at the threat, other Saudi officials tried to reassure them that the threat should not be taken seriously, the Guardian reports. But after the officials left, the Saudi official remained and repeated their alleged threat to the UN officials.
“It was reported to me at the time and it was one occasion where the United Nations was actually very strong on that issue. People that were present, and also subsequently, made it clear to the Saudi delegation that this was absolutely inappropriate and that there was an expectation that this should not go further,” Callamard told the Guardian.
During the “high-level” meeting between Saudi diplomats in Geneva, visiting Saudi officials and senior UN officials, Callamard’s investigation into the Khashoggi killing was angrily criticized by the Saudis, Callamard said. The Saudi officials also reportedly baselessly claimed that Callamard had been paid by the Qatari government.
As the Guardian reports, Callamard’s 100-page report published in 2019 concluded there was “credible evidence” that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind Khashoggi’s death, along with other Saudi officials. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied that the crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s death.
The Biden administration has faced widespread criticism for its decision not to penalize the crown prince for Khashoggi’s killing, though it did issue sanctions and visa restrictions against other Saudi figures linked to the killing.
“This is a crucial step because it structurally addresses an unacceptable pattern of targeting, monitoring, harassment and threats to dissidents and journalists,” White House press secretary Jen PsakiJen PsakiOn The Money: New batch of stimulus payments to hit accounts Wednesday | Biden eyes T infrastructure package | Senate confirms Walsh as Labor secretary White House eyes sweeping T spending proposal Texas Democrat’s office reveals photos of crowded Border Patrol facility MORE said early in March when defending the administration’s decision. “Our national security team believes this going after the network responsible for these actions is the best way to prevent a crime like this from ever happening again.”