Tag: Kim Jong-un

It looks like Kim Jong-un got cold feet and decided not to travel to Russia after all:

South Korea sees no abnormal signs in North Korea which might have caused its leader, Kim Jong-un, to cancel his planned trip to Russia next week, a Defense Ministry official said Friday.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that the North Korean leader will not visit Moscow for a celebration to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, saying that the decision “is related to internal Korean affairs.”

South Korean and Russian officials had expected the leader of the reclusive nation to attend a military parade and hold a bilateral meeting with Putin. It would have been his first foreign trip since taking office in 2011 upon the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.

“We don’t believe that any notable internal affairs are taking place in North Korea (that are) serious enough to cause Kim not to attend the event,” the official said, requesting anonymity.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but experts think that Kim Jong-un decided not to go because he is not ready to share the stage with many other national leaders.

Since this is coming from the South Korean spy agency it is likely that they did receive some pretty good intelligence that this did happen:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority, South Korea’s spy agency told a closed-door parliament meeting on Wednesday.

A vice minister for forestry was one of the officials executed for complaining about a state policy, a member of parliament’s intelligence committee, Shin Kyung-min, quoted an unnamed National Intelligence Service official as saying.

“Excuses or reasoning doesn’t work for Kim Jong Un, and his style of rule is to push through everything, and if there’s any objection, he takes that as a challenge to authority and comes back with execution as a showcase,” Shin said.

“In the four months this year, fifteen senior officials are said to have been executed,” Shin cited the intelligence official as saying, according to his office.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the Vice Minister of Forestry was complaining about?  The lack of trees to manage?

it looks like Kim Jong-un can now add climbing a snowy mountain peak in a black trench coat and loafers to his resume of incredible feats:

Kim Jong Un scaled Mount Paektu, the highest mountain on the Korean peninsula, on Saturday, according to North Korea’s state-controlled newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.  The Rodong Sinmun further reported that Kim delivered a speech, three days after the celebration of Kim Il Sung’s 103rd birthday, on the significance of Mount Paektu.

Climbing the 2,744 m (9,003 ft) Mt. Paektu is no mean feat; doing so in a double-breasted wool overcoat and oxfords is… wait for it… legend-ary.

The western press has lapped up Kim Jung-un’s precious use of pabulum as reported in the Rodong Shinmun:  “When one climbs snow-stormy Mt. Paektu and undergoes the blizzards over it, one can experience its real spirit and harden the resolution to accomplish the Korean revolution. Climbing Mt. Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon and it is the way for carrying forward the revolutionary traditions of Paektu and giving steady continuity to the glorious Korean revolution.”  [The Marmot’s Hole]

You can read the rest at the link,such as how amazed I continue to be at how poor the North Korean propaganda department’s photoshop skills are.  Isn’t there like a 16-year old teenager in China they can outsource this to?

I don’t think too many world leaders would want to have a photo op with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un; so I can’t blame President Park for turning down this invitation:

South Korean President Park Geun-hye is not expected to attend Russia’s World War II victory anniversary celebration next month, an event North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is scheduled to show up at.

Instead, Park will dispatch a special envoy to Moscow, the ruling Saenuri Party’s Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.

There was anticipation of a possible summit between the North and South Korean leaders at the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II on May 9 should Park have chosen to accept the Kremlin’s invitation.

Russia invited world leaders, including Park and Kim, to the event last December. North Korea’s Kim accepted the invitation last month, according to Russian officials.

Kim, should he visit Russia next month for the event, would be embarking on his first foreign trip after succeeding his father in December 2011. It would mark the first time a North Korean leader did not visit China as his first overseas destination.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Who knows in regards to the accuracy of this report, but there is probably a grain of truth to the report:

North Korean authorities are apparently recruiting fresh members of the so-called “pleasure squad” of female entertainers for leader Kim Jong-un after disbanding the group that used to entertain his father.

One source said officials fired the women who used to work at Kim Jong-il’s summer villas. They are currently staying at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang undergoing security training.

The women were apparently made to sign a pledge of secrecy in return for money and gifts.

Women who worked as maids got US$2,000 and home appliances and entertainers double that amount.

Kim junior apparently shunned the summer villas before he came to power but developed a taste for them and the pliable maidens that come with them when he was being treated for gout last year.  [Chosun Ilbo]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) tours a fish processing factory at Kumsan Port, South Hwanghae Province. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported it on March 27, 2015, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. (KCNA-Yonhap)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) tours a nursing home for seniors in Pyongyang. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported it on March 6, 2015, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. Circled is Yo-jong, Kim’s younger sister. (KCNA-Yonhap)

Via a reader tip comes one of many memes of Kim Jong-un bending over.  Here is my favorite:

You can see more at the link.

Let’s hope the Kim regime thugs up in North Korea are not stupid enough to actually try and do this as one of their provocations:

http://img.yonhapnews.co.kr/etc/inner/EN/2015/02/21/AEN20150221000552315_01_i.jpg

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected an artillery and landing exercise by front-line units deployed near the Yellow Sea, Pyongyang’s media reported Saturday.

The drill, joined by artillery forces of the 4th Corp. and island defense units, focused on training for “striking and seizing an island,” said the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The 4th Corp. led the North’s shelling of a South Korean border island, Yeonpyeong, in November 2010, which killed four South Korean marines and civilians and wounded more than a dozen others.

Conducted at the direct instruction of Kim, the main aim of the latest training was to prepare for a fight against the United States, it added.

“The entire army should make their training more intense, as the anti-Japanese guerrillas did in Mount Paektu, to prepare all soldiers as stalwart combatants and turn all units into an iron-willed guards unit and thus bring the anti-U.S. confrontation to the final conclusion by crushing the enemies promptly in case they pounce upon the DPRK,” Kim was quoted as saying. The DPRK is the acronym for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that Kim Jong-un has a new haircut and some apparently shaved eyebrows as well:

North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un debuted a new haircut — and a new … eyebrowcut? — at a politburo meeting on Wednesday. The style is a variation on Kim’s signature shaved sides, but with the top now sculpted into a high, wedge-shaped pompadour that sits atop Kim’s head like a hat, or perhaps a small, dormant woodland creature. The North Korean despot accessorized his new look with partially-shaven eyebrows that now stop just above his pupils.

This new haircut raises a number of important questions for anyone who follows North Korean politics. For instance:

1. What instructions did Kim Jong Un give his barber that resulted in this style?
2. Was it, “Hey, you know trapezoids?”
3. Or perhaps, “You know my main priority is to ensure that my ears do not feel crowded, let’s work on a ‘do that really lets the old face-handles breathe”?  [VOX.com]

You can read more at the link.