Category: DPRK Government

Net worth of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

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According to Celebrity Net Worth, Kim Jong-un is currently valued at $5 billion. Earlier last month, a joint investigation conducted by the South Korean and American governments revealed that the North Korean dictator and his family controlled these assets, distributed throughout more than 200 foreign bank accounts in multiple countries.

Kim Jong-un’s late father Kim Jong-il, reportedly lived a ridiculously wealthy lifestyle. Some examples:

  • In a 2001 train trip Kim Jong-il took to Russia, he had a 16-car private train that was stocked with crates of French wine and live lobsters.
  • Kim Jong-il’s former private Japanese sushi chef revealed Mr. Kim had a wine cellar stocked with 10,000 bottles, and indulged in pricey shark fin soup on a weekly basis.

A recent U.N. report found that Kim Jong-un also isn’t afraid to spend generously. According to the report, Kim Jong-un tried to import luxury Mercedes-Benz vehicles, dozens of pianos, and high-end musical equipment. He’s also a fan of fine liquor, specifically cognac.

The report estimates that state spending on luxury goods increased from an average of $300 million a year under Kim Jong-il to $645 million in 2012.

Meanwhile, the current Gross Domestic Product per capita for North Korean residents is at about $1,800, according to a 2011 estimate from the CIA. Compare that to the $32,400 for its neighbors in South Korea, $49,800 in the United States, and $9,100 in China.

[MyBankTracker] 

North Korea lays out ideology via children’s books

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Brainwashing the next generation is a big deal in North Korea. Research suggests that Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung could be the authors of some fiercely ideological children’s tales, according to an Australian academic, Christopher Richardson, who is researching North Korean children’s literature for his PhD at Sydney University.

Boys Wipe Out Bandits, first published in 1989, is “adapted from a story the Dear Leader ‘one day’ dreamed up as a child himself”, writes Richardson, in which “cultural impurities, capitalist degeneracy, and rampant individualism are defeated by the pure virtue of the collective”.

Although the story was published in his name, Richardson is skeptical about whether Kim Jong-il really wrote it. “Even the publishers in the DPRK maintain a degree of ambiguity about the authorship of these tales, attributing the stories to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, while acknowledging they were written down by someone else,” he told the Guardian.

Richardson also mentions another book: the anti-American fable The Butterfly and The Cock, apparently said to have first been told by Kim Il-sung and then written down. It tells the story of how a cockerel, intended to symbolize America, sets out to bully other animals, but a butterfly – representing North Korea – steps in.

A Winged Horse is another children’s story from Kim Il-sung, in which the country is under threat from Japanese invaders, but a child saves the day on a flying horse. Writes Richardson, “Whereas the invaders are grotesque and dysmorphic, the three boy heroes are beatific, round-faced, rose-cheeked and neatly groomed, especially the youngest. Almost feminine, he has wide liquid eyes, like a cherub. Their bodies incarnate Korean simplicity and virtue.”

He was also surprised to find the stories themselves were “quite enjoyable”. “I was astounded that children’s books (purportedly) written by Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung were vastly more readable than one would expect from any political leader in the democratic west, still less a severe authoritarian,” he said.

He said that when he has shown his collection of North Korean children’s books to defectors, “their response has usually been to recall that while enjoying the more colorful and adventurous tales as children, they were not so interested in overtly militaristic and political stories”.

So far, Kim Jong-un has not – as far as Richardson can tell – written his own children’s book, but he anticipates it won’t be long until North Korea’s latest leader steps into the children’s literature arena.

[Read more in The Guardian] 

China rejects UN report on North Korean crimes

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As expected, China on Monday dismissed a UN report alleging North Korea has committed crimes against humanity, effectively confirming the fears of human rights advocates that Beijing will shield its ally from international prosecution.

Chen Chuandong, a counselor at China’s mission in Geneva, told the UN Human Rights Council that the independent commission of inquiry had made unfounded accusations and recommendations that were ”divorced from reality”.

”The inability of the commission to get support and co-operation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner,” Mr Chen said.

Mr Chen said the report was based on information and interviews collected outside the country, without first-hand information. ”The question then arises: can such an inquiry be truly credible?”

China, as a member of the UN Security Council, would have the power to veto any move to refer North Korea to the Hague-based ICC. Diplomats had already warned China was likely to object to the report, which also criticized Beijing for its treatment of North Korean defectors.

But Michael Kirby, chief author of the report, said he was convinced North Korea’s leadership would eventually face the ICC for crimes documented in the commission’s archives, which hold the testimonies of hundreds of witnesses. ”I have lived long enough to see things that looked impossible come to full fruit,” he told a news conference. ”The independence of East Timor, the independence of the Baltic states and other steps following the fall of the Berlin Wall are all indications that things can happen that don’t look certain now. They won’t meet media deadlines but they will occur.”

Shin Dong Hyuk, a North Korean born in a political prison camp who escaped after his mother and brother were executed, told Reuters he had expected China to reject the report. But the ”big purpose” of establishing the inquiry was to get the report discussed at the UN Security Council, he said.

[Reuters]

United Nations: North Korean crimes as bad as the Nazis, Khmer Rouge

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The crimes of North Korea’s regime are as chilling as those of the Nazis, South Africa’s apartheid regime or Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and must be stopped, the head of a UN inquiry said Monday.

Michael Kirby told the UN Human Rights Council, “It is now your solemn duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

His comments followed a searing 400-page report, released last month, that documented a range of gross human rights abuses in the country, including the extermination of people, enslavement and sexual violence.

“The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. The country is a dark abyss where the human rights, the dignity and the humanity of the people are controlled, denied and ultimately annihilated,” Mr Kirby said.

The report insisted North Korea’s leaders should answer for a litany of crimes against humanity before an international court.

“The world has ignored the evidence for too long,’’ Mr Kirby insisted, adding: “There is no excuse, because now we know.”

“If this report does not give rise to action, it is difficult to imagine what will,” Mr Kirby said.

[News.com.au]

Kim Jong Un unanimously ‘elected’ to North Korean legislature

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North Koreans went to the polls on Sunday to approve the new roster of deputies for the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s legislature. The vote, more a political ritual than an election by Western standards, is generally held once every five years.

With no one else on the ballot, state media reported Monday that supreme leader Kim Jong Un was not only elected to the highest legislative body in North Korea, he won with the unanimous approval of his district – located on the symbolic Mount Paekdu – which had 100 percent turnout.

“This is an expression of all the service personnel and people’s absolute support and profound trust in supreme leader Kim Jong Un as they single-mindedly remain loyal to him,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

The Supreme People’s Assembly usually meets only rarely, often only once a year. In practice it has little power and when it is not in session, its work is done by a smaller and more powerful body called the Presidium.

[AP]

Younger sister of Kim Jong Un – Kim Yo-Jong

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The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has made an official debut of sorts. Kim Yo-Jong, believed to be 26, accompanied her elder brother to a polling station on Sunday when North Korea held stage-managed elections to its rubber stamp parliament.

It was not her first appearance. She was shown on state television in 2011, tearfully standing next to Kim Jong-Un as they attended the funeral of their father and former ruler Kim Jong-Il.

Since then she has occasionally been seen accompanying her brother on his “field guidance trips”.

Sunday’s outing was different as she was, for the first time, officially listed by her name and as a “senior official” attending the voting function along with several top party and army luminaries.

Ahn Chan-Il, head of Seoul-based World Institute for North Korea Studies, said Kim Yo-Jong was being groomed to play the same supporting role as her very influential aunt. “Kim Jong-Un and Kim Yo-Jong will work in a similar way as their father and Kim Kyong-Hui did in securing the future of the Kim dynasty,” Ahn said.

[AFP]

China reiterates it will not allow war or instability on Korean Peninsula

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China will not allow war or instability on the Korean Peninsula, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday. “The Korean Peninsula is right on China’s doorstep. We have a red line, that is, we will not allow war or instability on the Korean Peninsula,” Wang said at a press conference.

“I believe this is also fully in the interest of the South and North of the peninsula and in the common interest of the whole region,” Wang added.

The minister also called for an early resumption of the six-party talks. “If I may use some metaphors, I believe, we need to climb a slope, remove a stumbling block and follow the right way.” Describing the nuclear issue as the “crux of the matter,” Wang said, “First, we need climb the slope of denuclearization. Only with denuclearization can the Korean Peninsula have genuine and lasting peace.”

Secondly, the parties need to work hard to remove the stumbling block of mutual mistrust, said Wang. There is serious lack of mutual trust between the parties, especially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States, he added.

Third, the parties must follow the right way forward, which is dialogue, said Wang, pointing to the six-party talks as “the only dialogue mechanism acceptable to all the parties. … As the host country, we hope there can be an early resumption of the six-party talks. Some dialogue is better than none, and better early than later.”

[Xinhua]

A visible Choe Ryong belies reports of another North Korean purge

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A senior North Korean official, believed to be the No. 2 in the country after leader Kim Jong Un, has reappeared in official television footage, belying reports he had fallen victim to a fresh purge in the isolated nation.

Choe Ryong Hae is the influential head of the political wing of North Korea’s military and appears to have risen to become the second most powerful person in the country after the execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, last year.

Speculation in recent weeks that Choe had also been purged triggered a wave of speculation that Kim was intent on shaking up North Korea’s elite and that competing factions around the 31-year old leader were a destabilising force in the North.

Choe’s father was a partisan who fought alongside the young Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

In addition to the public title as the chief political operative for the North’s 1.2-million-strong army, Choe holds a seat in the powerful standing committee of the ruling Workers’ Party politburo shared only by Kim himself and two figurehead old guard members.

Choe is also one of the two vice chairmen of the ruling Workers’ Party central military commission, a post that encompasses two of the most powerful institutions, the party and the military. He was made a vice marshal of the military this year.

In June, Choe was Kim’s special envoy to meet President Xi Jinping of China, North Korea’s only major ally. The meeting followed displeasure expressed by Beijing after North Korea launched a missile last year and conducted a third nuclear test.

[IBTimes] 

Has Kim Jong Un purged his deputy Choe Ryong Hae?

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choe ryong hae_ri yong ho_kim jong un
[L – R] Choe Ryong Hae and North Korean military’s General Staff Chief Ri Yong Ho with Kim Jong Un in happier days
The South Korean Government is investigating reports Kim Jong Un has imposed another purge, after rumors of North Korea’s number two leader Choe Ryong Hae’s disappearance.

The statement was made by the South Korean Government on Monday after mounting speculation since last week that Choi was in jail and being interrogated.

It is assumed Choi held several top positions in the North Korean leadership after Kim ordered the high-profile execution of Jang Song Thaek, the previous incumbent and Kim’s uncle and mentor.

Rumors about Choi’s disappearance have intensified since his no-shows at public events he normally would have attended with Kim in February.

[The Times]