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Purveyor, Fine Asian Porn
Industry Role:
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Posts: 38,323
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Just What the World Needs - An Inexperienced 3rd Generation Dictator? 
Quote:
Kim Jong-un, the youngest and least-known son of Kim Jong-il, appears to be in line to become the next leader of North Korea after his father?s death, which was announced on Dec. 19, 2011.
In February 2011, Kim Jong-un had smoothly acceded to a senior position on the National Defense Commission, the country?s most powerful body, according to a report by a leading newspaper in Seoul. The move definitively elevated him as second only to his father.
Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 28 or 29, had appeared publicly for the first time at a meeting of the ruling Workers? Party in September 2010. At that time, he was given the rank of four-star general and received two significant political posts ? membership on the Central Committee of the party and a vice chairmanship of the party?s Central Military Committee, which is also overseen by his father.
A year on, it appears increasingly clear that the regime was helping Kim Jong-un inherit a personality cult of his own. On state TV, he is packaged to look like his grandfather, Kim Il-Sung: Mao suit, swept-back hair and the gravitas North Koreans associate with the ?Great Leader,? who died in 1994. Scenes on state-run television showing octogenarian party secretaries bowing to a man Kim Jong-Un before accepting the smiling young man?s handshake or kowtowing to his instructions have become a staple of North Korea?s propagandist media.
Less clear is whether the intimidatation of generals and party elders had been accomplished by Kim Jong-un or his father. Key to the political dynamics surrounding the succession in Pyongyang, analysts say, is whether Kim Jong-il lived long enough to provide his son with whatever assistance he may need to settle into power.
Either way, the scenes are a stark contrast to those of a year before, when the transition ? taking place in the panicked atmosphere of Kim Jong-il?s failing health ? seemed that it could pose challenges to the regime?s internal cohesion.
Kim Jong-il had fought for his inheritance as much as it was bestowed upon him by his father. He terrorized the older elite and won their grudging respect in a process of consolidating absolute power that lasted decades. By comparison, Kim Jong-un resembled more of an inexperienced, even clueless, dauphin thrust onto a fast track whipped together after his father suffered a stroke in 2008.
Background
When his father began to push Kim Jong-un forward, there was only picture of him available outside North Korea. In that picture, he is 11 years old.
?When Prince Jong-un shook hands with me, he fixed me with a vicious look,? Kim Jong-il?s former Japanese sushi chef wrote in a 2003 memoir describing his first encounter with the boy, then 7, dressed in a military uniform and known as a ?prince? among his father?s aides. ?I still cannot forget the look in his eyes. It seemed to say, ?This is a despicable Japanese.? "
The chef, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto, said in an interview that as a teenager, Kim Jong-un was already his father?s favorite and ?looked just like him.?
The lone photo and Mr. Fujimoto?s memories form part of the few precious strands of information analysts and intelligence officials in South Korea and Washington rely on as they struggle to put together a dossier on Kim Jong-un. They describe Kim Jong-un as a young man of medium height, overweight and prone to high blood pressure and suffering from diabetes, and with character traits similar to his father?s.
Kim Jong-il had at least five children with three women. Sung Hae-rim, a movie star, gave birth to Kim Jong-nam. She became estranged from Kim Jong-il after he married Kim Young-sook, who gave birth to one daughter (some say two) but no son.
Then Mr. Kim fell for Ko Young-hee, the prima donna of North Korea?s premier opera, who was born in Japan and emigrated to the North in the 1960s. She had two sons ? Kim Jong-chol and Kim Jong-un ? and a daughter, Kim Yeo-jong. Until Ms. Ko died of breast cancer in 2004, she was Mr. Kim?s de facto first lady and a fierce campaigner for her sons.
With no mother to promote him to his father, Kim Jong-nam scuttled what remote chance he had of succession when he was caught and deported while sneaking into Japan on a fake passport in 2001. He was headed for Tokyo Disneyland.
The middle son, Kim Jong-chol, attended the International School of Berne in Switzerland in the 1990s under the pseudonym Pak Chol, according to analysts and journalists in Seoul, as well as Mr. Fujimoto ? though other analysts dispute these accounts. He was said to be a fan of Michael Jordan, Eric Clapton and Keanu Reeves. Mr. Fujimoto wrote that Ms. Ko often took her sons on trips to Europe and Tokyo Disneyland, and that Kim Jong-un learned English.
Analysts are divided over whether Kim Jong-un also attended the school in Switzerland. They say he was enrolled from 2002 to 2007 in the Kim Il-sung Military University, a leading officer-training school in Pyongyang, the capital, but was taught at home.
Mr. Fujimoto said in an interview that Kim Jong-il dismissed his second son, Kim Jong-chol, as ?girlish? but openly complimented Kim Jong-un, saying, ?That boy is like me.?
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This could get strange...or not. 
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