Kim Jong-un has adopted the title “Dear Leader” that was previously affected by his father as the North Korean propaganda machine builds up the cult of personality around the young dictator.
State-run media has begun to pepper its reports of Kim’s activities with the title, with the Rodong Sinmun daily recently showing a picture on its front page of a banner declaring “Dear Leader Kim Jong-un.”
Elevating Kim to the same status as his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011, is apparently designed to emphasise his control over the nation at a time when deep divisions have emerged within the highest levels of the regime.
The very public purge that has already claimed Jang-Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and previously considered the untouchable power behind the throne, continues apace, according to intelligence reports in South Korea.
The latest name to emerge as a victim of the blood-letting in Pyongyang is Ri Su-yong, a close ally of Jang who reportedly squirreled away some $4 billion of Kim Jong-il’s money in Swiss bank accounts when he was the ambassador to Berne in the 1980s, Telegraph informs.
