North Korea’s state media yesterday reported another public appearance by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, his second in four days after an extended absence that has seen him re-emerge with a walking stick.
The North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun ran front-page photographs of a smiling Kim, a black cane in his left hand, inspecting two high-rise apartment complexes built to house faculty members of a university specializing in nuclear research.
The young leader resurfaced earlier this week after dropping out of the public eye for nearly six weeks — an unexplained absence that triggered frenzied speculation about his health and his grip on power.
Photo: EPA
His first appearance, believed to be on Monday, was notable for the photographs showing him using a walking stick, backing up reports that his disappearance was the result of a leg injury or condition.
Before his “disappearance,” state television had shown an overweight Kim walking with a pronounced limp.
His latest appearance, believed to be on Thursday, showed him using the same black cane as he toured the complex grounds and the model apartments inside, built for teaching staff at the Kim Chaek University of Technology.
The university is known for nuclear engineering and a number of its top graduates are reportedly employed at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which houses a reactor seen as the North’s main source of weapons-grade plutonium.
Kim’s first appearance on Monday had been an inspection of another residential complex built for scientists engaged in a space satellite program seen as masking ballistic missile research.
Since assuming power after the death in 2011 of his father, former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un has cut a very public figure, with state media showing him engaged in a seemingly endless series of field guidance trips across the country.
His sudden disappearance, since early September, quickly became a source of rumor and speculation, which went into overdrive after he missed two noteworthy political events he would normally have been expected to attend.
Some reports even suggested he had been ousted in a coup.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion