North Korea’s former propaganda chief, credited with masterminding the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, has died at the age of 94, state media said yesterday, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un photographed bowing at his funeral bier.
Kim Ki-nam died on Tuesday due to old age and “multiple organ dysfunction,” having been treated at hospital since 2022, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Kim Jong-un visited the funeral hall early yesterday morning, paid silent tribute and looked around the bier with “bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who had remained boundlessly loyal” to the regime, KCNA said.
Photo: AP
Kim Ki-nam is best known for having led North Korea’s key department for propaganda.
In the 1970s, he was in charge of Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, according to the North.
He is credited with masterminding the cult of the Kim family dynasty, and Pyongyang’s state media yesterday described him as “a veteran of our Party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist.”
The Kim dynasty, established by founding North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, has ruled the nation with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult over three generations.
Kim Ki-nam “is the North Korean equivalent of Paul Joseph Goebbels,” said Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies.
“It is safe to say that the propaganda and agitation strategies of the Kim dynasty all came from Kim Ki-nam’s mind,” Ahn said.
Kim Ki-nam’s role as the regime’s chief propagandist was passed on to Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, in the late 2010s.
In 2005, Kim Ki-nam led a North Korean delegation to visit South Korea’s National Cemetery, honoring soldiers who died during the Korean War.
In 2009, he led a delegation to the South to attend the funeral of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and met with then-South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.
Inter-Korean relations are at one of their lowest points in years.
It is regrettable that Pyongyang has made no mention of Kim Ki-nam’s efforts for inter-Korean cooperation following his death, said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
“It seems to show the current state of inter-Korean relations characterized by confrontation and conflict,” he said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS