North Korea has unveiled one of its first-known statues of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, using the “highly unusual” sculpture to depict the leader as a smiling man of the people, an analyst told reporters.
State-run Korean Central Television recently broadcast images of the half-body sculpture, depicting Kim smiling warmly with his right hand tucked in his coat pocket.
The South Korean Ministry of Unification, which handles inter-Korean relations for Seoul, said that it was the first such work depicting the third-generation leader.
Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
“A statue of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was recently shown on Korean Central Television, and as far as we know, this is the first time it has been identified,” the ministry said yesterday.
North Korea is dotted with massive statues venerating Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-sung and his father, Kim Jong-il — the first two members of the family dynasty to rule the nation.
Expert Lim Eul-chul from Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies said that such honors were typically reserved for dead people, making the sculpture of Kim Jong-un “highly unusual.”
“North Korea is moving toward the peak of a leader-focused cult,” Lim said. “The statue is particularly notable because it is highly unusual for the regime to create a monument of a leader who is still alive.”
The work stood out for its efforts to portray Kim Jong-un as a more relatable figure, Lim told reporters.
“Rather than depicting him as a god-like figure, the North is likely to promote a narrative portraying him as a leader who earns people’s respect and devotes himself to their welfare,” he added.
North Korea releases highly choreographed images to illustrate Kim Jong-un’s absolute grip on power. He was shown riding a white horse up a sacred mountain in 2019, while other photographs have shown him mobbed by fawning soldiers, shooting guns and driving military vehicles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2019 gifted North Korea a half-body bust of Kim Jong-un during a visit to Pyongyang.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS