The “central” leadership stepped into the spotlight most vividly during Kim Jong Il’s funeral in a tableau watched as closely here in Pyongyang as it was in Seoul and Washington for signs indicating who is in power in North Korea’s opaque political system.

On that day, in a swirl of snow, eight men accompanied the black limousine bearing Kim’s flag-draped coffin: Kim Jong Un and seven elderly men who represent the topmost levels of North Korea’s military and political circles.

At the front of the hearse, opposite Kim Jong Un, walked Ri Yong Ho, vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army and the military’s General Staff chief.

Ri wields power from his position at the intersection of three crucial institutions: the Korean People’s Army, the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party and the Standing Committee of the party’s influential Political Bureau.

While the Workers’ Party of Korea has served as the backbone of the power structure since Kim Il Sung founded the country in 1948, Kim Jong Il elevated the military when he became leader after his father’s death in 1994.

Ri, who has operational control of the army, also oversees an influential Kim Jong Un support group comprising officers in their 50s and 60s who commanders consider rising stars, according to Ken Gause, a North Korea specialist at CNA, a U.S.-based research organization.

A stern figure, Ri stood between Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un in October 2010 as they watched a massive military parade marking the 65th anniversary of the Workers’ Party. He occasionally leaned over to whisper to the son, who was making his international public debut. And Ri stood at Kim Jong Un’s side following Kim Jong Il’s funeral. Ri is 69, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which provided the birth dates of all seven figures.

Walking directly behind the young leader during the funeral procession was his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, husband of Kim Jong Il’s younger sister, Kim Kyong Hui, who is also an important Kim JongUn patron.

Jang, 65, is a vice chairman of the National Defense Commission. Under the constitution, the commission is the country’s highest military body, and Kim Jong Il led the country as chairman.

Jang apparently is involved in big economic projects and oversees internal security offices, according to Nicholas Hamisevicz, director of research and academic affairs for the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. Jang was a frequent companion to Kim Jong Il on field inspection trips last year.

“He is thought to be helping groom Kim Jong Un by providing him information as well as some political protection,” Hamisevicz said.

Also escorting Kim’s hearse was People’s Armed Forces Minister Kim Yong Chun, who controls military logistics and training, according to Gause. In a Jan. 28 state media report, Kim Yong Chun, 75, was mentioned second only to Ri Yong Ho in a list of top aides who accompanied Kim Jong Un to a military concert.

Kim Ki Nam, 82, is credited with orchestrating the legends surrounding the Kim family and serves as the main ideologue for the country, according to the World Institute for North Korea Studies in South Korea.

Kim Jong Gak is a senior political officer in the Korean People’s Army, while U Tong Chuk is a top state security official. On Jan. 9, Kim Jong Gak was mentioned prominently at a massive rally of army, navy and air force troops pledging loyalty to Kim Jong Un. U Tong Chuk has attended two concerts with the new leader this year, according to state media.

Rounding out the entourage in the funeral procession was Choe Thae Bok, the longtime chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly and a member of the Politburo who has led a number of North Korean delegations overseas. Choe is 81, according to the South Korean government.

Other important advisers include Premier Choe Yong Rim, who despite being in his 80s has been making the types of inspection trips to factories, construction sites and power plants that were onceKim Jong Il’s purview; and Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the country’s nominal head of state.

Two other top officers, wearing gray parkas, have accompanied Kim on military inspections recently: Kim Myong Guk, a 71-year-old General Staff director of operations; and Kim Won Hong, a top political officer who is reportedly in charge of military personnel appointments. Gause says Kim Won Hong heads one of the bodies that form an “inner ring for internal security inside North Korea.”

One of these men is invariably at Kim Jong Un’s side. State media, in a dispatch released early Wednesday, said Ri Yong Ho, Kim Yong Chun and Kim Myong Guk accompanied Kim Jong Un on a tour of an army unit, the latest in a string of military visits by the new leader.

“While Kim might enjoy real authority, it is his relationship with the leadership support system around him that will determine the latitude he has to make decisions on his own,” Gause said.  [Associated Press]

As I have been saying since the death of Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un does not have absolute authority in the country and the country is being run by collective leadership.  Most people don’t realize that Kim Jong-il also did not have the amount of absolute authority that his father Kim Il-sung had either.  Kim Jong-il definitely had more authority than his son but likewise many decisions were made collectively by the regime’s inner circle and Kim Jong-il likely was the decision maker if a collective decision could not be reached.  With Kim Jong-un I doubt that he is the ultimate decision maker if a decision cannot be reached collectively and most people believe Jang Song-taek is the likely key decision maker.  Kim Jong-un needs to just keep focusing on walking around and smiling because he has a lot to learn before he ever becomes a key decision maker within the inner circle in my opinion.

The video is from the Kum Song School in Pyongyang.  You can read more here.

Thanks to the ROK Head for the tip.

New North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (front) smiles during a visit to a military base in this undated photo released on Jan. 20

According to the Chosun Ilbo Kim Jong-un is trying to create a friendly image in North Korea.

On YouTube the then Pay-Per-View event that was held on April 28th and 29th, 1995 in Pyongyang has been uploaded for those curious enough to watch. After looking through these videos I think it is only fitting that fake wrestling was being done in Pyongyang in front of a fake audience.

Part 1:

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North Korea tried to export ampules of reagents for chemical weapons to Syria in 2009, in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution banning arms shipments from the country, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The United Nations plans to launch an investigation into the violation soon, diplomatic sources said, representing a rare probe into the reclusive communist country’s arms trade related to chemical weapons.

The case highlights the close relationship between North Korea and Syria in the development and production of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), diplomatic observers said.

In November 2009, Greek authorities seized a container from a Liberia-registered freighter as it headed toward Syria. Inside the container they found wooden boxes stuffed with several types of ampules believed to be made of glass, each containing liquid or powdered reagents, the sources said.

These reagents are used to identify chemical substances that become airborne after the use of chemical weapons, the sources said. The reagents can be used in chemical weapons attacks and for defending against them, they added.

The Greek authorities also seized about 14,000 anti-chemical weapons suits from the vessel. The suits were the same type as those seized by South Korean authorities in September of the same year, which were determined to be designed for military use as they are extremely airtight, the sources said.  [Yomiuri Shimbun]

You can read more at the link plus much more over at One Free Korea.

Considering that the North Koreans were bold enough to help the Syrians build a nuclear reactor in 2007 before the Israelis found out and bombed the facility with no repercussions from the UN; I doubt they are hardly concerned about what the UN is going to do in response to this latest smuggling WMD incident as well.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died in December, his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, was quickly named as his replacement — fait accompli by all appearances.

But the elder Kim might not have wholeheartedly supported this all-in-the-family succession. At least, that’s the contention of the deceased leader’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, said Yoji Gomi, a Tokyo-based journalist and author of the just-released “My Father, Kim Jong Il and I: Kim Jong Nam’s Exclusive Confession.”

Kim Jong Nam has lived in China since 1995 in a self-imposed exile.

During a talk this week at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Gomi, through an English translator, quoted Kim Jong Nam: “My father was more opposed to the third-generation hereditary succession than anybody, and it must have been internal factors that forced him to change his view.”

The eldest son said that his father likely changed his mind because the “North Korean people are so used to obeying orders solely based on the belief of bloodline that they may have trouble accepting any successor outside of that bloodline,” according to Gomi.

Masayuki Suzuki, a professor at Shobi University in Saitama, said that a transfer of power outside of family would have been “unthinkable” because bloodline is the only legitimacy the regime possesses.  [Stars & Stripes]

Unless Kim Jong-il was losing his mental capacities after his stroke I find it hard to believe he was against the succession of one of his sons.  He had to have understood that the “Cult of Kim” that has been built up over the decades in North Korea was integral to the legitimacy of the ruling regime.  It just seems to me that Kim Jong-nam is trying to create a small seed of doubt about the legitimacy of Kim Jong-un while at the same time setting himself up as the alternative if he fails as the leader of North Korea.  Considering Kim Jong-nam’s close ties with the Chinese government he is probably their leadership Plan B if there is any instability in North Korea they may need to respond to.

A source in North Hamgyung Province told Daily NK on January 19, “During the mourning period, one official from the provincial NSA, one from the prosecutor’s office and two from the People’s Safety Agency were murdered in Cheongjin.” The source added, “There was a note found lying next to the body of the executed NSA official which said ‘Punished in the name of the people.’”

North Korean authorities have not released the identities of the victims or any information about the case fearing public disturbances, but authorities are said to be using all resources at their disposal to find the people responsible. The Defense Security Command is helping the other three agencies with the investigation, while a report on the murders has been elevated to the Central Party in Pyongyang.

In December 2010, also in Cheongjin, the retired head of the PSA office in the Sunam district died after being attacked on the street by an unknown assailant. This however is the first time that active serving officers have been slain. The likelihood seems to be that the murders were planned by somebody with a political motive rather than a personal grudge.  [Daily NK via OFK]

The normal caveats apply when it comes to any information coming out of North Korea, but you can read more about why killings of the secret police in Cheongjin should be condoned over at One Free Korea.

North Korea owes South Korea more than W1 trillion in loans provided in the form of food aid and other support, according to government data on Wednesday (US$1=W1,142). If the W2.3 trillion South Korea provided indirectly to North Korea through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) between 1998 and 2006 for the abortive construction of a light-water reactor is included, the total amount of loans swells to around W3.5 trillion.

According to the Unification Ministry, the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations gave North Korea 2.4 million tons of rice and 200,000 tons of corn in the form of loans between 2000 to 2007 that the North has to repay over 20 years at an annual interest of 1 percent.

You can read the rest at the link, but people were extremely naive if they thought the North Koreans would ever pay back these loans.

In this footage from North Korea's state television on Jan. 21, 2012, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tours the nation's air force unit 354. On Friday, the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the new leader paid an inspection visit to air force unit 354 and army unit 3870, which were both honored with the title of "O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment." The report marked the third time this year the state media has reported on its leader's military visits as the young leader consolidates his power in the military-backed regime. (Yonhap)

A new book claims that the eldest son of North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong Il believes the impoverished regime is in danger of collapse and that his young half-brother, chosen to lead after Kim’s death, is merely a figurehead.

The book by Tokyo-based journalist Yoji Gomi went on sale Wednesday. He says it is based primarily on email exchanges he had with Kim Jong Nam over many years.

The book drew immediate attention as a rare view into the family that has led the secretive country for decades — though Kim Jong Nam is thought to be estranged from his family and the workings of government. Since Kim Jong Il’s death Dec. 17, North Korea has been led by his youngest son, Kim Jong Un.  [Fox News]

You can read more at the link but none of this is really new other then that it is coming from Kim Jong-nam if what the author of the book states is true.  It is widely believed by people who follow North Korea that Jang Song-taek and other inner circle regime elite are propping up Kim Jong-un.  As far as regime collapse, that is always a fear the North Korean regime will have but as long as international aid continues to flow and they can keep the Cult of Kim alive combined with their illicit activities, security apparatus, & propaganda they can muddle along I think for another 10-20 more years.  When more elderly regime elite die that is when I think change will come to North Korea and Kim Jong-nam I think is setting himself up to become a player in North Korea when that day comes by being an advocate for Chinese style economic reforms.