North Korea unveils Kim's daughter at missile launch site
Seoul (AP): North Korea has unveiled the little-known daughter of its leader Kim Jong Un at a missile launch site, attracting keen attention on a fourth-generation member of a dynastic family that has ruled North Korea for more than seven decades.
The North's state media said Saturday that Kim had observed the launch of its new type of intercontinental ballistic missile with his wife Ri Sol Ju, their "beloved daughter" and other officials the previous day. Kim said the launch of the Hwasong-17 missile the North's longest-range, nuclear-capable missile proved that he has a reliable weapon to contain US-led military threats.
The main Rodong Sinmun newspaper also released a slew of photos of Kim watching a soaring missile from a distance with his daughter. Other photos showed her with her hair pulled back, wearing a white jacket and a pair of red shoes as she walked in hand-in-hand with her father by a huge missile atop a launch truck.
It is the first time for North Korea's state media to mention the daughter or publicize her photos. KCNA didn't provide further details about her like her name and age.
Much of Kim's private life is still unknown. But South Korean media reported Kim married Ri, a former singer, in 2009, and that the couple have three children who were born in 2010, 2013 and 2017.
It wasn't known which child Kim took to the launch site. But in 2013, after a trip to Pyongyang, retired NBA star Dennis Rodman told the British newspaper the Guardian that he and Kim had a "relaxing time by the sea" with the leader's family and that he held Kim's baby daughter, named Ju Ae.
The identities of Kim's children are a source of strong outside interests as the 38-year-old ruler hasn't publicly anointed an heir apparent.
When he disappeared from public eye for an extended period in 2020 amid unconfirmed rumors about health conditions, global media frenzy flared over who was next in line to run an impoverished yet nuclear-armed country. Many observers said at the time that Kim's younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, would step in and run the country if her brother was incapacitated.
The Kim family has governed North Korea with a strong personality following built around key family members since Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, founded the country in 1948. The family's so-called Paektu bloodline, named after the North's most sacred mountain, allows only direct family members to rule the country.
"It's much too soon to infer anything about succession within the Kim regime," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. "However, publicly including his wife and daughter in what Kim claims as a historically successful missile test associates the family business of ruling North Korea with the nation's missile programs."
Easley also said, "This may be an attempt to compensate for how few economic accomplishments Kim has to support his domestic legitimacy."
Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said that, if Kim continues to take this daughter to key public events, it could signal that she would become Kim's successor.
"Under North Korea's system, the children of Kim Jong Un would have the status of a prince or princess, like in a dynasty. As the Rodong Sinmnum newspaper publicized the photo of the daughter, who took after Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju, so much, she has no choice but to live special lives," Cheong said.
Other observers say Kim taking his family to a missile test site indicated he was confident in the weapon's successful launch, or that he might have tried to burnish an image as a normal leader including his family in his affairs.
The disclosure of the Kim family child has taken many North Korea watchers by surprise.
It was only in 2010 when Kim, then 26, was first publicly mentioned in state media as he took a spate of top posts before he inherited power upon his father Kim Jong Il's death the next year. Kim Jong Il was also 31 when he won a key post in the ruling Workers' Party in 1973 an appointment seen as a key step in the path to succeeding his father Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il's position as successor was made public at the party congress in 1980.
But Cheong said Kim Jong Il privately told associates that Kim Jong Un, his third and youngest son, would succeed him when the younger Kim was 8 years old, in 1992. Cheong said Kim's aunt and her husband, who had defected to the United States, told him that a song praising Kim Jong Un was played and that Kim Jong Il said Kim Jong Un was his successor.
"Kim Jong Un may have his daughter, who resembles him the most in his mind, as his successor," Cheong said.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
