Kim Jong Un may be appearing with his daughter in public to present her as a potential successor as he seeks to portray his family as being a dynasty like the British Royal Family, an expert on the secretive country has said.
Jean H Lee, who set up the Associated Press news agency’s first bureau in North Korea, made the remarks weeks after the dictator made his sixth public appearance with his daughter Kim Ju Ae.
The girl is believed to be around 10-years-old and Ms Lee said there has been a “theme” to the events she has been attending as they tend to involve “weapons and missiles”.
Ms Lee, who reported from inside North Korea from 2008 to 2017, said the most striking images of Kim Ju Ae are from when she attended a military banquet to mark the 75th anniversary of the country’s army in February.
“When you look at these pictures she’s front and centre. She is there. It’s like this tableau of father, mother, daughter. And I think what people noticed, of course, first and foremost was, ‘oh my gosh, he’s presenting his daughter’. What does that mean?”, she told the latest episode of the Sky News Daily podcast.
Image: Kim Jong Un talks with his daughter Kim Ju Ae at the banquet to mark the army’s 75th anniversary
Ms Lee said it reminded her of when the dictator’s grandfather presented his wife and young son, Kim Jong Un’s father Kim Jong Il, at the military parade on the same day 75 years earlier.
Though many will question whether it is possible for a patriarchal country such as North Korea to have a female leader, Ms Lee highlights there are a number of women working in high office in the secretive country.
North Korea’s foreign minister Choe Son Hui, is a woman and Mr Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong is one of his top foreign policy officials.
“We’ve had female rulers in societies at times where many women had no rights. Queen Victoria, for example,” Ms Lee added.
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“But I do think one thing about North Korea that’s very interesting is that women do take on leadership roles. It’s a communist or it’s a socialist country.”
Image: Mr Kim with his daughter Kim Ju Ae and his wife Ri Sol Ju at the banquet
Kim may want to portray his family as ‘being like the British royals’
On a potential future role for Kim Ju Ae, Ms Lee said: “She’s very young and we know so little about what’s happening inside North Korea to say that this is a succession process, but I do think that we know that it’s a cultivation of the Kim family, monarchy and dynasty.”
“I’m sure there is in some part a strategy of trying to portray themselves, kind of like the Royal Family in the United Kingdom.”
Image: People lay flowers in front of the statues of former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in the North Korean capital
‘Lots of reasons to be nervous’
Meanwhile, James Fretwell, an analyst at the North Korean news monitoring service NK News, told the Sky News Daily podcast there are “lots of good reasons to be nervous” as Mr Kim’s military carries out weapons tests.
Mr Fretwell said the “main reason” North Korea wants nuclear weapons is to prevent the United States or South Korea from thinking they can attack and get rid of Kim Jong Un’s regime.
However, he said North Korea may also want to use nuclear weapons to build up its military to invade South Korea and unify the peninsula.
“Now, that might seem like a crazy idea, but when we look at what capabilities North Korea is focusing on now it seems it has conducted a lot of long-range missile tests.
“It also seems to be moving towards tactical nuclear weapons.”
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Kim Jong Un’s daughter appears at parade
What is it like living and working in North Korea?
Ms Lee, who is Korean-American and now works as a Korean expert at the Wilson Institute in Washington, stressed that the people in North Korea are “not as robotic as they may seem” and many are the “most opinionated people I know”.
“Some are super funny, an incredible sense of humour, really affectionate. These are the kinds of relationships I had.”
Mr Fretwell said he looks a lot at North Korean state media, reads all of their newspapers and watches all of their television.
“Even though it is propaganda, you can get some useful insights from that TV footage. It’s not the best way of trying to report on the country. And North Korea is extremely secret by its very nature.”
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.