Kim Jong-Il (Former leader of North Korea) 's tours stand out to the west because they feature a short guy that dresses funny, relatively ancient machinery in industries questionable for the long term growth of the North Korean economy, and provide an interesting juxtaposition of Kim, a wealthy, privileged absolute dictator, against the backdrop of his struggling population. read more
Aiden Foster-Carter, an expert on North Korea and honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University, attributes the secrecy around Kim Jong Un to life in North Korea being on a “need-to-know basis.” “We’ve actually seen his [Kim Jong Un’s] wife more than Kim Jong Il [his father] because he had a very complicated love life,” explains Foster-Carter. read more
The circumstances surrounding the death last weekend of Kim Jong Il — North Korea's cruel, enigmatic ruler — are turning out to be as mysterious as the details surrounding the secretive dictator's life. read more