Reporting from Seoul —
Kim Jong Eun, newly anointed as North Korea’s next leader, is quickly learning one of the oldest axioms of power: Heavy lies the crown.
Just days after tens of thousands cheered as the youngest son of Kim Jong Il stood on a podium with his ailing father at a lavish military parade in Pyongyang, bad press is already besieging the future ruler.
In the first public signs of discord, Kim Jong Eun’s older half-brother has questioned the family’s hereditary transfer of power. Kim Jong Nam told Japan’s TV Asahi that he is “against third-generation succession,” adding, “I think there were internal factors.”
Not only that, but the construction of a residential estate for Kim Jong Eun adjacent to that of his father’s has seriously strained relations between local civilians and soldiers tasked with building the project, a humanitarian website reported Wednesday.
Because of ongoing food shortages, many of the 12,000 soldiers assigned to building the villa have resorted to raiding local farms for food, angering growers.
Full Story: North Korea: Kim Jong Eun already getting some bad press – latimes.com
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