North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has selected his daughter as his heir, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday.

Kim Ju Ae - who is believed to be 13 - has in recent months been pictured beside her father in high-profile events like a visit to Beijing in September, her first known trip abroad.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it took a "range of circumstances" into account including her increasingly prominent public presence at official events" in making this assessment.

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[+] -14 points 9 months ago* (30 children)
  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (16 children)

    Firstly, to say that Kim family is merely ceremonial mean you have to proof that someone else is running the show, that hatched all the plans, that have the final say. We don't have that information. What we have is he is the single most powerful person in North Korea, that rule and guide the country, that inherited the power from his father.

    Of course, a king need a general and a treasurer, whether they are the one in control or not is not a known fact, and that will remained a mystery until someone close to them speak.

    So yes, with the information the world have, we can safely say North Korea is run by a single family.

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  • [+] -10 points 9 months ago (15 children)
  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

    I absolutely would not have described Queen Elizabeth as the most powerful person in the country at any time of her reign.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    I don't doubt this, but you could have said the same about Queen Elizabeth before she got in a box

    I can also say the same for all prime minister and president in country without monarch and with constitutional monarch. That is exactly what a leader of the country are. What is exactly your point here?

    This requires more evidence. What's your evidence for this? What material reasons do you have to believe that the decisions come from Kim personally and not from the communist party?

    Let me do one better: what is your evidence that say otherwise?

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  • [+] -6 points 9 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    I would love to have source for your claim on north korea, because your claim on saudi arabia is all but nonsense, and is really easily dispelled with a little bit of internet search.

    And across the history, some king are known to have build a lot of public infrastructure, while others don't. That isn't a sign of governance type, that is the sign of the competence of the leadership.

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  • [+] 0 points 9 months ago* (7 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You:

    For example, Saudi Arabia, a widely known example of a monarchy with absolutist power, has 80% of the population composed of immigrants without rights who get stripped of their passports and get treated as slaves.

    Also you:

    When 40%ish of the population is without basic human rights

    Wanna try again?

    Then you:

    There's no public healthcare

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Saudi_Arabia

    Health care in Saudi Arabia is a national health care system in which the government provides free universal healthcare coverage through a number of government agencies.

    Then you also:

    no infrastructure for poor people (trains, public schools, people-centered urbanism...), etc.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Saudi_Arabia

    Public education in Saudi Arabia—from primary education through college—is open to every Saudi citizen. Education is the second-largest sector of government spending in Saudi Arabia.[7] Saudi Arabia spends 8.8% of its gross domestic product on education, which is nearly double the global average of 4.6%.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Mashaaer_Al_Mugaddassah_Metro_line

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riyadh_Metro

    There are several other line being planned.

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  • [+] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    The 80% figure I mistook for the one of Qatar originally

    No you don't, you're just ignorant. Next you gonna tell me south korea is a dictator state and then whoops, you confused it with north korea.

    Every service you pointed out leaves immigrants without access, 40% of Saudi population not having access to healthcare is exactly my point.

    You first say poor people, now you change it to immigrant. How many time do you wanna move the goal post?

    Wikipedia explicitly says this healthcare is for citizens, and when 40% are non citizens, it's a de-facto apartheid state with half the population being immensely exploited

    Wikipedia also stated:

    "Sponsors/employers are responsible for paying for an extensive package of services for private sector expatriates."

    Why are you running defense for authoritarian monarchies in the Middle East?

    Is this supposed to be an attack on me or defence of your own ignorant? I see you spitting bs that can be easily debunked via a simple search, so i debunked it via a simple search. And why are you defending dictator state of north korea?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    I thought it was 80% migrants? Also, except for the bit about permission to leave country (crazy, imo) that sounds like a normal work permit in many conventionally democratic countries, where employer also uses it's power over migrant workers. It might be worse in practice, of course, that depends on courts

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago* (12 children)

    Yes, we can definitively prove that the NK political theater is run by the Kim family. Watch any video of their "congress" meeting, and it's just a group of NPCs clapping mindlessly to everything Kim Jong il says.

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  • [+] -5 points 9 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    Being intentionally obtuse doesn't make you look smarter.

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  • [+] -3 points 9 months ago* (9 children)
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    Ah yes, South Korean interviews of North Koreans that have managed to flee the country- classic western propaganda. Fellate yourself less, maybe?

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  • [+] -3 points 9 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

    You tankies are a different brand of stupid, aintcha?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    South Korean media reports of North Korean defectors are notoriously not trustworthy. North Korean defectors suffer from a lot of stigma if they go to the South and usually struggle to find a job. Tabloids pay them for their stories. Obviously, the taller the tale, the more likely they get a paycheck.

    The fact that NK is so closed off means it's hard to disprove a lot of the claims, but we can still know that they're false when they're contradictory. For example, some NK defectors have claimed having KJU's haircut is illegal, others claim it's the only haircut men are allowed to wear. Some claim that abortion is totally banned, others claim that the state forces women to get abortions.

    Probably the epitome of this phenomenon is Yeonmi Park. Are you really gonna die on the hill that NK defectors like her are trustworthy sources?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    Yes, because if we discount every first-hand account because of some people who don't say the exact same thing- then we wouldn't have almost any evidence that what went down in concentration camps during WWII actually happened. First-hand accounts are all we get (outside of tankies running interference for a violent dictatorship) so finding commonality among all of them is how you can at least attempt to verify.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    Yes, because if we discount every first-hand account because of some people who don’t say the exact same thing- then we wouldn’t have almost any evidence that what went down in concentration camps during WWII actually happened.

    That's completely different. The Nazis kept records that corroborate the first-hand accounts. There's photographic evidence of how the camps were laid out, the conditions their prisoners were kept in, bodies, experiments, and more. Honestly I find this line to be bordering on Holocaust denial because it's so absurd: you think the Holocaust could have been carried out in such a way that only first-hand accounts provide evidence of it?

    Also I'm not talking about getting slight details wrong, I'm talking about different defectors telling stories that directly contradict each other, or things that are simply impossible. Have you ever seen an interview with Yeonmi Park?

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  • [+] -3 points 9 months ago (2 children)