How old is kim jong ils son

Kim has adopted the mantle of the mythical, godlike leadership role that grandfather and country founder Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il held and continue to hold in their death. But he seems determined to chart his own path. Kim has allowed himself to seem more transparent and accessible than his father. He appears in public with his pretty and fashionable young wife, Ri Sol-ju with whom he has at least one child, and possibly three.

He hugs, holds hands, and links arms with men, women, and children, seeming comfortable with both young and old. That transparency has been extended to the government.

When one of its satellite launches failed in April , the regime admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had ever done so. During his frequent public appearances, Jong-un can be seen giving guidance at various economic, military, and social and cultural venues, as his father and grandfather did, but he is also shown pulling weeds, riding roller coasters, navigating a tank, and galloping on a horse.

He is comfortable with technology in the form of cell phones and laptops, and is also portrayed speaking earnestly with nuclear scientists and overseeing scores of missile tests. Kim appears to want to reinforce the impression that he is young, vigorous, on the move—qualities that he attributes to his country as well. Speaking directly to the people in April in that first public speech he gave as their leader, he confidently promised that North Koreans would no longer have to tighten their belts.

Later he announced his byungjin policy: that North Korea can have both its nuclear weapons and prosperity. Animated by the optimism of one whose privilege made him believe anything was possible, he has prioritized both these issues and personally taken ownership of them—all part of creating and nurturing his brand. For the toiling masses as well as for the elite, Ri, the glamorous and devoted wife, is an aspirational figure.

Even as tension with the United States went into overdrive after a sixth nuclear test and the launch of numerous ballistic missiles during the summer and fall of , state media showed Kim and his wife touring a North Korean cosmetics factory.

But what of the lives of the average people? Kim may also be using the imagery of these amenities as a corrective, a way of undermining the dominant external narrative of a decaying, starving, economically hobbled North Korea. Of course, Kim still has enormous power and, like his father and grandfather, the willingness to hold onto it through extreme brutality. He maintains control through purges and executions—punishments and acts of revenge he appears to inflict with relish.

Kim has made it clear that he will not tolerate any potential challengers. Kim Jong—un has overseen four nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. For the past six years, Kim has poked and prodded, testing and pushing the boundaries of international tolerance for his actions, calculating that he can handle whatever punishment is meted out.

To a large extent, he has maintained the initiative on the Korean Peninsula, to the frustration of the United States and his neighbors. And as the U. Although that space launch failed, North Korea, despite international condemnation of the April test, had success with its next attempt, when it launched a satellite into orbit in December By portraying Kim Jong-un as a hands-on leader who personally ordered the rocket launch from a satellite command center, the state media framed their new leader as bold and action-oriented even in the face of widespread international censure.

Under Kim, North Korea has pressed the accelerator on nuclear and missile development and has codified its status as a nuclear-armed state by inscribing that description into the revised constitution it issued in Kim has overseen three more nuclear tests, and debuted and tested new ballistic missiles of various ranges from multiple locations, including a submarine-launched ballistic missile and, in July and November , intercontinental ballistic missiles.

North Korea shows every indication of making rapid progress toward the ability to threaten the United States and its allies, while also developing an arsenal for survivable second-strike options in the event of a conflict.

She was four or five years older than Kim Jong-il and was still married to another man with whom she had a child when they began their romantic relationship. By the conservative standards of North Korean society, this was a fairly sordid relationship, and for many years Kim Jong-il concealed his common law wife and new son from his father, Kim Il-sung. At the time of Kim Jong-nam's birth, Kim Jong-il was the leading candidate to succeed his father, and details of his relationship with Ms Song, if they had become public, could have derailed his ambitions particularly as his nearest political rival was his despised stepmother.

Because of the nature of the relationship, Kim Jong-nam was shuttered away in a large residence in central Pyongyang. As his mother suffered from a variety of physical and mental infirmities requiring treatment outside North Korea, he lived with his maternal grandmother and his maternal aunt, Song Hye-rang.

The second Ms Song was an author and widow with two children of her own. When Jong-nam was an infant, his aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister tried to take the baby away and adopt him as her own child. She was overruled, but she would always support Jong-nam. Instead, he grew up in secret, literally sealed behind palace gates.

Kim Jong-il doted on his son - co-sleeping with him, eating dinner and telephoning him when he was too busy to return home. Despite rumours perpetuated by South Korean sources, Jong-nam did eventually meet and forge a relationship with grandfather Kim Il-sung. In , Jong-nam began a year odyssey studying and living outside North Korea. He stayed in Russia and Switzerland and eventually became fluent in French and English, returning to North Korea in the late s.

His exposure to the outside world and his impatience living in relative social isolation in Pyongyang and Wonsan led him to question North Korea's political and economic system. At several points, Kim Jong-il became so frustrated with Jong-nam that he threatened to send the young man to a political prison camp to work in a coal mine.

According to his aunt, the threat of imprisonment was so real that the family took measures to buy adequate clothing and shoes for the day when they would be sent away. Instead of being incarcerated, Jong-nam spent his 20s contending with his father's demands and unrealistic expectations. Jong-nam would never be a viable candidate as his father's successor, but he still joined the family business. He would be linked to North Korea's internal security apparatus and its foreign exchange-earning operations outside the country.

During the Arduous March of the s, as thousands of North Korean citizens starved to death, Jong-nam participated in audits in which central party officials reviewed the finances and business practices of state-owned factories.

After some of these audits, Jong-nam would witness the public executions of factory managers accused of stealing from the state. All of this would be enough to disillusion Jong-nam about the country in which he was born and the political system his father and grandfather led.

He married in the late s and fathered several children. Sources: Kim Jong Un's half-brother killed Story highlights First-born, illegitimate son of former leader Kim Jong Il was not considered for leadership Educated overseas, he likely had no relationship with his brother, leader Kim Jong Un. The leader's son, Kim Jong Nam, was caught sneaking into Japan on a fake diplomatic passport -- so that he could visit Tokyo Disneyland.

His choice of destination wasn't the only reason for red faces in Pyongyang. More pertinently, it was that he had exposed that members of the regime used fake passports to travel overseas, according to Michael Madden, a frequent contributor to North Korean monitoring organization 38 North and visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

It was a rare window into the workings of the North Korean elite, seen through the prism of former leader Kim Jong Il's first-born son, an overweight playboy, but also a smart and open-minded man, according to Yoji Gomi, the author of the book "My Father, Kim Jong Il, and Me. Read More. Early years. The affair has been widely reported by international media. However, despite a second visit by Koizumi in , relations with Japan deteriorated as the DPRK could not or would not meet Japanese demands over the abductees.

Matters were made worse by nuclear and missile issues. In meetings with visiting foreigners, he came across as confidant and knowledgeable and not unwilling to ask for information from his aides if he was unfamiliar with a subject. He was said to have a large collection of films and to be very interested in the Internet; he suggested to Madeleine Albright that they keep in touch by e-mail, although he failed to provide her with an e-mail address.

His private life was complicated, with children by several mothers. This is another subject about which there is very little reliable information. No details of his marital status have ever been published in the DPRK media. He has never appeared in public with a spouse.

Accounts of his wives and mistresses appear regularly in the ROK but are generally unverifiable. In the early s, people in the DPRK professed not to know if he was married. One report on his domestic life says that he thought a wife should be a person who takes care of children and does household work. According to her sister, who published a book in , his first mistress was an actress, Seong Hye-rim , whom he met during his schooldays.

She later married one of his friends, but this did not stop her from becoming his mistress around She later divorced her husband. Their son, Kim Jeong-nam, was born in