Kim Jong-Un's Brother Not Happy with Hereditary Rule

Passed over to run the family business, Kim Jong-Nam lets the world know he thinks his brother's rule is a joke.

There's at least one member of North Korea's ruling Kim clan that doesn't think too highly of the new Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Un. His older brother, Kim Jong-Nam, who fell out of favour with father Kim Jong-Il after a much-publicized failed attempt to go to Japan's Disneyland in 2001, said he sees Kim Jong-Un as nothing more than a symbol with no real authority. Talking to Tokyo's Shimbun newspaper, Kim said that he has "doubts about how a young successor with some two years [of training as heir]" can actually rule the North Korea. "I expect the existing ruling elite to follow in the footsteps of my father while keeping the young successor as a symbolic figure ... It is difficult to accept a third-generation succession under a normal reasoning." Sounds a little like sour grapes to us, but at least it suggests that not everyone in the Kim family is entirely out to lunch, even if he appears to be gambling away the family fortune in Macau.

In other North Korean news, Kim Jong-Il's body will soon be put on permanent display in the same palace as his father, Kim Il-Sung, and the country's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, has just launched an English-language website. Among the delicious news tidbits read: "Kim Jong-Il and the development of Cinema Art" and "DPRK Will Advance for Global Independence, Peace and Friendship." Good to hear things are going so swimmingly in ol' North Korea.