The Crown Prince of North Korea

[Hopeless Romantic]

The youngest son of Kim Jong-il, has been appointed a four-star general, according to state media, after North Korea’s powerful military gave its tacit backing to the dynastic succession plans of the country.

The announcement came after North Korean sources claimed Kim Jong-un, the son of the ailing dictator, had been elected by the army as a delegate to the historic part meeting that begins in Pyongyang today.

"Kim Jong-un's election as a delegate is widely known among executives of the North Korean People's Army," the source said.

After the election, the party's central committee also put out an internal propaganda notice proclaiming Kim Jong-un to be Kim Jong-il's "sole successor", it was claimed in South Korea's largest newspaper the Chosun Ilbo.

North Korea's state media has provided no information about the details of the congress which is the first major meeting of the ruling Workers Party congress for 30 years. North Korea's propaganda machine has promised the outcome of the event will be "historic".

At the last such meeting, in 1980, the then 38-year-old Kim Jong-il was officially declared as his father's successor at the start of a 14-year apprenticeship that eventually saw him take over as leader following the death Kim Il-sung in 1994.

There has been feverish speculation in recent weeks that tomorrow's meeting will mark a similar rite of passage for Kim Jong-un, the Swiss-educated youngest son of the Kim dynasty who is still only in his mid-to-late 20s.

Although the conference remains shrouded in secrecy, experts have predicted that Kim Jong-un could follow directly in his father's footsteps and be elected to the party's central committee as the start of his own apprenticeship for the top job.

Analysts are also expecting further promotion for Kim Jong-un's uncle, Jang Song-taek, who has been tipped as a regent figure who will shepherd Kim Jnr though his early years in power after the death of his father who has been in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2008.

In Pyongyang yesterday there were signs that delegates from all over the country of 23 million were gearing up for the meeting, with the capital festooned with flags and placards announcing the meeting.
"Warm congratulations to the representatives meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea!" read one poster.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8028911/Kim-Jong-un-appointed-general-North-Korea-state-media-claims.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Wouldn't this be better in another forum?

It's nothing to do with the UK. You are able to post in other DU forums, you know.

And, by the way, there's a rule about only copying 4 paragraphs from a copyright source like a newspaper website (or the BBC, and so on). It's not there just for fun; Free Republic was sued by the Washington Post some years ago, and was one of several sites sued again this year, by a paper that seems to have decided to make its money on the internet by suing for copyright infringement. And I suspect the Barclay brothers would happily take money in the same way.

There's an LBN thread on this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4555586

[Hopeless Romantic]

2. yes I know, but I like this one, plus it was in a British newspaper

are we only allowed to discuss home affairs in here then?

[T_i_B]

3. If you look round DU...

...you'll soon find there are other foums more suitable for this sort of story. And US DUer's are fairly well aware of the UK press and it's various agendas.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. And, as if by magic, DU gets sued over a Las Vegas Review-Journal excerpt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4556835

Well, the suit started on Aug 10th, when I wasn't paying much attention to DU, so perhaps this was common knowledge here anyway. But this definitely shows the danger of posting an entire article; DU's defence is that posting 5 sentences from an article over 50 sentences long is allowable, and the entity that is suing (who buys the copyright from the paper, so that they can sue), said:

"In Righthaven LLC v. Realty One Group, Inc., 2:10-cv-01036-LRH-PAL, Righthaven’s counsel conceded in its Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (document 12) that an excerpt consisting of the first two paragraphs of the news article in that case would have been a fair use.

The first two paragraphs of the news article in that case contained three sentences,
and the article as a whole contained 28 sentences."