through. the victorious players gathered with fans in downtown reykjavik to celebrate through the night. now the icelandic thundercloud made famous at the european championships will be heading for russia twenty eight but the. head of the u.s. environmental protection agency has confirmed that the united states of plans to withdraw from climate change regulations put in place during the a bomb administration scott pruitt said he would today begin the procedure to withdraw from the clean power plan which aims to limit limit carbon emissions from coal fired power plants mr pruitt like president trump rejects the scientific consensus that manmade emissions are the primary driver of climate change. essential updates we'll have more for you at the top of the hour in the meantime of course as always the web site that's t w dot com of the.

rationalists are on the rise with lard to make your country great again that is their slogan their focus put your nation first i am taking a long trip to highlights different shades of nationalism and to find out why this nation me to you. to share your story join the conversation on to w. on twitter and on facebook. he's the world's youngest dictator and the most unpredictable. sydney few this man. we all have to care about. north korea has nuclear weapons. the search for

details on the early life of kim jong un takes us to bern switzerland. kim's father north korean leader kim jong il is reported to have sent him here to attend school under an assumed name. there's a large north korean community unburned swiss journalists tito's plattner explains why they choose to live there. sixty just like no nice resist being no toilets she's the reason for that lies in the recent history of switzerland it's a neutral country and many international organizations are based hero too. switzerland has always been open to the north koreans they know that this is a peaceful country and that their privacy will be respected their. their joy and that's why a lot of prominent north koreans send their kids to study here he was going to deal

she's books a plan that includes kim jong un here can join a plessis is a false rumors. in one thousand nine hundred ninety two swiss authorities received an application filed by the north korean embassy for a residence permit on behalf of a certain mr pak. the visa application listed the names of three children show hoon and me here and the dates of their birth are the same as those of kim jong il's three children but the names were changed slightly. south x. is a fight they love saying don't people know that kim's children were in switzerland their identities had been confirmed. stress authorities didn't have a problem with betty in fact they saw it as an opportunity for god to maintain contact with an extremely isolated country overtly told. the package children

lived for a year in the north korean embassy which is located in an upscale burn suburb. the oldest chose attended the private international school located nearby along with the children of diplomats and businesspeople. souls' younger brother who now attended a public school whom is believed to be kim jong un north korea's current leader the first few months at the school were difficult for the new student but he eventually settled in school principal woolies studio described tune as a thoroughly normal student. as it is surely surely some life that he did reasonably well as a student it's about average i'd say solution lies the involved in so called it may

tell may seek. it's own was quite interested in sports especially basketball for. moderate asked us for girls inc the interests of. later the park children moved into an apartment building though catered near the school we weren't allowed to go inside. but these pictures from a real estate website show what the apartment looks like modern and about average for a middle class family. in school who learned the fundamentals of swiss democracy he and his classmates even visited the swiss parliament. and she just if it is a. you know man he made some friends there some later said that he'd invite them home to play game boy or susie it's also said that he played basketball with some

of his classmates or lived nearby or like the game i had to get you to force him on the plane just about every evening but what with. him seemed to get along very well with the other kids looked like a auburn welcome to his own fondest ashleigh. photographs of his look rather different from those of the kim jong un we know today. swiss identification experts carried out a detailed study of the facial features and the similarities led them to conclude that who is indeed kim. and there's more evidence. and north korean woman named ko young he regularly traveled to switzerland by private jet. with security officials capture under surveillance she was suspected of smuggling precious metals but she actually turned

out to be the mother of the kim children. walk up while her visits would last for two three or four months. and she says she stayed in their apartment if you should be but would also take off on shopping trips to big european cities. you should also organize family gatherings for example at a hotel in interlochen dallek and doesn't attend but she's read a bunch of rooms and that's where they've made it to feel funny. kim jong il's private life was considered a state secret but if you insiders knew that he had at least three mistresses and four children on those occasions when kim fell seriously ill neighboring countries worried about. who would succeed him if he died but that decision seems to have been made early on. north korea's confucian

tradition dictated that kim's oldest son kim jong nam would eventually become the country's leader but that changed after he was caught with a fake passport when he and his family arrived in tokyo to visit disneyland. as usual. john you believe that his second oldest son came junk sold wasn't tough enough to leave the country. kim jong was the youngest of the three sons his mother co young he was the elder kim's favorite mistress she had a lot of influence at least according to insiders. for unions to order his out. played

a key role in making kim jong un the supreme leader because every citizen your car has. done his will was a senior official in the government's r.t.e. sectors or do a job but after the tokyo incident where you know he'd been living in exile in china a crime that sit in a book. on december seventeenth twenty eleven north korea was and morning kim jong il known to his people as the bright son of the twenty first century was dead. his son kim jong un had already been appointed to several top government posts the year before and was featured prominently at the state funeral. kim accompanied his father's coffin during the ceremony a clear sign that he had been chosen the new leader.

kim jong il was ruling the country you know basically had senior position that kind of or for quite some time before he became the leader at least ten years. that he is he was involved and i'm going i think you all came very suddenly and they did the propaganda they did a bit of going back and sort of trying to create a story about how he was being trained many years in advance but that wasn't the case at all i mean the fact of the matter was his father had had the first stroke and that's when they started becoming concerned about succession and then he died quite suddenly and i think the young fellow was not ready there was a plan i think to have him become the next leader but i imagine they were thinking five ten years not one year and so you know i think it was very clear from the funeral and everything you know the way he looked in the way he was behaving that

he was in shock and not really ready to take over. keep john who was in his mid twenty's and unknown quantity. would the country's top generals also attended the funeral except kim as his father his successor. kim's grandfather kim il sung's established the democratic people's republic of north korea in one thousand nine hundred forty eight his son kim jong il was groomed for ten years as his successor and was officially chosen as communist party leader in one thousand nine hundred ninety seven he was in his mid fifty's at the time. was in his mid twenty's when he took over the top spot at that time. north korea was in the middle of a severe economic crisis that was caused by the collapse of communism in eastern europe. kano lost kill. kill

kill joy own had to build a support network among senior officials who would experience severe anger is children. too he would be much more difficult for him to build relationships with these people are going to have been for his predecessors. when you're going there was no real connection between him and the other leaders. the tones of power was divided among various factions and it was decided by intimidation and even violence . it was. you know i think that there probably is a lot of internal churn in there because what seemed to be clear is that after kim jong un did take power he was trying to move some of the business concessions and the political power in the military that his father put there right his father believed in so-called military first politics and move it over to the party or at least balance out the party in the military all of the generals that were with kim

jong il and by the hearse of his father and the funeral procession are all gone none of them are left and so very clearly he's wiped out a group that is trying to bring in a new group. perhaps the most important victim of this purge was the man who walked directly behind kim in the procession his uncle. john was married to kim il sung's only daughter and later became a close ally of kim jong il. when kim fell ill john was said to have been considered for the post of regent in case kim jong un took over as leader. but kim decided that he didn't need any help running the country john was dismissed from several top posts and in december two thousand and thirteen state media

reported that he had been executed. i worked with john and he was exceptionally competent. plotters he had a good sense of humor. and he also treated his subordinates one could. certainly the news of his arrest and then his execution were quite surprising to many of us who study this country but i think what was. most surprising was a written statement that came out explaining why he had been killed you know in the past in north korea when these sorts of things happen they happen very quietly it's a car accident or it's a sickness and there's really not much explanation given but in this clay case you have a very clear explanation. many ways exposing vulnerabilities inside of north korea . john was arrested in a communist party meeting he was accused of various counter-revolutionary acts that

included treason undermining the rule of kim jong un promoting a decadent capitalist lifestyle and having illicit affairs with women. but did john's execution really help him consolidate his power. to. the public execution of junk song attack will continue to damage the regime. to the rights of confucianism run deep in north korea and that means that old i mean you know you call it secular the family members a jew a certain respect for the fact that kim had his uncle executed could undermine the loyalty of the people. of iran but. the koreans. insula has been officially divided since one thousand nine hundred fifty three into communist north and capitalist south south korea's capital seoul lies just thirty kilometers

south of the border well within the range of north korean heavy artillery south korean troops stationed along the demilitarized zone keep a close eye on northern border villages here kim jong un visits the area himself he's definitely trying to make a political point. of corners from the very start has been much more aggressive and hostile than his father was which you can see that clearly in his military policy which is implemented in a very public way. to do into their cars are meant to bring and he pays especially close attention to operations that are directed against south korea claims are toxins the northeast military is combat ready are always holding maneuvers to demonstrate their strength and to reveal a turn i'm sure to name on the freedom to put

a convent to. kim was named in the state run media for the first time in twenty ten when his father made him a four star general. that was important because of the powerful role that the military plays in north korea. i believe that he attended for a period of time perhaps maybe six months or one of the military academies they have given him some titles and of course he you know the way that they're creating the myth is that he planned the children sinking and the shelling of y.p. dough so i don't believe us any credible military experience but i think that they are trying to create that that. right now north korea is playing a strong hand. nuclear weapons.

we all have to care about you know. let's be practical north korea has nuclear weapons is the night of the nuclear weapons state. the assessment is from six to twelve maybe even more nuclear weapons right and they're developing their programs they have a uranium enrichment program to build nuclear weapons they have missile systems they have the scud they have the know down they have a type of down they building the cane away which isn't a continent and the continental ballistic missile which is a mobile missile solid fuel so it's great capabilities so north korea's persisting with a nuclear program that missile program and that and the prospects of. proliferating some of that selling some of that material. north korea's nuclear program was one of kim jong il's top priorities and his son has continued it and even expanded it

the government spends a fortune on nuclear research and development despite international protests. north korea's leaders believe that nuclear weapons will give them a sort of insurance policy against foreign aggression. i think that you know they fear the ceausescu and they fear the khadafi and the saddam and all those those leaders who have lost because they didn't have nuclear weapons they made agreements with the united states or their people rebelled ceausescu's case they don't want to end up in those cases. kim jong un continues to promote a cult of personality just as his father and grandfather did those who fail to measure up to his standards of loyalty often end up in prison camps or worse.

only kim himself is allowed to offer public criticism for example he has promised to wipe out poverty which is widespread in north korea one person who claims to know him well and is willing to talk about him is a japanese chef who worked for kim's father. he and kim would often talk late at night. couldn't it. stop listed i remember one evening quite well we started talking as not to eleven. and the next time i looked at my watch it was five in the morning you'll. be told me i've been to europe several times and to asia including japan. he said there's an amazing amount of food in the shops there that. could in my country there's nothing. you know there that's got to change and i thought the.

at the will develop it he added that north korea should use china's economic policies as a model you can and cannot. when i heard that. i knew that he was moving toward economic reforms. and liberal policies so almost as a sort of of the ship picked on scandal in state sponsored propaganda campaigns kim was portrayed as the savior of north korea's agriculture sector. the first few harvests under kim's rupert use modest results but the country did seem to have overcome the severe famines of the late nine hundred ninety s. at least five hundred thousand people are believed to have died of hunger. if you know in his first speech in april two thousand and twelve. i got

the impression that his one of his main goals was to convince his own people and the rest of the world that this was in one sense a numerous career many of the things that happened in the past were of the past. kim's primary goal was political survival he wanted the country to forget the years of famine but also wanted to strengthen his grip on political power. he often referred publicly to his grandfather kim il sung and by this time had even come to resemble him physically. or mentally able to something was missing in north korea even the little children loved cumulus so he was the great leader at that time everyone had enough to eat at the time life was reasonably good little going on with the problems began when kim

jong il took over the book that's why kim jong un compeyson self to his grandfather and not to his father it isn't a gift that i was angry or you hold it was too good to be singleton and which. can also made a point of appearing in public with his wife which is so. i think that his father rarely did state media announced in july two thousand and twelve that kim and resold jew were now officially married but did not say when the ceremony took place . in public re always appears well dressed and perfectly coopt a western style first lady who represents the new north korea. kim jong il had a number of mistresses and made a point of keeping them out of sight he often chose female companions from among state sponsored groups of performers such as singers or dancer is

a sort of government run harem. kim jong un's wife was a member of one of these groups so was his mother some of the new kim say he started taking an interest in the opposite sex in his early twenty's. and he could have started dating earlier but he just was a new student he loved sports he was always playing basketball with it but one day something up and it came as a great relief to me. there was a group of your former. and one of the girls had very large breasts also just like those. with us almost again you want us that we could get the. chemistry did you see those breasts. sort of almost like you know the whole twitchell's and that's when i finally realized that he was going to be ok or that i did with

a top. and the other attractive young woman kept turning up in official media coverage. during kim jong il's funeral she was shown standing behind the younger kim but she was never identified by name. this woman was actually kim's younger sister keep. also talk. when they were playing together. and her diapers are pants where they slip down or something. what i would say watch out is that any pull them back up quarter. almost all coming out the two of them are quite close and i

still are today. still i don't know if you can draw you know was also close to his sister. in law and some of. the clay got to soul is something that father and son had in common a much tougher normal when i was able to tell us on a. what's interesting is the strong women he surrounds himself with there was a picture of him when he opened one of the fun parks he's walking you know you've got his wife he had his aunt kim jong il's sister he had his his father's last concert who was apparently a very strong woman i can remember there was one or two more so it's not completely a patriarchal system there it seems to me he's i guess he's listening to women as well. kim seems much closer to his younger sister than to his older brother.

in late two thousand and fourteen kim did not appear in public for several months south korean sources said he was recovering from ankle surgery afterward kim was shown using a cane to get around and limping it was most unusual for a north korean leader to show himself in such a vulnerable condition this was certainly not the powerful figure that had been portrayed in state media yeah and. for example when kim pays a visit to his troops they give him an enthusiastic welcome as though he bore some sort of god yes. but is this sort of thing simply staged for the cameras to record. well. you know communion on scenes like that are not unusual he will continue it is as important to his people as jesus is to christians is if you're

a christian and you saw jesus you'd want to welcome him it's the same with kim as you know we do good on. the communion by don and it was a john of course none of it is real for here's this great leader who can turn pine cones into artillery shells and has all these magical powers you can't take any of it seriously. but his kind of brainwashing is dangerous when people are constantly subjected to songs videos and reports or you end up believing what they see or hear it's called crowd psychology. can tell you the oh my god. so when north koreans see kim at the controls of an aircraft for example most assume that he's an experienced pilot. g.p.s. that you are so. he's portrayed as a man who can do just about anything but propaganda is

a two edged sword i just can't really believe everything that his state run media say about him. who is the man behind the mask of north korea's great leader in public he smiles constantly but some experts say there is a very dark side to his personality. you see you marry the man smiling and reaching out to the people and engaging and then you say my god how could you do that to your own people how could you have been so brutal for your own goal. how does that come together but this is what we're looking at we're seeing a leader who's and that's why people say he's he has not been that rational an actor i won you see the humanity in the man the chair is not and the others say you see the brutality and say what do we have.

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