INTERNATIONAL: On 30 December,North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is celebrating his 10-year anniversary as a ruler, following the death of his father, the late leader Kim Jong Il in 2011.

Hailed as the “Great Successor”, of the reclusive state after his father and late leader Kim Jong Il has died of heart attack in late 2011, the North Korean leader was born either in 1983 or early 1984. He was the third generation of the Kim family to rule the country. Little was known about young Kim, who attended a private school in Switzerland in his late teens.

Since taking over as leader, the young Kim has followed his father's programme by ordering the North's third nuclear test and launching a long-range rocket in the face of increasingly tight U.N. sanctions. North Korea has launched a long-range rocket in 2012, putting what it called a communications satellite into orbit, but no signal was ever detected. Kim continued to conduct test-launches since then.

In 2013, Jang Song Thaek, the husband of Kim Jong Il's sister Kim Kyong Hui and uncle of leader Kim Jong Un and previously considered the second most powerful man in the secretive state, was executed after a special military tribunal found him guilty of treason. Subsequently in 2017, Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader, was killed at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, a Vietnamese, were charged with killing Kim by smearing his face with VX, a chemical poison banned by the United Nations.

In 2018, then United States president Donald Trump and Kim held a historic first summit in Singapore which Kim pledged to work toward denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. However, North Korea has continued to rebuff U.S. entreaties for diplomacy since U.S. President Joe Biden took over from Trump, who had three summits with Kim.

In early December 2021, Kim has declared that the country's military education system must redouble efforts to turn out officers who "remain absolutely loyal" to the country's ruling party, state media reported. It was the latest in a series of events and public relations campaigns focused on boosting political loyalty. In addition, Kim had sought to boost the economy and power supply with his plan, but U.N. agencies have said food and electricity shortages have remained, exacerbated by sanctions imposed over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters.

^{PHOTO: FILE FOOTAGE OF NORTH KOREA'S LEADER KIM JONG UN}