Kim Jong-un named one of world’s most influential people

Kim Jong-un

Time magazine online named North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for being “the incarnation of the tenets of self-sufficiency established by his grandfather and father.”

Kim, who is believed to be in his late 20s, is one of the “four rogues” included in the list.

The magazine said villainy is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes the more heinous the crime, the more clinging the adulation.

“Autarky and a war footing are not paths to prosperity. Hence gulags, famine and privation: hence nuclear arms and military adventurism to wrest what Pyongyang calls concessions,” it said.

“Prosperous northeastern Asia will remain unpredictable until he provides the answer.”

Kim consolidated power after his father Kim Jong-il died of heart attack last December. North Korea drew international condemnation again after unsuccessfully attempting to launch a Kwangmyongsong 3 satellite on a Unha-3 rocket. The international community condemned the reclusive nation for the launch, calling it a long-range missile test.

The North claimed it was a satellite and the country has the right to use space peacefully. The launch prompted a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) presidential statement denouncing it as a violation of its previous resolutions.

Other “rogues” named by the magazine include Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Sheik Moktar Ali Zubeyr, the purported emir of the al-Shabab Islamic militia in Somalia. <Korea Times/Kang Hyun-kyung>

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