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Geopolitics

Kim Family Dynamics: We Overlook North Korea At Our Peril

What should the world make of Kim Jong-un, his young daughter Ju Ae in tow, flexing North Korea's military hardware? Nothing good, though the scenario that it is mostly just a flex is still the most likely.

Image of a TV screen with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's second public appearance with his daughter during a photo session with officials when intercontinental ballistic missile

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's second public appearance with his daughter during a photo session with officials when intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) were launched on November 2022.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

Every week, it seems, North Korea announces a new military development. This week it was a visit by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, to a satellite production center with his daughter Ju Ae by his side. She's with him on all such occasions. Kim's father used the appearance to announce that North Korea had completed manufacturing a spy satellite, the first of its kind.

Last week, there was Pyongyang's first-ever test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that uses solid fuel. According to experts, solid fuel makes it easier to load missiles compared to liquid fuel that was used previously. This allows for faster preparations for firing and makes it more difficult to detect any potential launch in advance.

Since the beginning of last year, North Korea has carried out over 100 missile tests of various types as a way to test its weapons, improve its technology, command structures, and coordination of its armed forces. This is a record, and most importantly, it is completely prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions — but Pyongyang doesn't care.


This is a strategy thought out by the Kim family, in power in North Korea for decades. The North Korean nuclear and ballistic program took off under the reign of Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader, and was accelerated by his son.

Life insurance

North Korea has already conducted six confirmed nuclear tests, making it a de facto nuclear power, and it is unlikely to step back. It has acquired a full range of missiles and a formidable cyber army, and the spy satellite adds to the military arsenal that consumes a significant portion of the resources of this unparalleled country.

The Kim regime wants to be taken seriously.

Despite its warlike rhetoric and outward appearances, North Korea may not be actively preparing for war. Instead, the country appears to be engaged in a dual approach. First and foremost, it seeks to deter potential aggressors by maintaining a robust arsenal, which the regime sees as its life insurance against its historical enemies, the US and South Korea. The other dimension is more complex: the Kim regime wants to be taken seriously.

As we saw in 2018-2019, North Korea engaged in numerous military provocations before reaching out to Donald Trump. This led to the flamboyant Trump-Kim summits, which ultimately resulted in a fruitless honeymoon period, with the US refusing to sign an agreement without a guarantee of denuclearization.

Image of \u200bA TV screen shows a footage of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Yongsan Railway Station in Seoul on January 1st 2023.

A TV screen shows a footage of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Yongsan Railway Station in Seoul on January 1st 2023.

Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images via Zuma

Upward ambitions

After the breakdown, Kim Jong-un resumed his aggressive rhetoric and military preparations, a long road to prove his capacity for harm. Up until now, it could be thought that he was only seeking the guarantee of his regime's survival and the lifting of economic sanctions.

Today, with concrete support provided to Russia and growing Sino-American tensions, has North Korea revised its ambitions upwards? Is it ready to be more actively confrontational? This would certainly be more worrying.

In the meantime, people in this part of Asia are living under threat, like those on the Japanese island of Hokkaido who were sent to shelters last week because a missile appeared to be headed their way, before falling into the Sea of Japan. In the absence of any real political perspective, the Kim family only seems to want to raise the military stakes. Come what may.

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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