While North Korea’s Kim Jong-un shakes 
hands with Donald Trump and continues to build his nuclear arsenal, his wife and sister 
 shore up his regime with a charm offensive 
 at home and abroad

This article has an estimated read time of 12 minutes 

North Korea used to be a hermit kingdom, where everyone was equally poor. Everyone, that is, except for the ruling Kim family. But all that has changed since Kim Jong-un took over the dictatorship in 2011, at the preposterously young age of 27.

To defy the odds and stay in control, the Great Successor, as he was then known, has coddled the elite who keep him in power. And among this select group, there is one subset that Kim particularly wants to…

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