A decade later, North Korea under Kim Jong Un is even more isolated and oppressed

The chubby-cheeked 27-year-old trudged alongside his father’s hearse that snowy, overcast day 10 years ago, gazing downward and away from the gaggle of cameras trained on him.

With his father’s abrupt passing, Kim Jong Un, third-generation heir to one of the world’s last communist bastions, was now in charge of North Korea and its 25 million people.

“The Kim Jong Un regime will not last long,” his half brother told a Japanese journalist. “North Korea as we know it is over,” a White House veteran wrote in an op-ed. Even on the streets of the capital, Pyongyang, where criticizing the Kim dynasty is verboten, whispers arose about his youth, inexperience and murky parentage.

The younger Kim’s rule over North Korea after