North Korea's Propaganda Chief Dies

North Korea's former propaganda chief, credited with masterminding the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, has died, state media said , with leader Kim Jong Un photographed bowing at his funeral bier.

Kim Ki Nam died due to old age and "multiple organ dysfunction", having been treated at a hospital since 2022, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said. He was 94.

Kim Jong Un visited the funeral hall, paid silent tribute and looked around the bier with "bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who had remained boundlessly loyal" to the regime.

A wreath in the name of Kim Jong Un was "laid before the bier of the deceased".

Kim Ki Nam is best known for having led North Korea's key department for propaganda. In the 1970s, he was in charge of Pyongyang's official mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

He is credited with masterminding the cult of the Kim family dynasty, and Pyongyang's state media described him as "a veteran of our Party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist".

The Kim dynasty, established by Pyongyang's founding leader Kim Il Sung, has ruled the impoverished, isolated nation with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult over three generations.

The family are revered in the North as the "Paektu bloodline", named after the country's highest mountain and supposed birthplace of the late leader Kim Jong Il.

In 2015, images in state media showed the late official Kim Ki Nam, in his 80s at the time, taking notes diligently in front of Kim Jong Un, more than 50 years his junior.

Kim Ki Nam's role as the regime's chief propagandist was eventually passed on to Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, in the late 2010s.