Just like that famous photo with Stalin, where over successive year successive people disappeared from the official image.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Kim PudgeJong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... has erased a top military commander and another senior official from state photos after the North Korean leader was reportedly left fuming over a failed warship launch.
Navy Commander Admiral Kim Myong Sil and and shipyard boss Hong Kil Ho were airbrushed from images showing them with their leader back in March, sparking speculation that they may have been executed.
Original snaps showed Admiral King and the shipyard boss gathered next to the North Korean leader as he inspected the ship.
But now, in a move reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's tactics to erase his enemies from Soviet history, the officials have seemingly disappeared from the photos that were originally broadcast on state television.
Founder of NK Leadership Watch Michael Madden told The Sun that the removal of a North Korean official from a state media image was a 'strong indication that the person in question has been executed.'
Admiral Kim and Hong Kil Ho are understood to have been among the four officials arrested at the northern Chongjin shipyard after Kim Jong-un's guided-missile destroyer sank during its launch on May 21.
The North Korean leader was left fuming after the disastrous launch last month, and he accused those responsible for 'severely damaging the [country's] dignity and pride.'
Satellite images appeared to show the naval destroyer languishing on its side alongside the dock where the launch ceremony had been held.
State media said the 5,000-ton ship, which had been due to enter service next year, is designed to carry weapons systems including near-capable ballistic and cruise missiles.
Kim Jong Un, who wants bigger warships to deal with what he calls escalating US-led threats against his country, declared the mishap a 'criminal act caused by absolute carelessness' that 'could not be tolerated'.
He ordered the destroyer be restored by June, but Admiral Kim and Hong Kil Ho were both noticeably absent from the relaunch ceremony.
In April Kim unveiled the nuclear-capable naval destroyer that he says will bolster North Korea 's ability to defend itself in the face of perceived aggression from the US and its regional allies.
The North Korean leader attended the warship's launch ceremony at the western port of Nampo with his teenage daughter Kim Ju Ae, according to state-run media.
Ju Ae has been widely regarded by analysts as the likely successor to Kim since she was referred to as a 'great person of guidance' in an official report last year.
Kim said the 5,000-ton vessel would bolster efforts to expand the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military.
The 'multi-purpose' destroyer, designed to handle a variety of arms including nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, was touted as the first in a new class of heavily armed warships.
Kim, who has framed the arms buildup as a response to the supposed danger posed by the US and its allies in Asia, said the destroyer would be handed over to the navy early next year before beginning active duty.
Jo Chun Ryong, a secretary in the ruling Workers' party, claimed the ship was equipped with the 'most powerful weapons' and was built 'within 400-odd days'.
Kim also took aim at efforts by the US and South Korea to expand joint military exercises and update their nuclear deterrence strategies, which he portrayed as preparations for war.
He vowed to 'respond decisively to this geopolitical crisis and ongoing developments,' the Korean Central News Agency reported.
[SkyNews] The Irish prime minister will make an official state apology after an investigation found evidence of widespread abuse.
Unmarried mothers in Ireland faced a "brutally misogynistic culture" for decades, a minister has said after the publication of a report into the deaths of 9,000 children and babies.
A five-year investigation by a judicial commission of investigation details how the children died at 18 institutions for unmarried mothers and their babies between 1922 and 1998.
9000/76 years = 118.4 deaths per year, which doesn’t sound nearly so awful. Yes, brutally mysogynistic, but how does that compare to deaths of infants and children in Ireland to married women during that period? Or to unmarried women who gave birth outside of Irish institutions for unmarried mothers ditto?
The commission's 3,000-page report confirms that 9,000 babies died - about 15% of all the children who were in the institutions - and a figure far higher than the national mortality rate at the time.
A partial answer — quantify please so we can judge for ourselves.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin will make an official state apology to those affected on Wednesday in the Dail.
He said the report describes "a dark, difficult and shameful chapter of very recent Irish history", and called on the Church to issue its own apology.
The Irish government will also provide financial recognition to the specific groups identified in the report, and push ahead with laws to support excavation, exhumation and, where possible, identification of remains at burial sites.
Additionally, the government has established a counselling support service for survivors, who were given access to it for the first time earlier on Tuesday.
#3
Yea, well - since fatherless children are fucked (regardless of socioeconomic background: I've seen artificial insemination children of women of middle middle class in my son's old school - all have serious psychological problems) ...
#1
SpaceX
@SpaceX
On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m. CT, the Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.
Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials. There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue
10:37 PM · Jun 18, 2025
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
