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On the 7th of this month, North Korea’s new leader Kim Jong Eun was spotted wearing a new ‘pair badge’ (a badge including images of both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il). In previous appearances he had been wearing one featuring only Kim Il Sung. Since then, many other high-ranking cadres from the Party and military have also appeared in public wearing the same badge.
In mid-April Chosun Central TV announcers and those in attendance at Kim Jong Eun’s onsite guidance visits started sporting the ‘pair badge’ as well. Conspicuously, all who appeared in images of the newly selected Politburo published by Rodong Shinmun on the 12th had it, too.
Soldiers were wearing it in photographs taken at Panmunjom on the 26th.
However, on the 25th in photos taken by foreign correspondents at the 80th anniversary of the Chosun People’s Army founding in Pyongyang, people sported Kim Il Sung badges only. Thus, it is clear that the badge is not in nationwide circulation yet.
The move is just part of the practical realization of amendments to Party regulations put in place by the 4th Party Delegates’ Conference on the 11th, under which the Party is now described as the “Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il party”. Another is that “Great Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il Will Always Be with Us” is now one of the most ubiquitous slogans on buildings in Pyongyang, replacing a similar slogan which was for Kim Il Sung alone.
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