SEOUL—Kim Jong Un was a virtual unknown when his father died of a heart attack in December 2011 and left him the leader of North Korea. Intelligence analysts knew little more than he was a man in his 20s who had attended school in Switzerland and loved basketball. Some guessed Mr. Kim, third in a line of Kim-family dictators, would be a weak, short-lived ruler. Governments abroad feared a violent collapse, but also hoped that the...

Source: Wall Street Journal September 18, 2016 21:45 UTC