Plan B Forum

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has climbed the country's highest mountain, state-run media has reported.



Photos were released of the smiling and windswept 32-year-old standing on snow-covered ground at the top of Mount Paektu, with the sun rising behind him.

One image shows dozens of troops cheering deliriously as the leader greets them at the peak.

"Climbing Mount Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," the Rodong newspaper quoted Mr Kim as saying.

State-run news service KCNA reported the young ruler of the impoverished but nuclear-armed North scaled the mountain on Saturday morning along with hundreds of fighter pilots, and top army and party officials.

The story is the latest run by state media on the feats of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled for more than six decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.

Just last week the regime insisted Mr Kim could drive by the time he was three years old.

Among the claims made about his late father, Kim Jong-Il, was the suggestion he had scored an incredible 11 holes-in-one the first time he ever played golf.

The 2,750-metre peak of the volcanic mountain, which is on the border with China, is considered a sacred place in Korean folklore and is key to propaganda glorifying the Kim family.

Pyongyang has always insisted Kim Jong-Il was born on the mountain - although many historians say he was born in Russia - and praised the family for their "Mount Paektu bloodline".

Mr Kim, like his predecessors, has made frequent "field guidance trips" to industrial plants, army bases, and sacred sites across the country in what analysts say is an attempt at forging an image as an energetic man of the people.