New title for Kim Jong-un

North Korea’s Workers’ Party named young leader Kim Jong-un as “first secretary”, a newly created post, at a rare conference held yesterday, the official KCNA news agency said.

The party met while the country fuelled a long-range rocket in defiance of international sanctions and warnings, ready for blast-off as early as today.

The same conference named Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December, as its “general secretary for eternity”.

Some analysts had expected Kim Jong-un to become general secretary, but the title going to his father for eternity makes sense. Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder who died in 1994, is president for eternity.