Apprenticeship over for North Korea's young leader

SEOUL: Nearly two years ago, seven elders of the North Korean regime marched with Kim Jong-Un alongside his father's hearse on a bitterly cold and snowy day in Pyongyang.

The funeral on December 28, 2011—held nine days after the regime announced the death of Kim Jong-Il—was a powerful symbol of continuity as the untested new supremo took over a nuclear-armed country that was frozen in decades of economic and diplomatic isolation.