North Korea Wishes The Queen A Happy Birthday

You Won't Believe What North Korea Sent The Queen

North Korea's leaders may be wanted for crimes against humanity but the dictatorship sure doesn't forget birthdays.

The second-most powerful man in North Korea sent a letter of congratulations to Queen Elizabeth for her official birthday, on the 14th June.

The isolated Pyongyang leadership is desperately seeking new friends, analysts have claimed.

It seems the reclusive state is in dire need of help if it feels the need to send a message to the British queen.

"The message wished the queen good health and happ[iness] and the British people well-being and prosperity," the report by state media KCNA said.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Japan's Waseda University and an expert on North Korea, told The Telegraph North Korea feels is has a connection with the UK because "they see themselves as a sort of Korean royal family."

"North Korea is looking for new friends, while they have also sent officials to London to make money on the stock market and seek development aid," he said.

"But there is also real concern in the leadership there that the regime could collapse without China's support, so they are looking for a country that might provide them with political asylum. It is possible that they think Britain might provide that."

Japanese media recently reported that it had seen leaked copies of China's contingency plans for the collapse of North Korea - with some reports suggesting that it could soon be "all over" for Kim Jong-un's regime.

China is North Korea's most important diplomatic and economic ally, but three nuclear tests and several rounds of sabre rattling have tested Beijing's support.

In January, Beijing halted exports of critically important oil over the border, an unprecedented act that highlighted the level of frustration.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un’s relentless self-promotion as the hardest man on earth continues – as these outrageously macho shots reveal.

With the wind in his hair, the portly North Korean leader was pictured looking noble astride the tower of what appears to be a Soviet-built submarine from the 1950s.

The images were released by the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers Party.

Posing like a boss: Kim Jong Un aboard an ageing submarine

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