SEOUL – North Korea issued a cold wave alert on Wednesday, predicting high winds and heavy snow over the weekend. The world is watching to see if leader Kim Jong-un will return to Mount Paektu on the 10th anniversary of his rise to power. According to the North's official Korean Central News Agency, freezing temperatures weather is expected from Friday night to Sunday, with temperatures in the region of Mount Paektu, the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula, expected to drop to as low as minus 35 to minus 40 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning. Kim has a history of visiting the mountain, which is seen as one of the country's holiest sites, before making key political decisions.

It was expected that Kim would do so again in the run-up to a plenary session of North Korea's governing Workers' Party later this month, where the country's important internal and international policy directions for the coming year could be announced.

This month's conference takes place on the tenth anniversary of Kim's ascension to the leadership of North Korea's reclusive dictatorship. On December 30, 2011, 13 days after his father Kim Jong-il died, the 37-year-old legally assumed leadership. Eight months after his failed summit with the US in Hanoi, Kim rode a white horse to Mount Paektu in October 2019 and criticised Washington for inflicting "continuous sanctions and pressure" on Pyongyang.

In December of that year, he returned to the mountain, followed by a four-day ruling party plenary session during which Kim stated that he no longer sees a cause to hold to his prior vow to cease nuclear and long-range missile tests.

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