Kim Jong-Un can be described in many ways: powerful, ruthless, authoritarian - and several too rude for us to publish online.

But there is one word not often used to describe the North Korean despot: ATTRACTIVE.

In these pictures released by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim sports a haircut rarely seen on comprehensive school boys beyond Year 9 and cuts a portly figure in his trademark black overcoat.

Yet while supervising a flight drill of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force Unit 2620, for some reason Kim was surrounded by a gaggle of girlies dressed in flying gear.

We're as flummoxed as you.

The pictures bring to mind The Onion's hilarious 2012 satirical list of the Sexiest Men Alive, when they installed the son of the late Kim Jong-Il at number one.

"With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true," it wrote.

Hilariously, the People's Daily in China took the story at face value and ran it in entirety as a straight news piece - alongside a 55-photo slideshow showing Kim riding a stallion, among other 'sexy' poses.

See them in the YouTube video below from 3:03.

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The Onion responded in typically sarcastic fashion, hailing the People's Daily "a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion... exemplary reportage, comrade."