NORTH KOREA:NORTH KOREA'S Kim Jong-il may have suffered a stroke, intelligence sources said, after the secretive leader failed to appear at festivities to mark the Stalinist state's 60th birthday yesterday, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing
There has been frequent speculation about Mr Kim's health in recent years after the 66-year-old leader appeared to lose a lot of weight; he is suspected of suffering from a chronic illness. Five Chinese doctors reportedly visited North Korea in August to treat a "high-level North Korean official".
"We have obtained intelligence that defence commission chairman Kim Jong-il collapsed on August 22nd," the Chosun Ilbonewspaper quoted an official with the South Korean embassy as saying earlier this week.
US intelligence officials in Washington also said they believed he may have suffered a stroke.
The spotlight has been back on North Korea in the last few weeks because Pyongyang has appeared to back away from a nuclear disarmament agreement.
Analysts have questioned why Mr Kim did not attend a triumphal military parade yesterday.
His health is a closely guarded secret, although details leak out through defectors and he is believed to have heart problems and diabetes. In recent years he switched from his beloved cognac to vintage wine on doctor's orders, but he appeared hale and hearty, if a little drained, in October last year during a visit by South Korea's leaders to the world's first communist dynasty.
Raising glasses of Bordeaux with the visiting delegation from Seoul, Mr Kim pooh-poohed media suggestions he was sick, saying: "I make a little move and that gets huge coverage. It seems like they're fiction writers and not journalists."
North Korean media last reported a public appearance by Mr Kim about a month ago, but the mysterious despot tends to shift in and out of public view.
The focus is now on who will succeed Mr Kim if he dies. The two main names in the frame are his sons, Jong-nam and Jong-chol, although they have never been formally anointed in the way Kim Jong-il was by his father.
There had been progress in the six-party talks aimed at scrapping North Korea's nuclear programmes when it agreed in June to submit a long-awaited list detailing its nuclear activities.
For its part, the US announced its plan to take North Korea off its list of terrorism-supporting countries.
However, North Korea stopped disabling its nuclear plants and is now taking initial steps to restart them after Washington refused to de-list Pyongyang until it agrees on ways to verify its declaration.