North Korea: Kim Jong… Not Ill
North Korean officials said on Wednesday that their leader Kim Jong Il was, contrary to media reports, not ill. The reports had a positive net effect however; Japanese reporters were allowed to speak with high ranking North Korean officials, something that is extremely rare.
Speculation had intensified that Kim may have taken ill after he missed a parade Tuesday commemorating the communist state’s founding 60 years ago. That followed weeks of him being absent from public view and rumors that foreign doctors were brought in to the isolated nation to possibly treat him.
On Wednesday, North Korea’s No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam, said there was “no problem” with the supreme leader, and senior diplomat Song Il Ho also said that reports about Kim Jong Il’s health are “not true,” according to Japan’s Kyodo News agency.
“We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot,” Song told Kyodo in what the agency said was the country’s first reaction to the reports.
“Western media have reported falsehood before,” he said, according to the report from Pyongyang.
The reports about Kim Jong Il’s health are nothing new; it has been said for years that he is ill. Everytime a report surfaces, however, North Korean officials show up, disputing them.
For the North Korean people one cannot help but hope that their leader is indeed ill, and will be forced to step down soon due to his health problems.
Disclaimer; the reports talk about his physical health. It goes undisputed that the man is mentally unhealthy.
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best pun of the day
Why, thank you.