North Korea released pictures of leader Kim Jong-il yesterday for the first time in nearly two months, showing the reclusive ruler looking generally well despite reports he underwent brain surgery.
Wearing his trademark khaki jumpsuit and sunglasses, Kim was seen standing with uniformed soldiers with his arms folded or his hands behind his back. The photos were taken during a visit to a military unit and shown on Pyongyang’s Korean Central Television.
Kim appeared healthy in the images, though it was unclear when they were taken.
It was the first footage of Kim released since Aug. 14, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, in charge of relations with North Korea.
The 66-year-old leader, believed to have diabetes and heart disease, has missed several key holidays in recent months, most notably North Korea’s 60th birthday last month.
US and South Korean officials have said Kim suffered a stroke and underwent brain surgery. North Korea has denied he was ill.
In the latest photos, Kim was seen viewing troops from the artillery unit, clapping and looking around barracks dotted with red-and-white slogans calling for loyalty to him.
Portraits of him and his late father and national founder Kim Il-sung were also seen hanging on a barracks wall.
Kim is the object of an intense personality cult that he inherited after his father died in 1994.
Concern over Kim’s absence was especially pointed since North Korea abandoned an international disarmament-for-aid accord and stopped disabling its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in mid-August. The country raised the stakes again this week, banning inspectors from the entire nuclear complex.
However, diplomats said the US planned to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist yesterday after getting assurances the country would allow inspections of its nuclear facilities.
US President George W. Bush signed off on the move on Friday to salvage the disarmament accord, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity because the State Department had not yet announced the step.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
RSS