The eldest son of North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong-il has secretly visited Pyongyang to pay his last respects, the major Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday.
Kim Jong-nam’s absence from a state funeral and other official events related to his father’s death has fuelled speculation about a possible power struggle with his half-brother Jong-un, who has taken over North Korea’s top posts.
Kim Jong-nam, 40, flew to Pyongyang from Macau, where he mainly lives, on Dec. 17 after learning about his father’s death that day, Yomiuri said.
He left after “a few days” and was now in Macau, the report said.
Using a passport under the false identify of Kim Chol, he avoided a flight via Beijing which might have given more exposure to his return home, the daily said quoting a source connected to North Korea.
Kim Jong-un, aged in his late 20s, was presumed to have accompanied his older brother to see their father’s body, Yomiuri said.
The eldest son probably refrained from attending Wednesday’s funeral because he did not want to give rise to possible arguments over “why the third should become the successor,” the source told the daily.
The source added that Jong-nam “pulled out of the succession race several years ago by himself, saying he had no interest in politics,” according to Yomiuri.
Kim Jong-nam has lived abroad for years after apparently falling out of favor with his father for trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001.
Kim Jong-il eventually backed his youngest son from another marriage to continue the dynasty.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported last week that Jong-nam had been “placed under Chinese protection.” Kim Jong-nam has described as a “farce” South Korean media reports in 2009 that people around Kim Jong-un had tried to assassinate him in Macau, the source told the daily.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
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,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS