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Fresh doubts over the health of North Korea’s “Dear Leader” have erupted after Kim Jong Il’s eldest son was captured on film in Paris, apparently eliciting the emergency services of a top brain surgeon. The short film, shot by a Japanese television station, has re-kindled conjecture that Mr Kim is gravely ill, and has possibly been the victim of a stroke. Speculation over the enigmatic dictator’s health has reached fever pitch in recent weeks, with some North Korean defectors suggesting that Mr Kim is at death’s door.T hat speculation has led some intelligence experts to suggest that Pyongyang may, behind the scenes, be in the grip of a struggle for supremacy by opposing factions eager to take over when the 66-year old dictator finally loses his stranglehold on power.The chief concern about Kim Jong-Il's health emerged after he failed to appear at a key anniversary parade in early September, an event to which the domestic North Korean propaganda machine had been building throughout the year.Although few things can ever be said for certain about the internal affairs of North Korea, experts said that the evidence that Kim is seriously ill is now overwhelming. Brian Myers, an authority on Pyongyang propaganda at Dongseo University, said that the Dear Leader’s absences could no longer be dismissed as another facet of his traditional unpredictability.The Fuji Television from Paris footage shows a man, identified by veteran North Korea watchers as “undoubtedly” Kim Jong-Nam, entering a clinic in the French capital for a discussion that appears to have lasted a substantial time. Two days later, an un-named French doctor was filmed arriving at Charles De Gaulle airport in a car owned by the North Korean mission to Unesco, seemingly bound for Beijing. When asked, the doctor did not deny that Pyongyang was his ultimate destination.The footage of Kim Jong-Nam, dressed with unaccustomed formality in a dark suit and tie and chatting seriously on a mobile phone, has triggered speculation over the thorny issue of family succession in the world’s only Stalinist dynasty. Analysts say that it remains unclear whether Jong-Nam has been at all groomed for leadership.Mr Kim had previously been written-off by North Korea observers as an unlikely successor to the personality cult which holds the country’s iron leadership structure in place. He has previously shown little interest in navigating the complex power elite that governs the hermit nation, preferring to concentrate on his business affairs in Europe and Asia.He has also set his prospects back with a series of diplomatic blunders. He was very publicly expelled from Japan in 2001 after entering on a fake Dominican Republic passport and saying he wanted to go to Tokyo Disneyland. Mr Kim is the son of Kim Jong-Il and well-known actress Sung Hae-Rim, according to cousins who defected to the West.North Korea has condemned reports that their leader has health problems as a "whopping lie", and last week denounced Japanese newspapers for reporting that North Korea was on the brink of a major announcement. The Japanese press, which takes an nearly obsessive interest in North Korea, reported that top-ranking members of North Korea’s military and political elite had been told to cancel their plans in anticipation of some major revelation – thought by some to be a formal pronouncement on the Dear Leader’s state of well-being.In a move viewed by some analysts as a further possible sign of instability within the North Korean regime, Pyongyang last week proposed to South Korea that the two countries hold working-level talks to investigate ways to improve the military hotlines that connect the two countries: the hotlines are viewed as one of the few conduits through which any escalation of violence along the border could be calmed down in a hurry.By Leo Lewis in Tokyo
As in the days of Noah....
