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Post by Admin on May 6, 2020 20:18:32 GMT
South Korea's intelligence agency has said rumours about Kim Jong-un's health were groundless, and there are no signs he had heart surgery.
The North Korean leader recently went 20 days without appearing in public, and missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday - one of the biggest events of the year.
Some media reports claimed he was "gravely ill", or even dead.
But he then appeared at a fertiliser factory - apparently in good health.
What did South Korean intelligence say? The head of South Korea's intelligence agency, Suh Hoon, spoke to a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.
He said there were no signs that rumours about Kim Jong-un's health were true, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
The committee heard the North Korean leader had appeared in public 17 times this year. By this time of year, he would normally have appeared 50 times.
"It cannot be ruled out that there is an outbreak in North Korea," the lawmaker Kim Byung-kee said.
"Kim Jong-un had focused on consolidating internal affairs such as military forces and party-state meetings, and coronavirus concerns have further limited his public activity."
After missing the birthday celebrations on 15 April, rumours about Mr Kim's health began.
Six days later, an anonymous source told the Daily NK - a website run by defectors from the North - that Mr Kim had worsening cardiovascular problems.
The rumours were then repeated by international media, with some outlets claiming he was in a critical condition, and others even saying he was dead.
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Post by Admin on May 9, 2020 7:03:11 GMT
A famous Kim Jong Un impersonator says there’s no way the North Korean leader could find a convincing lookalike in the food-starved nation — because he’s too obese. “He’s not just chubby, he’s really fat. Where are you going to find a fat person in North Korea?” the Hong Kong-based performer, who goes by Howard X, told The Post. “To feed them both, the bill would be through the roof.” The full-time impersonator, who’s in his early 40s, said he maintains a pudgy physique through a strict regime of “not exercising” and “eating a lot of quality steaks” — but he still weighs about 50 pounds less than the tubby tyrant. So he doesn’t buy the wild theory that a body double for Kim appeared at a recent event in order to hide the fact that the Supreme Leader is dying. And he believes footage that emerged from years ago that purports to show the dictator’s hired doppelganger is bogus. “The guy you see there is one of his party members … once the guy turns around, one can see that he looks nothing like Kim and is quite old,” he said. But Howard X — who declined to give his real name because he has received “death threats” over his profession — would never consider body doubling for Kim, because the leader’s agents once roughed him up for doing a spoof, he said.
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Post by Admin on Jun 26, 2020 1:33:08 GMT
JAPAN has revealed it has “some suspicions” about the health of the periodically missing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The country’s defence minister made the bombshell comment at a press briefing and added he thought recent movements in the secretive state were “all very strange”. Following his first disappearing act, reports emerged claiming the enigmatic 36-year-old despot had died or was gravely ill after a botched heart operation. After vanishing for 20 days he turned up on May 1 at a newly-constructed fertiliser plant before again disappearing from public. But on May 24 Kim reappeared after another three week absence to discuss putting his nuclear forces on "high alert" amid speculation about his health. And comments made by Japan's defense minister Taro Kono today were bound to rekindle rumours about the dictator. He told reporters: "We have some suspicions about his [Kim Jong-un’s] health." Taro said the "very strange movements in North Korea were because of Kim "trying not to get infected,” as the "virus is spreading around" the country. He said Japan, the US, and others have been exchanging information about him. But adding to the mystery, he did not elaborate on what he thought was the matter with the rocket wielding tyrant, saying: "I’m not allowed to discuss intelligence issues." North Korea has steadfastly claimed it hasn't recorded a single virus case, but foreign experts are highly skeptical. They believe the pandemic worsened economic troubles because the hermit state has closed its border with China, its biggest trading partner and economic pipeline.
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Post by Admin on Aug 24, 2020 19:13:13 GMT
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has fallen into a coma, a former South Korean official is claiming on the heels of reports that the northern leader has ceded some of his power to his younger sister. Chang Song-min, a former aide to late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, has alleged that the Hermit Kingdom’s honcho has become seriously ill amid speculation about his limited public appearances this year, the Mirror reported. “I assess him to be in a coma, but his life has not ended,” he told South Korean media. The former aide added that the leader’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was poised to help lead the country. “A complete succession structure has not been formed, so Kim Yo Jong is being brought to the fore as the vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period,” he said. His claims come after South Korean spies revealed that the 33-year-old sibling now serves as his “de facto second-in-command,” though she has not been designated his successor. The craziest and most outrageous Kim Jong Un facts and rumors In a closed-door meeting with lawmakers, the National Intelligence Service said the power shift partly seeks to “relieve (Kim’s) stress from his reign and avert culpability in the event of policy failure,” the Yonhap News Agency reported. “Kim Yo Jong, the first vice department director of the Workers’ Party Central Committee, is steering overall state affairs based on the delegation,” the agency reportedly said. Kim has only been seen in public a handful of times this year after rumors swirled that he was clinging to life in April due to a botched heart operation.
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