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Kns / AFP - Getty Images
This undated picture, released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Dec.17, 2011, shows North Korean lreader Kim Jong Il (C), accompanied by his son Kim Jong Un (2nd-L), inspecting the Kwangbok Area Supermarket just before opening in Pyongyang. It is said to be the elder Kim's last public appearance.
The official report said that North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il died on a train at 8:30 on Saturday morning after suffering a heart attack during a "high intensity field inspection." State media reported his death on Monday.
Now, North Korea experts in South Korea are calling into question that account, saying North Korea likely made it all up, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper website.
Among the details they say don't make sense:
- Freezing weather: Kim was known for a nocturnal lifestyle and rarely got up before noon, and would have unlikely risen early in 20-degree temperatures for a field inspection.
- Train didn't move: South Korea's intelligence director testified that Kim's special train - equipped with four hospital cars - did not move out of the station the entire weekend.
- Witnesses: Kim always traveled with a large entourage, but the news of his death was kept secret for 50 hours.
Citing South Korean sources, the newspaper speculates Kim most likely died at home.
Source: North Korea coup 'unlikely'
"Death on the train is possibly the best story that the North Korean regime can use to promote Kim as a hardworking leader who worked for the people until the moment he died. North Koreans would feel there's a huge difference between an easy and peaceful death in his bed and death at work far from home," a South Korean source told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, South Korea's main opposition party is calling for the dismissal of top intelligence, security and foreign affairs officials for failing to know about Kim's death before it was officially announced.
Politics trump hunger in North Korea
The South Korean defense minister and other officials have acknowledged that they learned of Kim's death at the same time Pyongyang's state media told the world Monday.
The admission has caused anger among many South Koreans who worry that Kim's death might trigger instability on the Korean peninsula.
The Democratic Party said Wednesday that President Lee Myung-bak should fire officials responsible for the intelligence lapse.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Who is going to believe these lying criminal scumbag officials of NK? The only bad thing is all his top criminal thug henchmen did not die with him.
The international scumbag outlaw Assad should have a bullet put through his head ASAP! Other scumbag criminal heads of state like Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Afewerki (Eritera), Karimov (Uzbekistan), and a handful of others should meet the same fate. Thankfully the pot bellied pig sucking scumbag faggot Kim Jong of NK died this week-hopefully a painful death.
Does it matter whether he was riding in a train or blowing his dog? He's dead.
Who is going to believe these lying criminal scumbag officials of NK...?
Probably the lying criminal scumbags in the US congress
I thought he died on a boat with a goat?
Or did he die from eating lox with a fox now he's in a box.
Whatever the cause or time of "dear" leader's departure, the bottom line is the world is a better place without this needle d*ck in it !!
Here's hoping that the new "dear" leader is able to initiate reforms* and allow NK to rejoin the world community !!
*xrayspex won't hold his breath waiting for this to occur.
Is it just me, or does anybody really care how the Piece Of Schlitz died..???
I heard he was murdered by a high ranking security officer, that was pissed over losing his job. Im sure it will be coming out sometime in the next few yrs, probably little by little..
That would be great x-spex, it is a positive end to decades of oppression, however I would have to believe that there are many hard-line military personnel who are not likely to sit quietly by while the people are given back their country and lives. Nor do I believe that China is just sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting to see what happens next. I hope the armchair demagoguery in Washington, are taking measures to ensure that our people stationed on the DMZ are being supported with extra measures encase the @!$%# hits the fan.
As Sandtrich said, the man is dead. What does it matter where he was when he died? The real question here should be; did He die a natural death or did someone step on him?
Who cares how and/or where the stunted runt kicked the bucket! He's dead. That's what really counts!
MJ Smith is a piece of chit, move your stupid @ss to Communist China you walking scumbag
Truth......please tell us how you really feel about Kim.
You seem to be waffling.
I have heard that the Older Women's Honored Crying and Hysteria Brigade was rewarded for the great public performance they gave.
I hear he died because he was old.
This is crazy Speculation. No one from North Korea knows how Kim-Jong died, except for his family and the inner circle..
He's DEAD. What can one do about THAT?
It's a slow news day, when the Media looks for articles that are minutiae. The US must worry about where the Nukes will go, and how they will be used.
North Korea---it will never change---so he's gone, and the boy/child will run the country with a Team of Experts---he doesn't look like his elevator goes to the "Top"---now that is scary.
He prolly slipped in the tank of sharks with Hans Blix. His last words were "Im soooo roner......OOOOOO SH**************T! {glub glub}
Dear God, I’m sorry, but I don’t know anyone who will miss this pudgy, obnoxious twerp.
The NK people seem to be missing him, or at least are sad at his death. It doesn't have to be phoney. If all you know is the party line, that's what's real to you. The thing you war hawks need to keep in mind, is that they see us as evil, and themselves as god's warriors, and they will fight us till death, if we try to "liberate" them. The leaders may know its all a fraud, they have seen the outside world, and know the truth. The others are the kind of "true believers" that fundamentalist Christian leaders wish they had as followers.
You may not know anyone who will miss him, but rest assured there are millions of NK who will. The actual truth is, we are as ignorant of them, as they are of us.
big ed, you're brain dead. They don't miss him. If they don't show the emotion, they will be persecuted and jailed. The women carried hankys over their mouth. Helps to hold the smile. Remember the people who had to have a pic of Saddam in their living room. Many dancedand broke those pics when he swung from a rope. That's a fact. Google it for pics and videos.
big ed-1492169,
"Seem" is the key word. I'm thinking he was murdered by his own officials.
hope he is really dead.
This is crazy Speculation. No one from North Korea knows how Kim-Jong died, except for his family and the inner circle..
He's DEAD. What can one do about THAT?
It's a slow news day, when the Media looks for articles that are minutiae. The US must worry about where the Nukes will go, and how they will be used.
North Korea---it will never change---so he's gone, and the boy/child will run the country with a Team of Experts---he doesn't look like his elevator goes to the "Top"---now that is scary.
He prolly slipped in the tank of sharks with Hans Blix. His last words were "Im soooo roner......OOOOOO SH**************T! {glub glub}
Crazson your brain dead, Ed on the other hand is not. I find Ed's argument a much more accurate portrayal of the North Korean People, and a better understanding of the situation and dynamics than yours. You see Crazson, people, even hostages eventually side with there captor (Stockholm Syndrome) the point is that using Iraq's people as an example to prove a point about North Korean's is sophomoric. Saddam and the Iraqi People were much more aware of the outside world and the people in the outside world. Saddam couldn't get away with creating that outside world for Iraqi's. North Korean's on the other hand are completely in the dark about the World outside North Korea, if the Kim family told them they were all green faced gnomes with 6 arms the story could be sold eventually as a truth to the population of North Korea as North Korean's rely on the government to explain all about the World outside North Korea. Saddam obviously doesn't have that type of grip on his people as they have knowledge about other country's and ways of life. Not so in North Korea, they only are aware of what the government has allowed them to know. Making you Crazson the dumbsh''t as opposed to Ed. I only was compelled to make this argument because of the unnecessary meanness of Crazson 34 towards poor Big Ed who was only trying to make a point. This World is messed up and tough as it is without people calling out the intelligence of each other, keep in mind being perceived by others as stupid or not smart cuts to the corp of our being and isn't nice for another to call us out as stupid, it hurts and is uncalled for, lets all show a bit of love to each other. In addition, Big Ed your initial comment was correct in regards to the feelings of the North Korean People, hopefully in the future Crazson will show more compassion and kindness to his fellow man.
I heard that he was into asphyxiation games...and they found him hanging in a closet wearing red lipstick and fishnet stockings. Ew, sorry for the image.
Dammit, now I won't be able to get that image out of my mind....
Yuck. He'd resemble sausage in its tight little casing.
Go to your room.
I'd rather that she go to my room!
Every time I hear this guy's name now I think of Team America World Police. Man that movie is hilarious.
My favorite song from Team America: "America, F- Yeah!"
Did he have those elevator shoes, he so loved?
He had a Napoleon complex!!!! LOL!!
ready for another 50 years of garbage from his son? take him out now.
That's not our M.O.. We like to put them in power and then act shocked when they use our own weapons against us, and then we take them out. That way, we make money off the arms deals and get to justify 700 billion a year in funding.
If we did what you suggested, take someone out without provocation or reason, then who are we to say it's wrong for any other nation to do it?
Exactly. Hope we avoid any future "pre-emptive strikes". Makes it kinda hard to claim the "moral high ground". It's like saying that we should've bombed Tokyo in 1940. Who'd have been the "bad guys" then?
Who would vote up an unprovoked, illegal assassination? I hope you nor the people that promoted this statement are Americans, because if any of you are, you're not doing it right.
I'd be happy to sponsor the assassination of a foreign dictator. Unprovoked? They have history books in the library but easier to Google info. What about the fishing village that was shot up? Hanoi Jane? Is that you?
Rlq, we did bomb Tokyo (not in 1940, but in 1945)! That one nite raid killed more Japanese than either Hiroshima, or Nagasaki atomic bombings. And, it was done with firebombs. In fact, neither of the two worst bombings in WWII were atomic bombings. After the destruction of Tokyo, the second most deadly bombing was the firebombing of Hamburg, Germany.
The first time we bombed Japan was in 1942. Read your history before you post BS!!
Crazson, tell me where that American fishing village was that you're talking about. I don't see anything about North Korea attacking an American fishing village. If it wasn't an American fishing village, then they haven't provoked America. We are not the world's police force.
As far as your Hanoi Jane jab, if you support the crap we did in Vietnam then it doesn't surprise me that modern day war crimes wouldn't be a problem for you.
Ed, right you are. Firebombing of Dresden, Germany (February, 1945) had lots of casualties, too. But at least this was after the Axis had started the war against us, both with Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) and the Germans and Italians declaring war on us later that week even though FDR had only asked for, and Congress up to that point had only passed, a Declaration of War on Japan. Therefore, we had the justification of our attacks as being retaliatory in nature.
And Jayhawk, don't know what your motivation is in what you say. Yes, the Doolittle raid (Thirty Seconds over Tokyo) was in 1942, but the heaviest bombing was in 1945, as Ed states, right before the war's end. My point is that had we struck Tokyo in 1940, then it would've been our country, not the Japanese, initiating the Pacific phase of WW II, and we would be hard-pressed to claim any "righteous indignation" as being our motive, not to mention that had FDR done this he likely would have lost to Willkie and the GOP. (Sound like the premise for an "alternate history" novel, doesn't it. But not quite Phillip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle.)
Alan Pugh ... I am an Vietnam vet, and my guess is they didn't even need diapers for your little a$$ at that time, so when you say "what we did in Vietnam" ... just shut TFU, because you really don't know @!$%#. You have talked to a couple of people who are likely communist sympathizers who said we were wrong doing this and that. I do know a lot of good friends never left those fields to come back just so an unintelligent young punk a$$ like you can talk your @!$%# while playing with your ... computer. There were some very right reasons for being there and doing the things we did, and there were some things that never made sense either, but that's war, and the way of the world. Unless you have the answer to changing mankinds nature or destiny go back down in your basement and work on that, you punk little troll.
don of the rockies, thank you for your service. Unlike the hippies that attacked you, I harbor no resentment toward the members of the military that were drafted and dropped in a war zone with strict orders. I completely understand, after what happened when the U.S. troops returned to our airports, why you'd be so frustrated and angry with antiwar folks.
That said, your declaration that I "don't know @!$%#" if I was not yet born by 1972 demonstrates some rather harsh judgment. Do you realize that your rant targeted everyone under FORTY? You could have made that statement about people who weren't alive during Desert Storm and you might have had a point, but with all due respect, I am a man over thirty and I resent being called out as a "young punk a$$."
As far as Communist sympathizers goes.. the Red Scare changed our national motto to a Christian slogan, added it to our money, and even added endorsement of Christianity to our Pledge of Allegiance all in the course of a year. Our fear of Communism led us to destroy our sense of religious freedom. Go back twenty years earlier, when the very Marxist-leaning New Deal dug us all out of the Great Depression and tell me again what we were afraid of. Nothing is black and white; everything is shades of gray. There is no "right" or "wrong" when it comes to our argument because it's all opinions and "what ifs." It comes down to the fact that I respect your service and disagree with your assessment of the world.
The difference is that I'm not calling you a "punk little troll" because I disagree with you.
While the New Deal was hardly classical Marxism, FDR was surrounded in part by lots of hard-left advisors (Rex Tugwell?). "In God We Trust" was on some monrey as far back as the 1870's, so that part well pre-dates any Red Scare.
If you closely examine unemployment rates in 1938, five years after the implementation of many key features of the New Deal, it becomes apparent that the real economic stimulus that ended most of the aftereffects of the Great Depression was unfortunately the Second World War.
The older you get, as you may already be seeing, Alan, is that everyone more than just a few years younger than you seem unbelivably young. Even when they don't necessarily see it or feel it. I didn't feel particularly young in my 30's, either, but people that age seem quite "young" to me now.
My problem is that a lot of people commenting on this topic seem to advocate for pre-emptive strikes. When you do that you give up a lot of pretense to morality and virtue. Choose you enemies carefully, for you will come to resemble them.
G-Dog, thanks for ruining my dinner.. I'll probably have nightmares tonight too! But damn, that IS hilarious!
On what grounds are you calling for the assassination of the leader of a sovereign nation? I am curious what it is that he has done that you feel is worthy of the commission of an act of war.
Hiw did you get "assassination of the leader of a sovereign nation" from "thanks for ruining my dinner"? I am curious as to what you are reading into this comment.
@ Papagoose
Clearly you have no idea what is going on within the Korean Peninsula. What he has done? Well to begin he is responsible for the deaths of 1 million plus North Korean people. He has a country full of work/concentration camps where people are either tortured/worked/starved to death on a regular basis. All this while he is living a life of luxuries, along with the top officials, while the rest of the people are living a life of poverty on the brink of starvation.....
Hmm, what has he done???? How about you pull your head out of your @$$ and get a clue before you post stupid comments about something you obviously know nothing about!!!!
Ok, we all abhor the NK dictator's deeds. One of the reasons we don't just go off half cocked, and selfrighteously assassinate every foreign leader we don't like is, its not us. Another reason, is the practical one that (as perfect as your judgement may be on the matter) we probably disagree among ourselves about at least half of those some may want to kill.
It's fortunate for us that we don't have a true democracy, so we don't have the mob howling for the blood of some foreign leader (or to hear some Repubs talking, of our own President) every time we turn around.
I know, it was so much more fun when we didn't have to be civilized.
Big, WTF?????????? You need to move out of your parents basement and get back on your meds!!
@ papagoose....
To further my point here is a quote from a recent article I read here in South Korea:
"During Kim Jong Il’s regime, the word ‘worst’ never seemed to be far off when talking about North Korea. The international community regarded North Korea as the worst perpetrator of political, religious and media oppression. The international human rights organization Freedom House described North Korea as belonging to ‘Worst of the Worst’ in its annual report of the same name, which identifies the worst oppressors of human rights in the world. This is not limited to freedom alone. Ever since millions of people died from starvation in the 1990s, the country has suffered for almost twenty years from chronic food shortages and hardship.
Kim Jong Il, while committing appalling persecution of the North Korean people, indulged in the luxury and power afforded by his position as the country’s sole leader. Even as the North Korean people held their stomachs in hunger, digging the soil for food until their fingernails wore away, Kim Jong Il would garishly have his personal chef sent from Japan to satisfy his craving for sticky rice cake. It is unfortunate that this dictator, who should have one day been made to face the stern judgment of his own people, died suddenly of heart trouble and without ever paying the price for his tyranny. It is the intention of Daily NK to record the wrongdoings of Kim Jong Il and the people who supported and abetted him, so that at least he may be tried before the judges of history."
To read more check out this article:
@ papagoose
If you need more info than that, well I am sorry to say...You are a F#%king IDIOT!
"The news of my death, and golf handicap, have been greatly exaggerated."
He died with his pecker in one hand and a bag of cheesies in the other..
He probably choked to death on a Cuban Corona cigar and tried to wash it down with a glass of Camus Cognac Cuvee (750 ml size bottle cost $2500).
Ahhhh, yes...our beloved Kimmy has kicked the bucket. I personally will have 'Team America: World Police' playing constantly on a loop as an appropriate tribute to him. LMAO!
"Herrrooooo...." ;-)
I'm so roonrey....
may satan rest his soul.
hahahahah i agree with truthfinder3!!!!!! Now they need to take out his replacement....its the starfish effect....
Who cares? As long as he's dead the world is better off.
another person will take its place may more hardline
OK, he is really partying down at Martha's Vinyard with Obama.
I heard Castro & ImANutJob Was in the vinyard with kim and OBUMMER
POOH-TAN couldn't make it they just grounded the flights from Moscow
I see that some of you haven't mastered that behaving as an adult thing yet.
Ty , I'm 63 and easily retired.
Hey , Rosco didn't you mean Poon- Tang?
Well, that is all the comments i am reading. Tyronne is right. No adults here.
OH, Justsaying 420, please don't read the book by looking at the cover!!!
And your mama.
There isn't any cover to read SC. Your childish comment at your age is a volume in itself.
Proof positive that age and maturity don't always go together.
Also, what does being retired have to do with anything? Tyrone said you were acting like a child, not that you were one.
At 63, one would expect someone to have basic reading comprehension skills.
who cares the s.o.b. is dead that is all that really matters
Who cares?
You do of course.
If you honestly didn't care, you would not have gone through the mouse clicks and keystrokes to say you didn't care. You would have simply moved onto another article or activity.
Oh, didn't see you not caring further down before I replied. Still don't care?
Yes, this reply has no point.
Here he is, doing his parting song ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdug6yHJB40
Who gives a $h!t?
May the F-er die a million times in HELL
North Korea was no damned good back in the fifties when I was stationed in South Korea and nothing has changed since then.
Ding Dong..Dear Leader is dead, Dear Leader is dead,Dear Leader is dead..follow the nuke glowing road..follow the nuke glowing road..we're off to see the Chinese and ask for food galore.
Not sure of the validity of the story from the South Korean news agencies, but according to Chevy Chase, like Genrilisimo Fransico Franco, Kim Jung Il is still dead. Continuing updates will likely find Kim to be continually dead.
LMBO!
Maybe we could send Obuma to North Korea as a replacement for Kim Jong Il.
Would finally become a Democracy that way. Would even immortalize him. They would build statues in his honor for liberating them.
Careful what you wish for. Might not get what you were hoping for.
NYMike, are you better off than you were 3 years ago? Is the unemployment better than it was 3 years ago? Is the economy better than it was 3 years ago? Is Americas credit rating better than it was 3 years ago? Is the National debt lower than it was 3 years ago? Is the US Dollar stronger than it was 3 years ago? Are there more jobs now than 3 years ago? If you answer yes to ANY of the questions you are A. Blind, B. A Liar, C. Stupid, D. All of the above. wait, there may be one more, A Brainwashed liberal. Now, do not blame Bush. While he did do some things that hurt us (Like losing more personal freedoms) he is not responsible for the problems Obuma created. If Bush did cause Obumas problems then Obuma is totally incompetent if in three years he could not overcome Bushes mistakes.
Like I said...Mr. Williams is an idiot.
I will not retract my statement now or at any time in the future.
Fire him. Fire Wolfe Blitzer from CNN, too.