Category: Kim Jong Il

Kim Il Sung’s Personal Shopper Writes Tell-All Book

Kim Jong Ryul, who spent 16 years under cover in Austria, also described how the “great leader” and his son and successor Kim Jong Il spent millions pampering and protecting themselves with Western goods — everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic foods, to monitors that can detect heartbeats of people hiding behind walls and gold-plated handguns. The colonel’s account — told in a new book by Austrian journalists Ingrid Steiner-Gashi and Dardan Gashi — shows the deep divide between...

The Emperor’s New Face

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il apparently had age spots removed from his face to look healthy but is becoming more and more fretful and dependent on old friends or family, the National Intelligence Service said in a report at the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. [Chosun Ilbo] You’d think a man with absolute power would set higher expectations than this: No word on the whereabouts of his plastic surgeon, but then again, I’m sure there’s a built-in incentive to...

Kim Jong Il Death Watch: Birthday Edition

The AP’s newest report on Kim Jong Il’s health appears to add some confirmation to what Open Radio has reported recently — that Kim Jong Il’s is going through kidneys like Kennedys go through livers: Depressed and chronically ill, Kim relies on rare, costly and sometimes outlawed remedies such as rhino’s horn and the bile of bear gall bladder, one South Korean official told The Associated Press. Another intelligence expert said North Koreans have gone twice to Beijing since 2008...

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

You should read any report about Kim Jong Il’s health with skepticism. News of Great Fishwife’s health is surely among the most closely guarded of state secrets, the unguarded discussion of which must be punishable in some very harsh ways. The most obvious examples of nonsense stories of this kind were the reports that Kim Jong Il’s brain scan was intercepted by South Korean intelligence, or that after the stroke, Kim Jong Il had recovered to the point where he...

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? Survivor of Kim Jong Il’s “Pleasure Squad” Talks

I’m not sure what pains me more — the thought of all the tawdry traffic this post will bring in, or knowing that a part of me actually wants the traffic. According to the account by Mi Hyang, a former member of one of Mr Kim’s “pleasure squads” ““ groups of attractive young women enlisted to provide entertainment and sexual services ““ the leader could be sentimental when drunk, and even shed tears. His favourite delicacy contains the reproductive organ...

Is This Kim Jong Il’s Private Train?

A reader recently directed my attention to these images at RailPictures.net, taken by Danish tourist Asger Christiansen while visiting Vladivostok in 2002. Christiansen believes they show Kim Jong Il’s unmarked private train taking him to a meeting with Vladimir Putin. I contacted Mr. Christian, who graciously allowed me to post the images here. Click for full size. Apparently, the Russians insisted on using their own locomotives and operators inside Russia. Interesting, too, that Russian and North Korean trains share the...

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may not survive the year 2012 and massive unrest is likely to follow his death, the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification speculates. A military coup, riots, massacres and a massive exodus could follow Kim’s death, KINU said in its report. [Chosun Ilbo] My own prediction: I predict with high confidence that Kim Jong Il will die, and that there will be much rejoicing. Also, I predict with moderate to high confidence that one week...

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

I’m not sure where Open News is getting its insider information about Kim Jong Il’s comings and goings, but if true, this would seem significant: According to a high-official North Korean, Kim Jong-Il could not visit the Mt. KeumSu Memorial Palace on New Years Day, where the formal chairman Kim Il-Sung is buried, missing out on one of the major new years events in North Korea. It is stated that there was not a single year since 1995 when Kim...

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is suffering from chronic laryngitis – probably because of excessive smoking and drinking – and he can’t work without resting every other day, a news report said Wednesday. The disease worsened last month, though the 67-year-old leader has recovered much from last year’s reported stroke and a kidney disease, said the Seoul-based Open Radio for North Korea, a radio station specializing in North Korean news. [AP] Hmmm. Maybe if we sent Madeleine Albright back...

Rumor: Kim Ok Remarries

I noted Kim Ok‘s disturbing resemblance to Yonsama when reports first emerged back in 2006 that Kim Jong Il had married his long-time secretary. According to this report from the Joongang Ilbo, however, Ms. Kim has moved on in life and remarried: Sources told the JoongAng Ilbo that they have received tips that Kim Ok has married an official from the ruling Workers’ Party. “We’re analyzing intelligence that Kim Ok, who had been Kim Jong-il’s personal secretary, has tied the...

Nineteen Private Train Stations?

The Daily Telegraph looks at Kim Jong Il’s private train and stations. Feel free to express your outrage about … like you know, American sanctions that starve North Korean babies and, like, stuff: The traveling comforts of North Korea’s ailing Stalinist dictator come as a UN report estimated that at least 8m people are facing dire food shortages as a result of the militaristic regime’s “callous” disregard for ordinary citizens. Personally, I wouldn’t go to print with a story with...

Kim Jong Eun: On Again?

According to the Daily NK, the succession propaganda has resumed. In the long run, however, I agree with the assessment of North Korean defector Kim Kwang Jin, who spoke at the Brookings Institution this week: he doesn’t have the cred to pull it off: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korean efforts to install one of ailing leader Kim Jong-il’s sons as a hereditary successor are likely to fail, a senior defector from the communist country said on Tuesday. Kim Kwang-jin, a...

Did Bill Clinton Meet Kim Jong Il’s Double?

Even for North Korea, this would be the WTF story of the year: A number of analysts here are convinced that not all the photos being released of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, are really photos of Kim Jong-il. Instead, they say, a look-alike has been standing in for him on some of the 122 trips he’s reportedly made this year to the countryside, factories, cultural events, military units, and all sorts of other venues. Some observers say the North...

Clinton: Kim Jong Il Looked Healthy to Me

Interestingly, Jimmy Carter observed the same thing about Kim Il Sung in June of 1994, when he thought he’d brought back Peace In Our Time and prevented North Korea from going nuclear. Wrong and wrong, Jimmy. It would take a few more years of Carterian presidential drift before North Korea tested its first nuke, but it wasn’t even a month before all that sam-gyop-sal and child-flesh finally got The Great Leader wheeled off to the Great Meat Locker. But then,...