I just found out a few minutes ago via twitter that the North Korean dictator died at the age of 69 on Saturday. This could mean so much for Korea as a whole. I'm hoping that N. Korea doesn't get another dictator and things continue as they were previously but I want them to be governed the same as with S. Korea. If things go into a good direction, old friends and relatives could be reunited.
***HERE IS AN ARTICLE FROM THE STATE(Click here to go to article on website)***
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the mercurial strongman extolled at home as the “Dear Leader” and reviled abroad as a tyrant, has died at 69, North Korean media reported Monday.
Kim’s death was announced by state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. No cause of death was reported, but Kim was believed to have suffered in recent years from diabetes and heart disease.
The diminutive leader was believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but nonetheless appeared in numerous photos released by state media as he toured state facilities and in recent months embarked on rare trips outside North Korea -– to China and Russia.
In September 2010, Kim announced that his foreign-educated third son, Kim Jong Eun, would succeed him as the regime’s third leader since its emergence more than a half century ago.
Kim, who came to power in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, led one of the world’s most enduring dictatorships, a repressive regime that has long defied predictions of its demise. Against the odds, it survived into the 21st century while its people went hungry and its allies drifted away to pursue globalization and reform.
Kim remained to the end an unrepentant communist, refusing to liberalize North Korea’s economy even as his people became some of the world’s poorest, with millions dying of starvation and tens of thousands imprisoned on charges of political crimes. While rival South Korea became one of the world’s wealthiest nations, many in the North have earned less than a dollar a month.
Though his bouffant hairdo, oversize glasses and elevator shoes made him widely parodied, Kim also had a reputation as a canny survivor and negotiator. He weathered a storm of international condemnation to acquire and develop nuclear devices, one of which his country tested in 2006.
It says that his son is to be the successor but I am really hoping that this said son will want to govern and change a lot of things.
It could be possible that he has been dead longer than N. Korea is telling us. Mainly because the N. Korean boarder Guards have fled to China and that was around November 20th. (Clicl here for article)
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Article from Koreatimes.co.kr (Click here to see article on website)
[Urgent] N. Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies_____________________________
North Korean news media announced Monday that its leader Kim Jong-il died of physical fatigue during train ride last Saturday at 8:30 a.m.. He was 69.
"Leader Kim died of physical and mental fatigue accumulated from his trip to on-site guidance in the train at 8:30 a.m.. Dec. 17," the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said at noon Monday.
Kim, who took over North Korea after his father and national founder Kim Il-sung died in 1994, had been in ill heath after suffering an apparent stroke in 2008.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) placed all military units on emergency alert. Officials said they may raise the "Defcon," a five-stage combat alert level, from its current level of four to three.
Cheong Wa Dae convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council over Kim's death. President Lee Myung-bak ordered all government officials to be placed on emergency response status.
The North's KCNA urged people to follow Kim's youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-un, who is aged in his late 20s.
"All party members, military men and the public should faithfully follow the leadership of comrade Kim Jong-un and protect and further strengthen the unified front of the party, military and the public," it said.
The news agency said Kim died of a "severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack." It said an autopsy was performed Sunday. A female newscaster, clad in a black funeral dress, tearfully announced Kim's death on state TV.
The North declared a period of national mourning from Dec. 17 to 29. Kim's funeral is set for Dec. 28 in Pyongyang.
Kim's body will be placed in the Geumsusan Memorial Palace where the embalmed body of his father Kim Il-sung lies, according to the KCNA.
Article found on Online.wsj.com
SEOUL—Kim Jong Il, the dictator who used fear and isolation to maintain power in North Korea and his nuclear weapons to menace his neighbors and threaten the U.S., has died, North Korean state television reported early Monday.
His death opens a new and potentially dangerous period of transition and instability for North Korea and northeast Asia. Mr. Kim in September 2010 tapped the youngest of his three sons, Kim Jong Eun, to succeed him, and North Korean state television on Monday said the younger Mr. Kim will lead the country.
Mr. Kim, who was 69 or 70 years old, according to varying accounts, died from fatigue during a train ride on Saturday, a weeping television announcer said.
South Korean stocks were down 4.6% on the news early Monday, and officials were closely monitoring levels of the won against other currencies.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said late Sunday that the administration is "closely monitoring" reports of Mr. Kim's death, that President Barack Obama had been notified and that U.S. officials are in close touch with South Korea and Japan.
"We remain committed to stability on the Korean peninsula, and to the freedom and security of our allies," Mr. Carney said.
Mr. Kim took power after the death in July 1994 of his father, Kim Il Sung, who founded North Korea in 1948. The country, a declining communist industrial power when he took control, fell into abject poverty under his rule. However, Mr. Kim continued to command attention and relevance in the world by building nuclear weapons and selling other arms.
He staked his legitimacy on his father's 46-year rule. Kim Jong Il never called himself president of North Korea. Instead, he bestowed on his father after death the title of "eternal president," while he took lesser titles such as chairman of national defense and general secretary of the main political party.
Mr. Kim suffered a stroke-like illness in August 2008 and was incapacitated for two months, forcing him to begin to groom a successor.
In 2009, reports surfaced that Mr. Kim had chosen Kim Jong Eun to carry on the family's regime. Those reports were confirmed in September 2010, when Mr. Kim appointed his son, who is believed to be 27 or 28 years old, a four-star general in the North Korean military and to high-level posts in the ruling political party.
In October 2010, his first public image was released by North Korean state media, showing a striking resemblance to his father and grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the North Korean founder.
Since the public appointment, Kim Jong Eun has frequently been seen following his ailing father on "on-spot" inspections.
"We must fight with greater resolve to overcome today's crisis, behind comrade Kim Jung Eun's leadership, for another great victory for the Juche revolution," an announcer on North Korean state television said in announcing the elder Mr. Kim's death. Juche is North Korea's state ideology, which emphasizes independence and self-determination.
Although a succession plan has been laid out, conditions aren't as favorable as they were in 1994 for continuing the family's control. North Korea is much poorer and less stable now. A famine from 1995 to 1997 killed two million to three million North Koreans, aid agencies estimate, and sowed distrust in the government. North Koreans have learned more about the outside world in recent years, thanks to increasing use of cellphones and availability of DVDs.
The potential for instability in North Korea poses difficulties for the rest of the world because the country in recent years made significant progress in the development of nuclear weapons. It conducted tests of nuclear explosives in 2006 and 2009 and is believed to possess a small number of nuclear bombs, though none that can be transported by missiles.
For its neighbors South Korea and China, Mr. Kim's death brings an additional risk: the prospect for a greater outflow of North Koreans into their countries if instability occurs.
South Korea put its military on "high alert" and President Lee Myung-bak convened a meeting of the national security council after the news of Mr. Kim's death, the Associated Press reported.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called an emergency meeting of his National Security group to assess the situation. Japan has been among the countries most worried about North Korea's military ambitions and nuclear tests.
"I've issued instructions (to the defense ministry) to do everything to establish an alert, monitoring stance," Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said on the way into the session on Monday.
Meanwhile, roughly 20 minutes before its daily noon newscast, state broadcaster China Central Television broke in with a special report on Mr. Kim's death. It was a three-minute bare-bones account that echoed the facts from North Korea's official media, plus a chronology of the major events of his life, intercut with stock footage. Several minutes later, it aired the program again.
The state-run Xinhua news agency offered a similar just-the-facts report.
When Mr. Kim came to power in 1994, North Korea was still trying to recover from the collapse of its economic sponsor, the Soviet Union. Famine overtook the country, but Mr. Kim relied on his father's formula for controlling North Korea's roughly 24 million people.
He limited their access to information, ability to travel and earn wealth. And he maintained a system of gulag-like prison camps, massive in scale and horrific in condition, to instill fear.
China eventually took over as North Korea's main benefactor. Prodded by Beijing, Mr. Kim experimented with economic liberalization in 2002 by allowing some markets to form. But by 2008, Mr. Kim grew fearful that economic freedoms were eroding the power of his regime. He ordered crackdowns that included a confiscation of private savings in late 2009.
Mr. Kim also resisted efforts by China, the U.S. and other countries to persuade him to give up the nuclear-weapons research that his father started in the 1970s. The research climaxed in October 2006 when North Korea first tested a half-megaton nuclear device. It tested a more powerful nuclear explosive in May 2009, leading to stiff sanctions by the United Nations Security Council that further damaged the economy.
In 2010, North Korea revealed progress in turning enriched uranium into a source of fuel for nuclear weapons, further aggravating other countries.
Over the past year, Mr. Kim repeatedly reached out to China for more economic and security assistance and lashed out at the three countries long considered to be North Korea's main enemies: South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
This thing can go one of two ways:
1) Things go as they have been going
2) Kim Jong-il's son will change the way things are run (for the good)
If you guys would please pray to whatever god or higher power that you look up to and wish the best for North Korea. If things go our way so many good things will happen.
The more I learn and the more I have opinions I will post them for you guys to go through with me.
I'm over here about to have a freaking meltdown of epic proprtions, any bad news will set me off.
