Word: jong
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...Sept. 24, North Korea announced that it would reactivate its Yongbyon nuclear plant. The nation began dismantling the complex last year but reversed its stance in August when the U.S. failed to remove North Korea from an official terrorism list. Meanwhile, speculation continues over the health of leader Kim Jong-Il, still absent from public events...
...North's latest gambit comes just weeks after reports that "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke, so it's unclear who is making decisions in Pyongyang. Diplomatic sources have told TIME that while Kim did appear to be ill, he was not completely incapacitated. Aides to South Korean legislators say their bosses were told at a recent intelligence briefing to expect Kim to return to power. At any rate, there is little to no policy difference between the upper echelons of the regime and the North Korean military on the nuclear issue. In other words, whether Kim decided...
After reports in early September that North Korea's Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, may have suffered a debilitating stroke (which North Korean officials deny), Pyongyang confirmed on Sept. 19 - again, without Kim present -that it was preparing to restart its nuclear reactor. With North Korea a fragile state whose population hovers constantly on the brink of famine and with no clear successor to Kim in place, the only thing more frightening than a rogue nation with him at the helm could be one without...
...point on the Korean Peninsula. In an early move to quell expected resistance to his son's succession, Kim Il Sung designated the younger Kim as the next leader of North Korea in 1980. It wasn't until 1998, however, four years after his father's death, that Kim Jong Il took over the country's leadership - having been made leader of the Korean Workers' Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission, but not President, a title reserved posthumously for his father...
...photos of Kim Jong Il's rise to power here.) (See photos of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang here...