Word: pyongyang
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...that there was "no problem" with the Dear Leader. Still, a senior South Korean intelligence analyst told TIME that "something strange has clearly happened. We know Kim Jong Il has been out of sight for a few weeks, and we know physicians from outside North Korea have gone to Pyongyang. But that's all we know at this point...
...Korea watchers insist his demise is unlikely to mean the collapse of the North Korean regime, at least in the short run. Regime change is something the North's border mates most emphatically do not want to see. As the analysts at Control Risks Group in London put it, Pyongyang's "brutal authoritarianism may be repugnant, but its unraveling would raise questions the North's neighbors would much rather postpone." In other words, neither China nor South Korea want to see a chaotic transition, in part because that might mean tens of thousands of refugees pouring across their borders...
...Governments in Washington, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are now running this drill, because anonymous intelligence sources are saying Kim Jong Il, the 66-year-old dictator in Pyongyang, is ill. He might even have had a stroke, the reports say; in any case he did not show up for the mass celebration the country threw for its 60th anniversary on Sept. 9, a pretty unusual absence even for a reclusive leader not known for his predictability...
...This is good news, of a sort, because Kim and his generals agree on the key issue that concerns the outside world: the North's nuclear weapons. Whether you believe that Pyongyang is making a good-faith effort to close out its nukes - as the U.S. State Department does - or is manipulating America and its allies for economic aid, Pyongyang is unlikely to change course...
...This is good news because Kim and his generals agree on the key policy that concerns the outside world: the North's nuclear weapons. Whether you believe that Pyongyang is making a good-faith effort to close out its nukes - as the U.S. State Department does - or is manipulating America and its allies for economic aid, Pyongyang is unlikely to change course...