Atlantic Council

Speculation about Kim Jong-il's health is one of a few worrying developments to come out of North Korea recently.  The Independent described the North's intentions to close its border with South Korea, its largest provider of aid:

The world's most heavily guarded frontier, the line that divides North and South Korea, is the focus of renewed tensions with confrontation looming on several fronts.  From 1 December, the secretive North Korean leadership will close the land border between the Koreas at the few places where there are still openings.

Whether Pyongyang stops accepting the aid, despite the closed border, is another story.  And the North's response to its removal from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list?: "Pyongyang is also stopping UN nuclear inspectors from taking soil and nuclear waste samples from its nuclear plant at Yongbyon."

Very comforting.  Even more worrying is the thought of what might happen if Kim's health truly is as dire as many now believe it to be.  Intelligence reports since September have suggested that Kim is, at the least, recovering from a stroke (or two).  At this point, the North's constant reassurances that Kim is healthy, based only on questionable photographs, is arguably doing the government more harm than good:

Its leadership, mysterious in its composition and strategy, has few cards in its hands.  International attention focuses on its nuclear weapons, primitive though they may be.  But without its nuclear program the North, impoverished and ruined, has no bargaining strength.  It may see the election of Barack Obama in the U.S. as presenting opportunities that are not there.  Its threats carry a certain weight because it is too weak to retreat from them.

The Globe and Mail paints an equally scary picture:

When he visited South Korea a few years ago, Jang Song-taek was sometimes seen in his pajamas, wandering the hallways of his hotel, always followed by an entourage of obsequious underlings.  When he overslept one morning, nobody in the North Korean delegation dared to knock on his door. Instead, they begged a South Korean to rouse him from his slumber.  The eccentric Mr. Jang, still a mystery to the West, may now be the most powerful man in the Hermit Kingdom. The 62-year-old brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il is said to be running the day-to-day affairs of North Korea after Mr. Kim reportedly suffered a serious illness and perhaps a series of debilitating strokes.

[...]

Mr. Kim has never designated an official successor.  His three sons are seen as too young or too error-prone.  ...  In the absence of any official heir, Mr. Jang is seen as the likeliest successor and possibly already the behind-the-scenes power.  One report said he has consolidated his power by gaining control of the North Korean domestic security agencies.

The article also addresses the border closing, calling it a sign of possible instability:

The fear of political turmoil is apparently the main reason for the recent closing of North Korea's border with China and the deployment of Chinese troops to the border zone. Pyongyang has also announced that it will close its borders with South Korea next month, leaving the country even more isolated.

See the bottom of the Independent article for a timeline of the reporting on Kim's health.

Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has warned relations between the two Koreas may be heading toward catastrophe, reports Reuters. The reclusive state, blaming the South's conservative government for dragging relations to a dangerous low, has said it would close their border on December 1 and is also limiting travel across the border with its main benefactor China. Speculation has also mounted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may have fallen ill, and could be losing his iron grip on power.

There is no clear successor to Kim, who become the communist world's first dynastic ruler when he took over from his father and founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994 but remains the state's eternal president.Park Young-ho, an expert on the North at the South's Korea Institute for National Unification said the North may be trying to keep a firmer grip on its people who are hearing reports from the outside world that Kim may be sick.

U.S. authorities have received information that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il suffered a second stroke late last month, Japanese broadcaster TBS reported. According to Reuters, TBS quoted South Korean sources close to a U.S. intelligence agency as saying Kim had been having difficulties with his left hand and leg as well as trouble speaking, but that the severity of his condition was unclear.

U.S. and South Korean officials have said Kim may have suffered a stroke in August, raising questions about who will succeed him as head of the communist state.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il missed another major public event on Thursday, fueling ongoing speculation about his health.  Many North Korean elites attended the funeral of Pak Song-chol, one of the country's last original communist revolutionaries, but Kim was not present, Reuters reported.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence sources believe Kim may be recovering from a stroke suffered in August.

Military officers from North and South Korea are scheduled to hold talks on Monday, Reuters reported.  Despite North Korean threats earlier this month to cut all ties to the South, a massive supplier of aid and money, the meetings are expected to go ahead.

Pyongyang requested the talks last week, saying it wanted to discuss military hotlines.  However, analysts believe the North wishes to use the meetings to protest the planned release of anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the country by South Korean activists this week.  The leaflets, which are carried by balloon, have been sent for years, but the most recent ones are said to address rumors over Kim Jong-il's reported stroke.  Kim's health remains a taboo subject in North Korea.

The meetings are the first direct talks between North and South Korea since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in February.

After a Japanese newspaper reported that North Korea was preparing an important message to be released Monday, the day passed without any unusual activity.  South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon stated, "We have nothing to confirm regarding chairman Kim Jong-il's health.  All of the North's domestic broadcasts, its international events, and domestic events are being conducted normally."  According to Reuters, a source in Beijing said of the North Korean leader, "All along his health has not been very good.  But there's definitely no problem."

Whether the Japanese intelligence reports were inaccurate or the rumors were a publicity stunt by Pyongyang is unknown.

Renewed speculation over North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health surged over the weekend.  The Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported that an official from Japan's defense ministry said that "an announcement of important information will be made on October 20" in North Korea, according to the Guardian.  Analysts are divided over whether the impending announcement will address Kim's health or rather a domestic subject.

The report comes after doubts were raised last week over the authenticity of photographs released by Pyongyang showing Kim in public.  U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials believe Kim may be recovering from a stroke.

North Korea threatened to cut all ties with the Seoul government in the South, in anger at the hard-line policies of the conservative president, according to Reuters. "If the group of traitors keeps to the road of reckless confrontation with the DPRK (North Korea), defaming its dignity despite its repeated warnings, this will compel it to make a crucial decision including the total freeze of the North-South relations," the North's communist party newspaper said in a commentary, referring to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

The state media regularly hurls insults at Lee but this latest commentary was similar in form to a warning issued in April that was followed by the North cutting off direct dialogue and expelling South Korean officials from a joint factory park just north of the border.

The U.S. recently took the North off its terrorism blacklist.
 

The South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo claimed that recent photographs released by Pyongyang showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il inspecting a women’s military unit could have been taken months ago.  A horticulture specialist said the green shrubs and plant life seen in the pictures indicate that they were probably taken in the summer rather than October.

Although the South Korean government refused to comment, the story fuels speculation that Kim suffered a stroke in August.  According to the Guardian, U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials believe Kim had a stroke, underwent brain surgery, and is now recovering.  The North Korean leader has missed major state events in recent months.

North Korea will resume disabling its nuclear reactor Tuesday a day after UN inspectors were allowed to return to monitor Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities, reports Reuters. North Korea had barred the inspectors from Yongbyon last Thursday in anger over Washington's refusal to remove it from a sponsors-of-terrorism blacklist. The U.S. has now removed North Korea from the list after receiving assurances that Pyongyang will halt its atomic bomb program.