South Korea on `High Alert' Over Kim Jong Il's Health

by Dave Keating | September 10, 2008 at 12:49 am

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Kim Jong Il failed to appear at a ceremony to mark North Korea's 60th anniversary yesterday, giving further credence to the theory that's been floating around for the past month that he is secretly either dead or incapacitated after suffering a stroke last month. Now the South Korean ministry has responded to the worldwide speculation, acnowledging that the country's leader did indeed suffer a stroke and is in very poor health.

South Korea's Unification Ministry is on ``high alert,'' Minister Kim Ha Joong told lawmakers today, after a U.S. intelligence official said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is sick and may have suffered a stroke in the past month.

``All our ministry personnel are very busy gathering as much information as they possibly can,'' the minister told a parliamentary committee hearing. The government hasn't been able to confirm the state of Kim's health, he added.

North Korea's second-most senior official, Kim Yong Nam, denied the 66-year-old leader was ill, while ambassador Song Il- Ho, who is in charge of relations with Japan, said the health rumors were ``worthless and no more than nefarious machinations,'' Japan's Kyodo News agency reported from Pyongyang.