"Kim’s trip reportedly tied to succession plan" by Associated Press | August 30, 2010
CHANGCHUN, China — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited China’s northeastern city of Harbin yesterday while on a secretive trip reportedly aimed at drumming up support for a succession plan involving his youngest son, a news report said.
So that is why he blew off Carter.
Related: North Korea Finds a Friend
Update: Breaking News: Korean Kim Dead
Reporters have followed a 35-vehicle motorcade — apparently used by the reclusive Kim — around several cities in northeast China.
How do you hide something like that?
Kim, 68, rarely leaves North Korea and when he does travels by special train....
Afraid to fly?
North Korea does not announce Kim’s trips until after he returns, and China has refused to say whether he is in the country, even though a Japanese TV station had a grainy shot of him.
As if I cared to whether he played hide-and-seek with the cameras.
Kim was reportedly accompanied by his son, Kim Jong Un, believed to be in his 20s. Many North Korea watchers predict the son will be appointed to a key party position at a ruling Workers’ Party meeting early next month — the first such gathering in decades — as part of a succession process.
To pull off the event with fanfare, North Korea would need Chinese aid, particularly following the devastating floods that battered the country’s northwest this month, analysts said.Related: Floods Come to North Korea
Amazing how you have not rad much about the Korean floods in my MSM.
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