Live Report From North Korea

AFP IS currently WRAPPING UP this live report on the case in North Korea where state TV earlier announced that leader Kim Jong-Il has died aged sixty nine of a heart attack.

Further AFP news reports on any developments within the political scenario within the secretive state and on the international reaction to his death can seem separately on this website therefore please stick with us.

1053 GMT: The German government says Kim Jong-Il’s death offers a “chance” for positive modification within the impoverished, nuclear-armed and deeply isolated nation, my colleagues report from Berlin.

“This is after all an opportunity for things to alter there however our expectations stay the same: that North Korea provides up its nuclear programme, that the catastrophic social scenario of its own folks improves which it declares itself able to open up within the political and economic spheres,” a distant ministry spokesman told reporters.

1046 GMT: Russia has sent condolences on the death of Kim Jong-Il, who visited Siberia within the summer in a very rare trip to at least one of the Stalinist’s state’s few allies.

“The telegram can officially be posted on the Kremlin’s web site,” a Kremlin spokesman told AFP.

Russian news agencies additionally reported that President Dmitry Medvedev had sent the telegram to Kim’s youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Un while not providing any details.

Medvedev met Kim in August when the reclusive leader took a visit deep into jap Siberia on his personal armoured train to carry rare talks on variety of joint economic comes.

1040 GMT: Japan has gathered senior ministers to debate security considerations following Kim Jong-Il’s death because the government offered rare “condolences” on the passing of a much-reviled man, my colleagues in Tokyo report.

Minutes once the noon broadcast by Pyongyang’s official media, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda cancelled a speech and rushed back to his workplace where he chaired an emergency security meeting.

Noda said he had ordered officers to make stronger intelligence-gathering on North Korea, to figure closely with the us, China and South Korea, and to arrange for any surprising developments.

“We can gather data to assess how this incident can have an effect on the case,” he later told reporters.

“I have instructed (agencies) to arrange even for the surprising to confirm this can not adversely influence peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.”

1027 GMT: Former Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi, one in every of few developed-nation leaders ever to possess had direct talks with Kim Jong-Il, remembers the North Korean leader as a “straight talker”, my colleagues report from Tokyo.

Koizumi, who visited Kim in 2002 and 2004, said he thought Kim’s death at the age of sixty nine was “unfortunate” and probably represented a lost chance to re-integrate Pyongyang with the surface world.

“What I keep in mind from the talks is that, instead of the dark image that one might need of a dictator, he was terribly upbeat and directly spoke his mind,” said Koizumi, who retired from politics in 2009.

“It’s unfortunate as a result of i wanted the trail toward normalised relations (between Japan and North Korea) would are paved whereas General Secretary Kim was still well, once having resolved the kidnapping, nuclear and missile issues,” he said.

1018 GMT: China has expressed shock at the death of Kim Jong-Il, with analysts saying Beijing can do all it will to shore up its isolated neighbour and shut ally.

The foreign ministry in Beijing said it hoped North Koreans would “remain united” once their leader’s death, and pledged to assist maintain “peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and also the region”.

“We are shocked to find out that DPRK prime leader comrade Kim Jong-Il passed on to the great beyond and that we hereby specific our deep condolences on his demise and send sincere regards to the DPRK folks,” said ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, using the official name for the Stalinist state.

1008 GMT: Foreign Minister Alain Juppe says France is closely following the case in North Korea once the death of leader Kim Jong-Il and hopes the isolated nation’s folks can currently be able to “find freedom”.

“We are terribly watchful of the results of this succession, hoping that someday the folks of North Korea are able to realize freedom,” Juppe said within the southwestern French town of Bordeaux.

0945 GMT: North Korean state tv has aired hours of footage of Kim Jong-Il’s “field steerage tours” to military bases, factories, stores and different installations and urged folks to follow “the spirit of the nice general”.

State footage from central Pyongyang showed schoolchildren, staff and also the elderly alike prostrate with grief in front of a portrait of Kim Jong-Il.

0930 GMT: State TV has broadcast footage of ruling party members in one North Korean county crying out loud, banging tables and sobbing at news of Kim Jong-Il’s death, my colleagues report from Seoul.

“I cannot believe it. How will he go like this? What are we have a tendency to purported to do?” said a distraught Kang Tae-Ho.

“He tried therefore exhausting to form our lives far better and he simply left like this,” said Hong Sun-Ok.

0910 GMT: us President Barack Obama referred to as his shut friend President Lee Myung-Bak of South Korea at the hours of darkness US east coast time, the White House said.

“The president reaffirmed the United States’ sturdy commitment to the soundness of the Korean peninsula and also the security of our shut ally, the Republic of Korea,” in keeping with Obama’s workplace.

“The 2 leaders agreed to remain in shut bit because the scenario develops and agreed they might direct their national security groups to continue shut coordination,” the White House statement added.

0902 GMT: A outline of the case at 0900 GMT: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has died aged sixty nine of a heart attack, in keeping with state media. The death has plunged the nuclear-armed, famine-ridden and deeply isolated nation into a second dynastic succession.

North Korea is urging folks to rally behind Kim’s youngest son Jong-Un, describing him as “great successor” to the leader who presided over the deaths of many thousands from hunger however still engineered an nuclear weapons arsenal.

South Korea has place its military on emergency alert however needs its folks to remain calm, swiftly closing ranks with its shut ally the us. Analysts say is probably going to be very little turbulence within the North — a minimum of for currently.

0841 GMT: AFP’s reporter in Tokyo Huw Griffith reports that the national flag is flying at 0.5 mast at North Korea’s de facto embassy in Tokyo. Around fifty journalists have gathered at the building — officially the Tokyo headquarters of the North Korean residents association in Japan — yearning for scraps of knowledge however were met by a wall of silence from officers.

0834 GMT: Grief-stricken North Koreans broke down in tears within the streets of Pyongyang once the death of leader Kim Jong-il was announced, Chinese media said Monday.

Shops shut, flags were lowered to 0.5 mast and a few folks removed red scarves — the color of celebration in North Korea — or tucked them into their clothing, the Pyongyang correspondent of the state-run world Times daily reported.

China’s state CCTV tv network showed footage of North Koreans sobbing on the comparatively deserted streets of Pyongyang, whereas the world Times said teams of individuals had gathered in front of the numerous portraits of Kim that are hung round the town.

0825 GMT: Residents of Los Angeles’ Koreatown have told AFP of their cautious concern at what is going to happen in their motherland following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

The 120,000-strong community is among the very best concentrations of ethnic Koreans outside the Korean peninsula.

“It’s extremely terribly dangerous. this is often terribly tough,” Koreatown resident James Lee told the native KABC-TV news channel.

“I assume it’s reaching to bring a lot of turmoil,” added an immigrant employee at the JJ Grand Hotel in Koreatown, telling AFP that Kim Jong-Un “might be worse than his father.”

0805 GMT: Observers of North Korea, that has long alarmed the international community with its nuclear capability and erratic manner, have sought to dispel fears of an on the spot power struggle or a military coup, AFP’s Park Chan-Kyong in Seoul writes.

“This clearly indicates that Jong-Un is already firmly in power, and every one key officers underneath Kim Jong-Il have determined for the past 2 days since Kim’s death to support Jong-Un because the new leader,” Paik Hak-Soon of Seoul’s Sejong Institute think-tank told AFP.

“The North’s prime guys have already sorted out everything, and also the regime appears to be stable underneath the new leadership. i do not expect any major turbulence or power struggle within the regime within the foreseeable future.”

“The Kim Jong-Un era has already started.”

Another analyst, Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, told AFP: “For a moment the military and Kim’s family can attempt to uphold Kim Jong-Un as their leader and unite around him.

“A power struggle is feasible within the future, making an obstacle to his succession as a result of Jong-Un failed to secure full public support,” he said, adding that an absence of widespread backing created him vulnerable.

0747 GMT: Video footage from China Central tv has shown folks sobbing on the streets of Pyongyang. “How am i able to specific all the sorrow… i can not say any further,” a soldier said.

0730 GMT: Australia has urged calm following the death of Kim Jong-Il. Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said nuclear North Korea was the only most armed military zone anywhere within the world and it had been at a important juncture. “It is sometimes like this that we have a tendency to cannot afford to possess any wrong or ambiguous signalling,” he said.

“This time additionally presents a vital chance to the new North Korean leadership to have interaction absolutely with the international community on a way to improve their economy so as to properly feed their folks and critically on a way to contend with the outstanding drawback of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme,” Rudd said.

0711 GMT: China a detailed ally of its reclusive neighbour has offered its “deep condolences” on the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, in keeping with Xinhua news agency reports.

0705 GMT: South Korean and US military forces stationed on the border with North Korea have stepped up surveillance by planes and satellites, a defence ministry spokesman has told AFP. “We are paying shut attention to any movements by the North’s military.”

0645 GMT: South Korea’s President Lee Myung-Bak has urged the general public to travel regarding their business and keep calm. President Lee held talks with US President Barack Obama regarding 2 hours once Kim Jong-Il’s death was announced, media reports said.

0630 GMT: Kim Jong-Un has been referred to as the “great successor” by state media in North Korea. “Kim Jong-Un’s leadership provides a certain guarantee for creditably carrying to completion the revolutionary reason for juche through generations, the cause started by Kim Il-Sung and led by Kim Jong-Il to victory,” the official news agency said, touching on the official ideology of juche or self-reliance.

0600 GMT: several South Koreans have told AFP of their shock and fears over the death of Kim Jong-Il. “I’m worried there’ll be a war. i believed it wasn’t true initially,” Song Bo-Na, 22, a university student told AFP reporter in South Korea Nam You-Sun.

Businessman Kim Sung-Il, 49, told AFP that he hoped North Korea would modification once its leader’s death. “The death are, and may be, the trigger for changes in and out of North Korea,” he said.

“I’m speechless,” Kwak Bo-Ram, 24, an NGO official additionally said. “I’m simply shocked and worried at a similar time.

“It was perpetually a rumour before, not a confirmed report,” she told AFP, touching on occasional rumours regarding Kim’s death that surfaced in recent years.

0550 GMT: the japanese government has offered its condolences. “We specific our condolences upon receiving the announcement of the sudden passing of Kim Jong-Il, the chairman of the National Defence Committee of North Korea,” Japan’s prime government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said.

Ties between North Korea and Japan are fraught for many years, partly as a results of Japan’s generally brutal 1910-1945 annexation of the Korean peninsula.

0520 GMT: AFP’s journalist Ed Jones reports that the national flag is flying at 0.5 mast at the North Korean embassy in Beijing. Police are keeping watch as around thirty members of the foreign and domestic media have gathered outside the embassy.

0455 GMT: whereas very little is understood regarding Kim Jong-Un, the son and doable heir of Kim Jong-Il, consultants believe he has traits in common together with his father.

“Jong-Un is understood to possess the potential to become a robust, ruthless leader. He features a take-charge temperament,” Sejong Institute’s Cheong told AFP. “As a result, as of the summer of 2010, Kim Jong-Un peddles influence, excluding in foreign affairs matters, on state affairs on a level like that of Kim Jong-Il.”

0442 GMT: Japan’s Defence Minister Yasuo Ichikawa has said no uncommon military moves by North Korea are detected since the announcement of Kim’s death. however he said Japan would stay vigilant. 3 of the six Japanese terrestrial national networks, as well as state broadcaster NHK, used regular afternoon news and data programmes to air the North Korean broadcast.

0430 GMT: Don Manzullo, a US lawmaker and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on East Asia, has referred to as late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il the “epitome of evil” and hoped his death would mark a brand new chapter for the authoritarian state. He said US lawmakers have watched with alarm as Kim sought nuclear weapons and caused “provocations” against South Korea.

0423 GMT: The us has said it’s “closely monitoring” reports on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s death and is committed to stability on the Korean peninsula and also the security of its allies. “The President has been notified and that we are in shut bit with our allies in South Korea and Japan,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

0418 GMT: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has referred to as an emergency security meeting to formulate Japan’s reaction to the death of the North Korean leader.

0405 GMT: Uncertainty over the longer term of North Korea following Kim’s death hit South Korean shares, that tumbled four.87 p.c soon once the announcement was created.

0350 GMT: “Great mental and physical strain” has been cited by official state media because the reason for Kim Jong-Il’s death.

0348 GMT: Following an autopsy performed on Sunday, KCNA said Kim Jong-Il died of a “severe myocardial infarction beside a heart attack”.

0336 GMT: South Korea’s government has gone on an emergency footing once the news of Kim’s death, in keeping with the South’s Yonhap news agency.

0315 GMT: Official coverage of the death has urged the population of the secluded state to follow the late leader’s youngest son Kim Jong-Un.

0306 GMT: A weeping announcer on official state tv told the state that Kim died on board a train throughout one in every of his field visits outside the capital.

Welcome to AFP’s live coverage on the death of Kim Jong-Il, the leader of secluded North Korea, who, in keeping with state media, died of a heart attack on December seventeen whereas travelling on a train.

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