BREAKING: KIM JONG IL HAS DIED

Posted By The P/Oed Patriot

According to Salon.com, the North Korean Communist Dictator Kim Jong Il has died at the age of 69.

Since the creation of the communist country in 1948, North Korea has only had 2 leaders, Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il.  Kim Jong Il took power in 1994 after the death of his father.

According to the New York Times, North Korea hasn’t exactly been a paradise under Kim Jong Il and he has slowly been transferring power to his son:

“Under Kim Jong-il, North Korea has become a nuclear power. It has also become the world’s most isolated state, one in which unknown numbers starved during famines in the 1990s, while money flowed to the country’s military programs.

Increasingly reclusive since a reported stroke in 2008, he has been facing external and internal pressures that are forcing him to reach out to China. His government’s disastrous currency revaluation in November 2009 — meant to curb free markets — sparked inflation and deepened food shortages. United Nations sanctions, tightened after North Korea’s nuclear test in 2009, had already curtailed the country’s ability to earn hard currency abroad.

In May 2011, Mr. Kim met with officials in Beijing — his first visit outside North Korea since his stroke — and said his government would try to restart six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons program, which he angrily abandoned in late 2008 because of preconditions.

Washington and Seoul have demanded that North Korea announce a moratorium before, not after, the talks begin. It is North Korea’s often-repeated position that talks should proceed without preconditions.

In late August 2011, Mr. Kim went to Russia, where he met with President Dmitri A. Medvedev. During their meeting, Mr. Kim agreed to consider a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests and production, and said he wanted to return to the stalled talks on the nation’s nuclear program.

In recent years, Mr. Kim has been taking actions to transfer power to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, who in September 2010 was appointed a four-star general in the People’s Army. In February 2011, his son was named vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, the country’s most powerful body led by his father.”

H/T Rachel

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Thanks for sharing!