Diagnosing What Ails North Korea's Kim Jong Il

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 15, 2010 -- North Korea abruptly postponed today what was billed as the country's largest political convention in 30 years, renewing speculation that the secretive country's supreme leader Kim Jong Il may be too sick -- possibly with diabetes -- to dominate the convention.

Experts have widely speculated that the meeting would be a way for Kim to promote his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as his heir apparent.

But Good Friends, a welfare group based in Seoul, says the delegates from all over the nation are heading back to their hometowns after the convention was postponed "due to floods" and "due to lack of quorum."

The group, quoting a representative in Pyongyang who was waiting for the meeting to convene, said many participants could not travel to the convention "because the roads were disconnected by Typhoon Kompasu," which hit the nation on Sept. 2.

As if to back up the speculation, Pyongyang's official state media reported today that dozens of people were killed, 8,000 homes damaged, communications cut off, and railroads disconnected by the typhoon.

But most North Korean watchers in Seoul believe the real reason for the delay is either because the senior communist party officials could not reach an agreement regarding the role of heir apparent Kim Jong Un, or because Kim Jong Il's health is seriously deteriorating.

"That typhoon hit two weeks ago. It just doesn't make sense that these most important party representatives could not arrive in Pyongyang when they had a whole week to travel," said Tae-Keung Ha, president of Open Radio for North Korea, a non-profit organization with close regular contacts with sources inside the North.

Speculation over Kim's health has been rampant since he reportedly suffered a stroke in August 2008. Given his unquestioned dictatorial power in a nation that poses a world nuclear threat, the status of his health has been a constant subject of a guessing game among analysts, medical experts, and intelligence agencies that scrutinize occasional photographs and rare videos of Kim.

In the latest photo taken on Aug. 27 in China, Kim appears strikingly old and frail with visible hair loss. Medical experts in Seoul believe the hair loss is not only from aging, but also a result of kidney dialysis and diabetes.

"Without testing his blood, we can't for sure say he's got diabetes," Chang Won Won, medical doctor at Kyung Hee Medical Center. "But just from the fact that he is a heavy drinking, smoking, 68-year-old losing significant amount of hair in a short period of time, we can confidently guess that his time is ticking."