All Eyes On North Korea In September

This is where the international intrigue will be in September.    North Korea fascinates me since so little is really known about their internal workings and power struggles.  One of the amazing rumors about the upcoming meeting might be a North Korean move from dictatorship to collective rule.  That would make a few headlines in newspapers.

The biggest meeting of North Korea’s ruling political party in 44 years, expected to be held next month, may give the world its first look at the country’s potential next leader, Kim Jong Il’s third son Kim Jong Eun.

The meeting, called in June, appears in some ways similar to the 1980 event in which Kim Jong Il made his public debut. But it’s even rarer: The last meeting of party representatives occurred in 1966 with thousands in attendance, while Kim Jong Il’s debut occurred at a smaller party congress, six of which have been held since the country’s start in 1948.

“If Kim Jong Eun’s name doesn’t come out in this meeting, he is not going to make it” as the next leader of the country, says Yoo Dong-ryul, a North Korea analyst at the Police Science Institute in South Korea.

Agence France-Press / Getty Images

Kim Jong Il in an undated school photo.