North Korea’s Kim Jong Il dead
The North Korean ruler who realized his family’s dream of turning his starving country into a minor nuclear-weapons power, has died at what is reported to be the age of 69.
KNS/AFP/Getty Images
Kim Jong Il’s death, after a long illness, ended 17 years of rule over North Korea, the isolated, paranoid country that his father founded.
KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images
Workers looked through a special edition of a South Korean newspaper that reported Kim's death.
Ahn Young-joon/associated press
Passengers on a South Korean bus watched the news of Kim Jong Il's reported death.
associated press/file
Kim was believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008. He met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (right) in August.
Korea News Service/reuters/file
Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.
KNS/AFP/Getty Images
In September 2010, he unveiled his third son, Kim Jong Un (first from left), as his successor.
AFP/Getty Images
Kim Jong Il (second from right) was said to have been born in 1942 on Mount Paekdu, one of Korea’s most cherished sites.
reuters/file
Kim met with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in October 2000.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images
Kim Jong Il shook hands with then-Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2002.
REUTERS/file
South Korea's President Roh Moo Hyun posed with Kim after a meeting in the North Korean capital in 2007.
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“North Korea is a serious problem under all circumstances, and now with this political upheaval they’re going to be very anxious and sensitive.”
Stephen W. Bosworth, a former special envoy to North Korea
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