Rumours abound over absence of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
Rare visit by purported No 2 Hwang Pyong-so to South in the presence of bodyguards fuels speculation of Kim Jong-un's ill health or a coup
If North Korean leader Kim Jong-un isn't sick, he must be dead - at least politically.
That's the thinking behind a rash of rumours that the portly 31-year-old scion of the country's founding communists has been toppled from power.
Kim has not been seen in public for more than a month, and his absence from the September 25 gathering of the rubber-stamp parliament fuelled Korea watchers' speculation that he has been deposed by a palace coup.
Then a high-level delegation of Pyongyang officials made a surprise visit to the South Korean city of Incheon on Saturday, ostensibly to catch the closing ceremonies of the Asian Games. The top-ranking visitor, purported No 2 Hwang Pyong-so, conveyed Kim's "heartfelt greeting" to the South Korean officials with whom he met. That only served to ramp up media and academic speculation over why Pyongyang was making such a conciliatory gesture at this time.
South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae took advantage of the rare opportunity for firsthand information from the North in asking after the health of Kim after a North Korean television report last week that alluded to the leader being in "discomfort".
"There is nothing wrong with the health of Secretary Kim," Ryoo's counterpart from Pyongyang, Workers' Party secretary for Korean affairs Kim Yang-gon, told his host.
So what is the reason?
