It looks like Andrei Lankov was right (not that I ever doubted him). The telegram that described Kim Jong-il’s succession plans was never seen first-hand by any intelligence agents. The information was only obtained through accounts by eyewitnesses.
Speaking of Kim Jong-un, here’s an article that sheds some light on this mysterious figure. Apparently, he’s a big fan of boxing and basketball, and was home-schooled* before going to study in Switzerland.
And he really does look like his father (from a Japanese TV station, via the Chosun Ilbo).
* Which could account for why so little is known about him, even by people like Hwang Jang-yup.
Edit/Update:
Oops. That picture wasn’t of Kim Jong-un, as Japan’s Asahi TV had reported, but of a South Korean man who uploaded his photo to a community site dedicated to shamanism. He wanted to point out how similar his face is to Kim Jong-il’s. Why? I’m not sure. Koreans are big fans of face reading, and maybe he or others thought that having a similar face to Kim Jong-il’s meant that he was similar in other ways, such as personality. Why he would want to have characteristics similar to those of a ruthless dictator, I can’t fathom.
[...] It looks like Andrei Lankov was right. [...]
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[...] and that he may even be acting as a kind of surrogate leader for his ailing father. However, Andrei Lankov has shown us that we should take all of this news with a grain of salt. These reports seem to be [...]
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