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North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is not ill, a top official in the secretive state was quoted as saying on Wednesday, dismissing speculation of a possible power shift in the world’s first communist dynasty.
Kim Jong-il, long-suspected of suffering chronic illnesses, was conspicuously absent from a parade on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the communist state. A U.S. intelligence official said the reclusive leader may have suffered a stroke.
“(There is) no problem,” North Korea’s nominal number two leader, Kim Yong-nam, told Japan’s Kyodo news agency in Pyongyang.
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