Kim Jong-il’s aides dupe the frail leader

When North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited a chicken farm in Pyongan Bukdo province last October, the local officials showed the leader a farm, full of chickens and eggs to please him.

What Kim probably didn’t know was that the local officials brought chickens and eggs from other nearby farms when they realized that the farm didn’t have enough of its own.

As North Korea is allegedly speeding up its process of power transfer, Kim Jong-il’s grip on power is “decreasing greatly,” the local JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unnamed government source.

The government official told the newspaper that there have been especially an increase of inaccurate, usually exaggerated, economic reports to Kim recently, and the leader is clueless.

Since Kim suffered a stroke in the summer of 2008, officials surrounding Kim have been withdrawing reports that might negatively influence Kim’s health, it said.

“Kim Jong-un (the heir-apparent) sometimes screens reports coming from the military and the security apparatus and makes judgments on which to be reported to Kim Jong-ill,” the official said.

Kim Jong-il recently found out about the situation and ordered all the reports to arrive directly at his secretary’s office, it said.