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South Korea’s intelligence agency has learned that Kim's health has recently deteriorated and he has been taken back to hospital, according to Seoul's major newspaper on Wednesday.
"The spy authorities obtained intelligence on Sunday that Kim has suffered a serious setback and has again been hospitalized," the Dong-a Ilbo said, citing an unnamed government official.
The daily quoted another government official as saying that Kim would appear to be suffering from a more serious ailment, as he underwent surgery despite the poor condition of his heath. Kim, 66, is believed to have suffered from a stroke and undergone brain surgery in August.
The official also raised the possibility of a political vacuum in the North, saying it has yet to announce the date of elections to the Supreme People's Assembly, originally scheduled to be held in August.
Last week, the ailing leader's eldest son Kim Jong Nam flew to Paris, apparently to recruit a French brain surgeon to treat his father. Jong Nam was captured on camera, and the footage was shown by Japan's Fuji Television on Oct. 27. It showed a man believed to be Jong Nam entering the neurosurgery ward of a Paris hospital and leaving the hospital about two hours later.
The channel also showed the French doctor who is believed to have met Jong Nam at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris two days later. He was taken to the airport in a car owned by the North Korean mission to Paris-based UNESCO, it said.
The doctor said he was going to Beijing, which has a regular direct air route with the North's capital Pyongyang.
The French news weekly Le Point reported that the French doctor, an expert on aneurysms and brain tumors and a friend of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, left for Pyongyang on Friday.
Seoul's spy chief said he believes the man on the video footage is Kim Jong Nam. "We believe Kim's eldest son made a trip to France last week," Kim Sung-ho, the director of the National Intelligence Service, told a closed-door parliamentary session.
But the intelligence chief said the North Korean leader, though "not physically perfect," appears to have recovered enough to run the country without difficulty. "He appears well enough to perform his daily duties," Kim was quoted as saying by an opposition lawmaker.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso also said the North Korean leader was in hospital, though still capable of making decisions. In a parliamentary meeting in Tokyo, Aso said Kim Jong Il seemed to be issuing orders from his hospital bed.
The North Korean leader has vanished from public view since Aug. 14, failing to show up for the country's most important political events, bolstering rumors about his declining health.
Pyongyang's state media has reported Kim's public activities, but has shown neither photos nor video images of him. Earlier this month, the North's outbound mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, released still photos of Kim in an apparent effort to quell rumors about his health. But the pictures appeared to have been taken months ago, rather fueling speculation that he is still seriously ill and possibly losing his grip on the country.
Analysts in Seoul said Kim's long absence could cause social unrest, citing the North's saber-rattling against the South as evidence.
The North's military late Tuesday threatened to turn everything in the wealthy South into "debris" unless it stops sending anti-North leaflets across the border, indicating the communist leadership was rattled by the leaflet campaign launched by civic activists and defectors in the South.
In a statement, the North's military said it would use a "more powerful and advanced" strike of its own if South Korea launched a pre-emptive strike. "The puppet authorities (in the South) had better bear in mind that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything ... to debris, not just setting them on fire," it said.
South Korean activists floated 100,000 leaflets critical of the communist leadership into North Korea on Monday. They used large balloons to fly the leaflets that described Kim Jong Il as "the world's most devilish dictator" who is responsible for the famine and poverty in the country. They have sent more than 1 million leaflets into the North by balloons over the past few years.
Kim Sung-bae, a researcher of the state-run Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul, said the North's angry response indicated its concerns that the leaflets from the South could spark social unrest.
"As Kim Jong Il could not resume public activities, the North seems to consider the leaflets as a serious threat to its system," he said.
