SKorea dismisses rumours about NKorea leader's death
SEOUL (AFP) — South Korea's government on Thursday dismissed rumours of the death of North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il as baseless after they swirled through stock markets.
"Recent rumours (about Kim's death) are groundless," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-Nyoun told reporters.
The rumours emerged briefly on South Korea's financial markets and in Tokyo but were short-lived, market watchers said.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday that Kim was touring a textile factory in the northeastern port city of Hamhung.
Rumours about Kim's death have circulated this week despite reports by the North's state media that he visited army units Monday and Wednesday.
NewsHakuk.com, a local Internet news service, reported late Wednesday that Kim had been killed Monday -- but then pulled the story Thursday without any explanation.
Kyobo Securities analyst Lee Woo-Hyun told AFP there were rumours that Kim had died, "but investors largely dismissed it."
Kim's health has been a source of fevered speculation overseas.
Foreign officials and media have long speculated that Kim, a former smoker and heavy drinker, was ill. Seoul intelligence officials say they believe he has diabetes and heart problems.
Kim strogly denied rumours of heart disease or diabetes at an inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last October, denouncing media reports about his health as fiction.
He took charge of the impoverished hardline state in 1994 on the death of his father and North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung, creating the world's first communist dynasty.
Masatoshi Sato, broker at Mizuho Investors Securities in Tokyo, said there had appeared to be unconfirmed rumours on his death flying around the market.
"I don't think it would have a significant impact on the market" even if it was true, Sato said.
Some investors might want to buy stocks amid speculation South Korea would benefit from industrial demand to reconstruct North Korea, he said.
But he said regime change in Pyongyang would actually impact negatively on Seoul. "North Korea is in a severe economic state and the South Korean economy couldn't prop it up," he added.
