Kim Jong-Un Dead? That's The RumorIn the past two hours, Twitter has exploded with unsubstantiated rumors that the new North Korean dictator died in Beijing today and that a coup is underway in North Korea. All rumor of course, and one that appears to have been started on China’s twitter-like platform Weibo. As the story goes, a couple assassins barged into Kim’s room in Beijing and shot him, before being shot and killed themselves by bodyguards.
Twitter user ChristianJMay says the rumor is “based on news that a host of blacked out cars have descended upon embassy in Beijing, where he was visiting.”
User Rocco_Castoro has a different source of information, tweeting “This just in: Kim Jong-un’s cause of death was being force-fed hotdogs and having a basketball bounced off his head repeatedly for 20 hours.”
We’ll find out soon enough if Little Kim has followed his father Kim Jong-Il into the hereafter. If he is alive and well, this day of rumors will mark the real beginning of his rule. Kim was expected, after his father’s death on Dec. 17, to abide by a 100-day mourning period, like his father did upon the death of Kim Il-Sung in 1994. Yet an article in the Korea JoongAng Daily this week (from before the rumors) notes that Kim has already come out of mourning, and has been seen traveling North Korea, visiting tourist traps like “the Seoul Ryu Kyong-su 105 Guards Tank Division of the Korean People’s Army in Pyongyang.”
