Report: North Korea's Kim has pancreatic cancer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, a news report said Monday, days after fresh images of him looking gaunt spurred speculation that his health was worsening following a reported stroke last year.

The 67-year-old Kim was diagnosed with the cancer around the time he was felled by the stroke last summer, Seoul's YTN television reported, citing unidentified intelligence officials in South Korea and China.

The report cited the officials saying the disease is "threatening" Kim's life.

Pancreatic cancer is usually found in its final stage, and considering Kim's age, he is expected to live no more than five years, the report said.

South Korea's spy agency said it could not confirm the report. Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters he knows nothing of the report. Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young also said he had no information.

Kim's health is a focus of intense media speculation due to concerns about instability in the North and a possible power struggle if he were to die without naming a successor. His third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has widely been reported as being groomed as heir, but the regime has made no announcement to the outside world.

North Korea's closed nature and its state-controlled media make it all but impossible to verify reports about Kim's health and his successor.

Monday's report came after Kim last week made a rare public appearance at an annual memorial for his late father and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. It was only the second state event he has attended since the reported stroke.

Television footage showed him markedly thinner and with less hair. He also limped slightly, and the sides of his tightly pursed lips looked imbalanced in what were believed to be the effects of a stroke.

The images touched off speculation that he could have other health problems.

South Korea's spy agency has long suspected that Kim has diabetes and heart disease.

Medical doctor and professor Min Yang-ki of Seoul's Hallym University Medical Center has said diabetes usually leads to weight loss. The neurologist also said Kim's limping appears to be a result of a stroke. However, he said, overall it appeared Kim has recovered from that reported illness.

Kim walked on his own into a Pyongyang auditorium for last week's memorial at a normal pace and bowed while standing during a moment of silence.

North Korea experts said the latest images of Kim show he is still fit enough to rule.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said he doubts the YTN report about pancreatic cancer because the number of Kim's "field-guidance" trips to workplaces has increased significantly this year.

"Would he be able to carry out such brisk activity while having pancreatic cancer?" Yang said.

Seoul's Unification Ministry, which closely monitors the North, said late last month that Kim made 77 trips to factories and farms across the nation through late June, compared with 49 visits made during the same period last year.

Kim Jong Il took over North Korea after his father died in 1994 of heart failure at age 82, though he did not take on his father's title of president. He runs the North from his post as chairman of the National Defense Commission.

In early April, he presided over a parliamentary meeting where he was re-elected as leader.

The South's spy agency believes that Kim's 26-year-old youngest son, Jong Un, is sure to succeed his father, Seoul's Chosun Ilbo daily reported Monday, citing a recent report to the National Assembly by the National Intelligence Service.

The agency also reported that Kim Jong Il is expected to officially designate the son as his successor in 2012, the centennial anniversary of late national founder Kim Il Sung's birth, the paper said.

But the regime under the son is expected to be unstable and vulnerable to internal political strife as Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law, Jang Song Thaek, could attempt to snatch power, the paper said.

A U.S.-based scholar who recently traveled to Pyongyang said Saturday that he thinks the son's official designation is expected to come "relatively soon."

"In the past, talking about succession is almost taboo," University of Georgia political scientist Han S. Park told The Associated Press. "But on this trip, I was able to discuss this with officials and acquaintances."

Park said the consensus among the North Koreans he met was that the next leader would be a person who "inherited Kim Il Sung's thoughts, Kim Il Sung's characteristics and Kim Il Sung's leadership."

Japan PM to call vote, faces no-confidence motion

TOKYO – Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told ruling party leaders Monday he will dissolve parliament and hold general elections next month, following a crushing defeat for his party in Tokyo municipal polls considered a barometer of voter sentiment.

The decision came as opposition parties, emboldened by a surge in popularity, submitted a joint no-confidence motion in parliament against the prime minister and his Cabinet.

Aso told leaders of his Liberal Democratic Party he would likely dissolve the powerful lower house of the legislature next week, with a general election to be held on Aug. 30, according to Osamu Sakashita, a spokesman at the prime minister's office.

The move was widely seen as a last-ditch attempt to keep the ruling party in power after the Liberal Democrats and their coalition lost their majority Sunday in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. The assembly elections have been closely watched as a bellwether of what's ahead for Aso's party.

Meanwhile, the opposition, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, submitted the no-confidence motion to the powerful lower house of parliament, said party spokesman Toshiaki Oikawa. The motion was not expected to pass and was instead seen as a symbolic action to embarrass Aso.

Sunday's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly vote does not directly affect the outcome of the upcoming national election, but the defeat deepened turmoil in the ruling party, with many lawmakers calling for fresh leadership heading into elections. Others were already jumping ship — lawmaker Kotaro Nagasaki submitted his withdrawal from the party on Monday.

WTO cuts trade forecast, sees rising protectionism

GENEVA: The World Trade Organisation warned on Wednesday of rising protectionism amid the economic crisis as it sharply cut its forecast for trade volumes of developed and developing economies this year.

Making its latest assessment of the global economic situation, the WTO also observed that the sharp contraction of the global economy registered in the first quarter this year "appears to be slowing down."

However, citing risks including rising unemployment and oil prices, the organisation lowered its forecast of global trade contraction to 10.0 percent from its March forecast of a shrinkage of 9.0 percent.

Trading volumes of developed economies are now expected to shrink by 14.0 percent instead of 10.0 percent while those of developing economies would contract 7.0 percent, rather than the earlier forecast 2.0-3.0 percent. Amid the economic crisis, the WTO said in its report to member states that there has been a growing number of instances of protectionism.

"In the past three months, there has been further slippage towards more trade restricting and distorting policies," it said in the report obtained by AFP. The WTO added that "resort to high intensity protectionist measures has been contained overall, albeit with difficulties."

It noted that even without taking into account trade measures put in place due to the H1N1 flu pandemic, there were more than twice as many new trade barriers introduced than new trade liberalising measures. It said restrictions related to the A(H1N1) flu pandemic has been "most noticeable," listing at least 39 member states which have imposed measures such as import bans on pork products from swine flu-affected countries.

"A worsening of the A(H1N1) flu pandemic could also create further downside risk to global economic recovery," it said. The trade organisation also raised renewed concerns over stimulus programmes put in place by governments in a bid to lift economies out of the recession.

Major military operation under way in Afghanistan

NAWA, Afghanistan – Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops poured into Taliban-infested villages of southern Afghanistan with armor and helicopters Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country.

The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium poppy producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.

Officials described the operation, dubbed Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase, involving nearly 4,000 of the newly arrived Marines and 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.

"Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Transport helicopters carried hundreds of Marines into the village of Nawa, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, in a region where no U.S. or other NATO troops have operated in large numbers.

Daybreak brought the sporadic crackle of gunfire, but no heavy fighting immediately broke out. Medical helicopters circled overhead and landed, indicating possible early casualties among the Marines.

A roadside bomb early in the mission wounded one Marine, but he was able to continue, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half of much as are now in Iraq.

The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and were ousted from power following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a violent comeback, wreaking havoc in much of the country's south and east, forcing the United States to pour in the new troops.