1) Heavy flood prevented many conference delegates from arriving in Pyongyang(lame excuse: flood is bad but not that bad.)
2) Heavy flood dampened the positive atmosphere in which the conference should convene. (lame excuse)
3) Party delegates, who are actually local party officials, have more pressing need to take care of flood damage. (lame excuse)
4) With outside aids having slowed to a trickle, the regime is short of gifts to give to delegates.(lame)
5) Security problems occurred in Pyongyang(rumors of anti-regime leaflets scattered in multiple places in Pyongyang near the scheduled date of conference: some account says it occurred twice with a couple of days apart.) (plausible)
6) The planned shake-up of top leadership ran into a trouble. Some are not happy to be downsized or pushed out (very plausible)
7) Kim Jong-eun has not earned enough credibility to be paraded as an official successor yet. Most of attempt to do so failed(currency reform, Cheonan sinking, World Cup fiasco, disastrous drive to build 10 million houses in Pyongyang.) (plausible)
8) Kim Jong-il’s health went bad (long-distance China trip and excessive effort to look healthy in public) (very plausible)
9) Party conference is a grand sting to ferret out moles within party ranks by leaking different information to different people. (implausible)
10) Impatient and overly aggressive Kim Jong-eun caused trouble again (rumor of him asking to be Chairman of National Defense Commission and Kim Jong-il to take a symbolic title of ‘Eternal Great Leader,’ which infuriated Kim Jong-il who then put a brake on party conference. Kim Jong-il decided to sit out the conference at his villa up north to show his anger. Kim Jong-il’s sister and his husband Jang Sung-taek hurriedly went to Kim Jong-il’s villa to cool him down. A rumor circulating in some quarters of N. Korea) (not credible)
11) Kim Jong-il had a second thought about his pledge to economic reform which he made at a meeting with Chinese leaders. It was said to be one of major agendas at the conference. He shelved the whole idea by delaying the conference. (plausible)
Odd development:
1) Carter said in his web site that he was told by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that Kim Jong-il denied his third son is groomed to be his successor, while there is another story that Kim Jong-eun accompanied Kim Jong-il in his trip to China in order to have a face-to-face introduction as the next top guy in N. Korea. Some S. Korean media reports that Kim Jong-eun’s photos are printed and distributed to senior officials, and soon unveiled to general public.
2) N. Korea is unexpectedly conducting major military exercise all over the country, in which special forces posing as hostile forces try to mount mock attack to strategically important locations while local militia and civilian brigades are supposed to defend sites against such attack. This is said to be the type of exercise they do in winter, but unusual to do it in autumn, right around the time of harvest. It would drain manpower for harvest and grains would not be fully harvested, which would worsen food shortage. Experts speculate that this was abruptly scheduled to divert attention from unexplained delay of party conference, and head off possible impression of regime instability among general public.
12) Kim Jong-eun is in hospital.
South Korea’s conservative Chosun Ilbo daily on Saturday quoted an unidentified researcher at a state-financed institute saying that there was an unconfirmed intelligence report that the son has been hurt in an accident.
“There is an intelligence report that something happened to Jong-Un’s physical safety,” the researcher was quoted as saying.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inzT8nb8In0N0u93TG5lSrGMzlcQ
No update on the North Korea’s Workers’ Party meeting since Sept 5 http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-k.htm
” unusual to do it in autumn, right around the time of harvest. It would drain manpower for harvest and grains would not be fully harvested, which would worsen food shortage”
Maybe with floods, etc there isn’t as much to harvest?
HOw long before Number three son go KILL Bill Vol 1 on his relatives eh Tiger LOL!
Is me or what is this turn into Korean version of 1968 movie Lion in winter
Just sayin
Thank you for pinging me.