Posted on 02/10/2012 5:18:54 PM PST by Pinkbell
The Internet was abuzz with rumors today that North Korea’s newly installed leader, Kim Jong Un, was assassinated during a trip to Beijing, but U.S. officials are debunking the reports as not true.
Several U.S. officials contacted by ABC News said there was no validity to the reports that originated on a Chinese social media site and soon spread to Twitter.
“There’s nothing to this, ” said one U.S. official, who added that there were no indications that the reports were true.
Another U.S. official said, “Our experts are monitoring the situation and we see no abnormal activity on the [Korean] peninsula and nothing that credits that tweet as accurate.”
North Korean troop movements on the North Korean side of the border are often an indicator that the country’s leadership is preparing for tense situations, much as what happened when Kim Jong Un assumed power late last year.
Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, saw a spike in traffic repeating uncorroborated reports that Kim had been assassinated during a visit to Beijing.
The story gained traction on Twitter with re-tweets of what appeared to be confirmation of the reports by two BBC Twitter accounts. However, a BBC Web article reported those twitter handles were fakes and have since been closed.
Today’s Internet rumors were not the first time that Kim has been the focus of social media rumors. In early January, postings to Sina Weibo began to appear claiming that Kim had been overthrown in a military coup. Since then, the Chinese government has been eliminating those postings from the site. The same is happening with today’s rumors on the social media site
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
http://kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.com/
By all means lets help NK yet dump on Israel.
Hmmm...
Un-named State Department ‘Officials’ citing un-named ‘Experts’...
Guess that settles it...
/s
Shucks!
just one more thing for Obama to take credit for or blame on Bush...
Because it only took them a couple of days to find out Kim Jong il had assummed room temp.....Here’s a Conspiracy theory...Obama had Kim Jong UN killed so that HE the true Marxist could move to North Korea and rule! Barry will announce he is pulling out of the 2012 race to save himself an embarressing defeat...LOL (Just kidding folks...I’m a little giddy that it’s friday or it could be the Bourbon)
Fits with the title that he was Un Assassinated!
I’ve been monitoring Weibo via Google Translate all day and the rumors persist. There’s been nothing to refute them. It’s sometime hard to decipher the translation but it’s pretty clear no officials in China or North Korea have denied or put down the rumors.
who can say for sure? real journalism is considered spying
there. ‘truth’ is completely the regime’s to control.
Pimping for 0bama is considered espionage in NorKville? Wait...maybe I’m too stuck on the US definition of journalism.
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