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SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea‘s authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il is suffering from pancreatic cancer and is not expected to live more than five years, a news report said, the latest speculation to emerge about his health after he reportedly suffered a stroke last year.

Analysts, however, were skeptical, saying Kim’s increasing appearances in public this year suggest that he is unlikely to be suffering from cancer. Kim made his latest “field-guidance” trip to a newly built tile factory, the North’s state media said later Monday.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which closely monitors the North, said Tuesday that Kim made 82 trips to factories and farms across the nation so far this year, compared with 57 visits made during the same period last year.

South Korea’s YTN television reported Monday that the 67-year-old strongman was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around the time he collapsed due to a purported stroke — reportedly in August last year.

YTN quoted unidentified intelligence officials in South Korea and China as saying the disease is “threatening” Kim’s life. Details were few, however, and the report offered no information on why the sources think Kim has cancer.

The report said that pancreatic cancer is usually only discovered in its final stage, and considering Kim’s age, he would not live more than five years.

The American Cancer Society lists rather less optimistic data; it says about 20 percent of people live at least one year after they discover they have pancreatic cancer but that fewer than 5 percent survive as long as five years.

South Korean government officials said they could not confirm the report or had no information on it. And North Korea’s closed nature and its state-controlled media make it all but impossible to verify reports about Kim’s health.

Kim’s physical condition has been the focus of intense media speculation due to concerns about a possible political power struggle in the North if he were to die without naming a successor.

Kim assumed power after his father died in 1994 of heart failure at age 82. It has been widely reported that his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, is being groomed as the heir, but the regime has made no announcement to the outside world.

Monday’s report was the latest media speculation on Kim’s health after he made a rare televised appearance last week at an annual memorial for his late father and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

Footage showed Kim looking 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 Kim — suspected of having long suffered diabetes and heart problems — could have other health worries as well.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Monday that he had seen reports about Kim’s health but said he had no specific information to share.

The Lake Havasu City Council could decide Tuesday to authorize a lawsuit settlement agreement with a local man injured in a rollover and his family.

The City Council meeting will be held Tuesday at 6 p.m. inside the council chambers at the Police Facility. It is open to the public.

After months of expenditure cuts and state-funding uncertainty, the Lake Havasu Unified School District No. 1 Governing Board passed the district’s 2009-10 fiscal year budget Monday.

The final budget resembles much of what was passed earlier this month in the district’s preliminary budget.

A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal

dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.
“China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century,” Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.

“Is Indian military equipped to face the two-front wars by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian civil administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare? “The answers are an unequivocal ‘no’. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front,” the defence journal editor says. In view of the “imminent threat” posed by China, “the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the civil administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground – from Lalgarh to Tawang,” he says.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan pitched for greater harmony among South Asian people as he accepted an honorary doctorate from a British

Shah Rukh Khan More Pics

university, saying governments were best left to their own “agendas”.

“We belong to – I know it’s a bit of a cliche but – one world. Specifically I think, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka — all of us, we’re the same. I really believe we are the same,” Khan told journalists after being made honorary Doctor of Arts by Bedfordshire University Friday.

The doctorate in recognition of his “exceptional achievement as a film actor and producer”, was proposed by an Indian NGO called Routes 2 Roots, which works to bring South Asians together.

“My mother is from Hyderabad in India and father is from Peshawar (in Pakistan). So I do believe in this (cultural unity).

“Especially when you come away from India or Pakistan you realise there is no Indian or Pakistani — we’re all together. We are – culturally, as human beings, as friends. These are the aspects that keep us together.

“As far as the (government) agendas are concerned, let them go on.”

Invited by a Pakistani journalist to visit Pakistan, said: “I also do wish to go there – my family’s there.”

Earlier, in his acceptance speech, Khan said he was inspired by the doctorate to work for the education of poor children in India.

“While this honour is bestowed on me, I wonder if the deserving but poor and underprivileged children from India can also pursue their higher education in such universities and maybe earn a doctorate as well.

“This thought has been weighing heavily on my mind and I am hopeful that I would be able to contribute to this cause in the future,” he added.