Scott Snyder (CFR): Kim Jong-il’s Successor Dilemmas. After Kim Jong Il: The upcoming party conference will decide who will be Kim Jong Il’s successor and what direction North Korea will take in order to meet its goals for 2012. The conference of the Korean Workers' Party in Pyongyang is beginning to look like a non-event and its postponement is raising searching questions as to what's going on inside the Hermit Kingdom. From Strategic Insights, Sico van der Meer on North Korea after Kim Jong Il: Four Scenarios. As Kim Jong Il starts looking for the exit, false predictions and wild rumors abound — need some help sorting through them? North Korea's next leader may be decided today: A guide to the mysterious succession struggle. In a time when news flashes around the world and nearly everyone learns everything at the same moment, somehow North Korea has managed to keep its secrets from thousands of prying eyes. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has found an unlikely ally to help raise cash for his impoverished regime: The Dude, the pot-smoking underachiever played by Jeff Bridges in the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski. Pyongyang provocations: When North Korea makes headlines, it is never good news. What's it like to be a tourist in North Korea? Citizens, the moment you have been waiting all week for: the seventh installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story!
