Kim Jong Il names son to succeed him in N Korea

NORTH KOREA’s Kim Jong Il has anointed his 26-year-old son – said to be competitive, proficient in English and a heavy drinker – as the next leader of the communist state, it emerged yesterday.

Two major South Korean newspapers said that North Korea’s military, party and government officials were informed that Kim Jong Un, the youngest of three, is in line to take the world’s first communist dynasty into a third generation.

The announcement was made in the days after North Korea’s provocative May 25 nuclear test, the Hankook Ilbo newspaper reported, citing unnamed South Korean lawmakers briefed by the spy agency.