Kim's body on show in glass coffin

The body of North Korea’s long-time ruler Kim Jong Il was laid out in a memorial palace today as weeping mourners filled public plazas and state media fed a budding personality cult around his third son, hailing him as “born of heaven”.

Indicating that the leadership transition in the world’s only communist dynasty is on track, Kim Jong Un – Kim’s youngest known son and successor – visited the body with top military and Workers’ Party officials and held what state media called a “solemn ceremony” in the capital, Pyongyang, as the country mourned.