North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un

Wild rumours that Kim Jong-Un, the new leader of North Korea, has been assassinated have been shot down amid claims he has in fact been preparing for his late father’s birthday.

A convoy of vehicles which surrounded the North Korean embassy in Beijing, where it is understood Kim has been staying, are thought to be behind the rumours which were originally posted on a Chinese social website.

A source close to North Korean dignitaries have told me that everything they have learned from the secret country suggests that life is continuing there as normal. If all hell had broken loose, troops would have been rushed to the borders and that didn’t happen.

The unusually-large number of official vehicles at the North Korean embassy in China were there because, it is now claimed, Kim Jong-Un was making preparations for a fantastic birthday party in memory of his late father, Kim Jong-Il, who died of a suspected heart attack in December.

There have been country-wide celebrations in North Korea each time Kim Jong-Il’s birthday has come around on February 16 and, said US officials, and it believed a number of advisers called at the embassy to discuss celebrations with the late ‘Dear Leader’s’ son before his return to Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-Il would have been 70 this month.

Rumours of Kim Jong-Un’s death are believed to have their origins in a tweet on a Chinese Twitter clone called Weibo.

A user called Hucaihe, who has an office near the North Korean embassy, tweeted that he had noticed some unusual activity there.

He wrote: ‘Downstairs of the office, the cars for the Korean embassy is increasing rapidly. Now it’s over 30 cars.

‘It’s the first time I’ve seen this situation. Did something happen in Korea?’

The post took off around the world, being picked up by the ‘Western Twitter’ with thousands of hits.

Soon another Weibo user, Fan Jing, posted a picture that purported to show the embassy parking lot filled with cars.

Rumours spread like wildfire. Kim Jong-Un had been assassinated…there had been a coup…Kim Jong-Un was on the run and had sought shelter in Beijing.

The stories of his ‘assassination’ grew to the point where it was claimed two gunmen had gained access to his room at the embassy and had shot him dead, before they were killed by bodyguards.

With the embassy strongly guarded it would have been virtually impossible for gunmen to have gained entry – unless it was an ‘inside job’.

Adding to the growing scepticism of an assassination, the Chinese news agency Phoenix has pointed out that a ‘Conference of Remembering the 70th Anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s Birth’ was scheduled to have begun on February 8 in Beijing.

Tours had been planned to China and North Korea by travellers from around the world to mark the anniversary.

The agency did point out, however that so far there was no way to confirm if ‘the actions’ of the North Koran Embassy were related to the celebrations of Kim Jong Il’s 70th birthday.

But it made no mention of any assassination.

ABC news in the US quoted American officials as saying there was no validity to the reports.

‘There’s nothing to this,’ said one official, adding there were no indications the reports were true.

Experts, said another official, were monitoring the situation and could see no abnormal activity on the Korean peninsula.

Kim Jong Un - rumours of his assassination.

So the rumours have shot around the world – Kim Jong Un, the new leader of the secretive State of North Korea, has been assassinated.

What are we to believe? Personally, having toured the country last year, I know how long it might take for any official denials or confirmation.

But if you look at the source of the stories that claim Kim was shot by assassins who broke into the North Korean embassy in Beijing, where he was staying, and managed to shoot him, you have to wonder just how true they are.

The source is the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – a source that is known to spread wild rumours about the deaths of celebrities. Maybe they are right this time – or maybe it’s just another beat-up.

It is claimed an unusually-large number of vehicles with blacked out windows have been seen at the North Korean embassy in Beijing, giving rise to speculation that the rumours might have some substance. Then again, Kim might be throwing a party.

We should know soon just how true all this is.

Watch this space.

Dannii Minogue beats sister Kylie into Motherhood

Dannii Minogue has beaten her older sister Kylie into motherhood, giving birth to a bouncing baby boy in her home town of Melbourne.

Tobias Liam Simmons heard a magistrate describe the case, heard in a court in Parramatta, west of Sydney, as tragic and emotional.

Simmons, a project administrator from the Sydney suburb of Clovelly, has been charged with manslaughter, reckless wounding and assault causing actual bodily harm. He will appear before a court again on November 18.

Mr Walsh, a 23-year-old flooring contractor, had been in Australia for five weeks when he went out in the Sydney seaside suburb of Coogee with his sister and brother. The altercation with a man outside at a late-night takeaway shop resulted in Mr Walsh falling to the pavement and striking his head.

Mr Walsh’s mother, Tressa, who had flown from Dublin to be at her son’s bedside before he died, said she did not want to see her son’s attacker jailed. She told a Sydney news conference that the other man involved in the altercation was very unlucky and she felt for him.

The man walked into a Sydney police station after the mother of 23-year-old Gearoid Walsh, from Dublin, pleaded with her son’s alleged attacker to come forward.

The man, who has not been named, has also been charged with reckless wounding and assault. He has been refused bail and will appear by videolink before a NSW court on Saturday.

The development came after the courageous mother of Mr Walsh said she did not want her son’s attacker to go to jail.

‘I’d really like to say that as a mother I really feel for this guy who got into a fight with Gearoid,’ said Mrs Tressa Walsh at a Sydney news conference. ‘I am heartbroken for him because we don’t blame him.

‘We don’t want him to serve time in prison. I think he was just very, very unlucky.’

Police had earlier released CCTV footage of a man they believe could assist with their inquiries into the attack on Mr Walsh, whose life support system was switched off as his mother sat at his bedside.

Paramedics called to a street in Coogee feared at first that Mr Walsh was dead. He appeared to have stopped breathing.

Police said he had become involved in an altercation with another man and received severe head injuries when he was struck and fell to the footpath.

He had been drinking with his brother – who lives in Australia – at a number of hotels in the Coogee area and became involved in an argument with a man at a take-away food shop.

Things quietened down and Mr Walsh and his brother left, but returned shortly afterwards and the argument started up again. It was then that Mr Walsh was injured.

His mother said the one positive thing that had emerged from her son’s death was that six other Australians had been given the gift of life from Gearoid’s organs.

The man walked into a Sydney police station with a lawyer and has been answering detectives’ questions.

Gearoid Walsh, a 23-year-old floor contractor from Dublin, had been on life support since he was found close to death on a footpath in the Sydney seaside resort of Coogee last week end.

But his mother said she did not want her son’s attacker to go to jail.

‘I’d really like to say that as a mother I really feel for this guy who got into a fight with Gearoid,’ said Mrs Tressa Walsh at a Sydney news conference. ‘I am heartbroken for him because we don’t blame him.

‘We don’t want him to serve time in prison. I think he was just very, very unlucky.’

Police had earlier released CCTV footage of a man they believe could assist with their inquiries into the attack on Mr Walsh, whose life support system was switched off as his mother sat at his bedside.

Paramedics called to a street in Coogee feared at first that Mr Walsh was dead. He appeared to have stopped breathing.

Police said he had become involved in an altercation with another man and received severe head injuries when he was struck and fell to the footpath.

He had been drinking with his brother – who lives in Australia – at a number of hotels in the Coogee area and became involved in an argument with a man at a take-away food shop.

Things quietened down and Mr Walsh and his brother left, but returned shortly afterwards and the argument started up again. It was then that Mr Walsh was injured.

Police said a man they believed could help with their inquiries was aged between 25 and 30, of average height and build with short brown, slightly curly hair.

His mother said the one positive thing that had emerged from her son’s death was that six other Australians had been given the gift of life from Gearoid’s organs.