KIM JONG-IL DYING?
 
According to South Korean media, Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean leader, is suffering from pancreatic cancer and has less than five years left to live. The news has provoked a lot of online reaction.

The news was welcomed with relief by many on social networks, Twitter in particular. Internet users, many of whom hoping that the situation in the country will change, have been following the news.
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But according to this net user, his death could open the door to what could be a terrible war of succession between Kim Jung-un, his 26-year-old son, chosen to succeed him and Jang Song Taek, Kim Jong-II’s brother in law and one of the regime’s key players.
 

But one thing is clear, according to this US video blogger: the dictator’s death will be used as anti-western propaganda by the successor, who will accuse the regime’s enemies of provoking his illness.
 

Meanwhile, videos mocking the regime and its leader are multiplying on the Web such as a parody report from the fake online news channel, ‘The Onion’, where North Korean authorities decide to drag the moon to earth and to turn it into a memorial in honour of Kim Jong-Il....
 

This video attacks how his character is worshipped, explaining the official story - that the beloved leader was born at the top of a magical mountain by divine will and then the reality: the dictator was in fact born in 1941, in a village of exiled Koreans in Siberia.
 

JORDAN KING NAMES SON AS HEIR
 
King Abdallah of Jordan has officially announced that his eldest son, Prince Hussein Ben Abdallah, will succeed him as King, provoking substantial commentary from the blogosphere.

It's the personality of the 15-year-old student of the King’s Academy that's up for scrutiny by Jordanian net users, who are interested in his education and hobbies. One blogger describes him as discreet, studious and keen on new technology. And in contrast to his father, he is not particularly interested in military affairs.
 

Messages of congratulations to the crown prince quickly flooded in on the various local chat forums.
 

But some deplore the fact that power is always passed down in a hereditary fashion, in a country that is proud of its modernity. This disillusioned net user recalls that the decision is nevertheless in line with the constitution.
 

This blogger feels that placing the country in the hands of such a young boy is dangerous. He would prefer to see a more experienced man such as Prince Hamzah, the King’s youngest brother, succeed him on the throne.
 

But the decision has not damaged the royal family’s popularity. Rania & Hussein remain much-loved, as shown by the many photomontages available online.
 

VISITING THE SPACE STATION
 

In this video, filmed with a camera on his wrist, US astronaut Michael Barratt invites you to discover the International Space Station. Users get a 20-minute guided tour, during which the engineer explains in detail the organisation and functioning of the different pressurised modules. Despite the technical language used, these explanations give people a good insight into living with weightlessness.
 

SPEECH ACCENT ARCHIVE
 
Speech Accent Archive is a site set up by linguists to compare the way in which English is spoken around the world. Thousands of accents, which have been transcribed phonetically, are archived in the database. Net users, whether they are English speakers or not, are invited to add to it by recording themselves reading a standard paragraph.
 

TODAY'S VIDEO

Space Invader, a French artist passionate about video games and known for his work on the streets of many world cities, has just got involved with a new art form, consisting of creating mosaics from Rubik’s Cubes. In this video, we see him reconstituting album covers such as Abbey Road from the Beatles with the multicoloured cubes. He has christened the art form, currently being exhibited in New York, 'Rubikcubism'.