The man named the "great successor" to take control of North Korea in the wake of the death of Kim Jong Il, is a baby-faced twenty-something with virtually no public profile outside of his home country.

Kim Jong Un, known only to be in his late 20s, has gained the little profile he has over the past three years -- as he has slowly been pushed forward as the man to take over from his ailing father.

On Monday, that transition was seemingly complete, with North Korean state media reporting that the younger Kim, born to the late leader's third wife, was the "great successor" to his father.

"Standing in the van of the Korean revolution at present is Kim Jong Un, great successor to the revolutionary cause of juche and outstanding leader of our party, army and people," the country's official news agency said, referring to the official ideology of juche, or self-reliance, AFP reported.

"Kim Jong Un's leadership provides a sure guarantee for creditably carrying to completion the revolutionary cause of juche through generations, the cause started by Kim Il Sung and led by Kim Jong Il to victory."

But it was only in September 2010 that the first ever adult picture of Kim Jong Un was run by state media -- after he was appointed as a four-star general and given senior ruling party posts, The (London) Times reported.

The photo shows a young man, who looks not much older than a teenager, standing next to his father and clapping his hands at a formal event.  

More recently, North Korean media has started calling the younger Kim the "Little General," The Times reported.

US intelligence agencies have closely studied Kim Jong Un for nearly three years after word came out of Pyongyang that a political transition had begun, The Wall Street Journal reported.

South Korea put its military on emergency alert after the death was announced but urged its people to stay calm, and swiftly closed ranks with its close ally the United States.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported today that Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had agreed to co-ordinate closely to cope with the aftermath of Kim's death.

In a telephone call early yesterday, Kim and Panetta said they would work together to maintain strong defense posture, while keeping a close eye on the communist regime experiencing a leadership vacuum, the defense ministry said.

On Monday, Seoul summoned a meeting of the National Security Council and President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency cabinet meeting.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had increased monitoring along the border with US forces in the country but had detected no unusual activity.

North and South Korea have remained technically at war since their three-year conflict ended only in an armistice in 1953. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South.

None of the situations envisioned by American officials for North Korea are comforting. Some current and former officials assume that Kim Jong-un is too young and untested to step confidently into his father's shoes. Some speculate that the younger Mr. Kim might serve in a kind of regency, in which the real power would be wielded by military officials like Jang Song-taek, Kim Jong-Il's brother-in-law and confidant, who is 65.

Such an arrangement would do little to relieve the suffering of the North Korean people or defuse the tension over its nuclear ambitions. But it would be preferable to an open struggle for power in the country.

"A bad scenario is that they go through a smooth transition, and the people keep starving and they continue to develop nuclear weapons," said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former Asia adviser to President Obama. "The unstable transition, in which no one is in charge, and in which control of their nuclear program becomes even more opaque, is even worse."

As failures go, the Central Intelligence Agency's inability to pick up hints of Mr. Kim's death was comparatively minor. But as one former agency official, speaking on condition of anonymity about classified matters, pointed out: "What's worst about our intel is our failure to penetrate deep into the existing leadership. We get defectors, but their information is often old. We get midlevel people, but they often don't know what's happening in the inner circle." 

A good friend of Intercessors for America, John Robb, writes: "The death of Kim Jong Il could now open the door to significant and sudden change as CNN reported today: 'Kim's death could provide an opportunity for change, or trigger instability and even chaos. His son, Kim Jong Un, now inherits a reclusive, unstable regime confronting political uncertainty, diplomatic isolation, economic malaise and food shortages.'"

"We need to pray further that Kim's death should be leading to the people's liberty and democracy. The North Korean people should have the freedom of religion as there are still many Christians even under severe persecution. This should be God's response to our prayers within three months." He included the following prayer points:
 
1. That the power vacancy in the North would be filled with God-favored leaders to cope with the national risk, and that the imminent confusion would be turned into blessing to the North Koreans.
 
2. That the leaders of North Korea, South Korea, U.S.A. China and Russia would be given wisdom and a peace-loving mind so that they operate diplomatic and military hotlines among themselves for the good of of the Korean peninsula and the Kingdom of God.
 
3. That the Lord would bless South Korea with good, well-respected leaders who can be used for building stepping stones for the reunification of the two Koreas.
 
4. That there would be provision of effective food aid that reaches the North Korean people, including many millions who are suffering from famine as a result of their government's failed economic policies that have served only the political elite. CNN reported today, "North Korea has been dogged by famine since the mid-1990s when it was hit by severe food shortage caused by floods, drought and economic mismanagement. United Nations agencies based in Pyongyang say the North is in desperate need of outside aid to feed its 24 million people."
 
5. That Kim Jong Un, the young and untested son of Kim Jong Il, will have the courage to do what is right for his people, reversing the oppressive policies of his father; or that he will be removed in favor of new leadership that will care for the wellbeing of the nation. (Contributors: Herald Sun, Fox News, New York Times, Capitol Hill Prayer Partners, John Robb)

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, "Wastebook 2011" that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.

"Video games, robot dragons, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars. Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated and lamented about how to reign in the federal government's out of control spending. All the while, Washington was on a shopping binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. Instead of cutting wasteful spending, nearly $2.5 billion was added each day in 2011 to our national debt, which now exceeds $15 trillion," Dr. Coburn said.

"Congress cannot even agree on a plan to pay for the costs of extending jobless benefits to the millions of Americans who are still out of work. Yet, thousands of millionaires are receiving unemployment benefits and billions of dollars of improper payments of unemployment insurance are being made to individuals with jobs and others who do not qualify. And remember those infamous bridges to nowhere in Alaska that became symbols of government waste years ago? The bridges were never built, yet the federal government still spent more than a million dollars just this year to pay for staff to promote one of the bridges."

Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in "Wastebook 2011" include:

*   $4 million for Obama and family vacation in Hawaii for December 2011

*   $75,000 to promote awareness about the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees & poinsettias.

*   $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska.

*   $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.

*   $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

*   $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii's chocolate industry.

*   $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.

*   $10 million for a remake of "Sesame Street" for Pakistan.

*   $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.

*   $765,828 to subsidize "pancakes for yuppies" in the nation's capital.

*   $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.

Read U.S. Senator Tom Coburn's full report: here  

(Contributor: U.S. Senator Tom Coburn) 

The U.S. government is sounding the alarm after reports that Dutch scientists have created a highly-contagious and deadly airborne strain of bird flu that is potentially capable of killing millions, The Independent reported Tuesday.

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity is currently analyzing how much of the scientists' information should be allowed to be published-given the inherent risks of having the information fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.

"The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive," a senior US government adviser told The Independent.

Scientists, too, are questioning whether the science should have been performed in the first place.

"There are people who say that the work should never have been done, or if it was done it should have been done in a setting where the information could be better controlled," a source close to the US biosecurity board told the newspaper.

"With influenza now it is possible to reverse engineer the virus. It's pretty common technology in many parts of the world. With the genomic sequence, you can reconstruct it. That's where the information is dangerous."

The mutated form of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza was created by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier, of Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre, and the researchers are now hoping to publish the details of how they developed the new strain.

The new virus differs from H5N1-which is only known to be transmitted between humans who have very close contact with each other-because it can be transmitted through the air in coughs and sneezes.

Fouchier, who declined to answer The Independent's questions, said in a statement that it only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus.

"We have discovered that this is indeed possible, and more easily than previously thought. In the laboratory, it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can easily be rapidly spread through the air," he said. (Contributor: Fox News, The Independent)