Blackouts mark North Korea's real power struggle

By Jack Kim

PYONGYANG (Reuters) - While the world wonders if North Korea is in the throes of a leadership crisis over Kim Jong-il's suspected stroke, the real power struggle for ordinary people in the hermit state is coping with electricity shortages.

Blackouts frequently interrupted a four-day stay in Pyongyang for South Koreans attending a rare joint seminar between the Cold War rivals, with the North's showcase city often plunged into pitch darkness by power outages.

"What is going on here?" a North Korean border control officer said when computer terminals lost power and the lights went out at the Soviet-era Sunan Airport terminal, which serves Pyongyang, while he was processing the documents of the visiting South Koreans.

One of his colleagues tried in vain to keep the line of visitors moving by checking passports in the faint light from a distant door.

When the sun goes down in Pyongyang, people hurry along unlit sidewalks before they have to grope their way home in near total darkness. At street level there were far more apartments in complete darkness than there were enjoying the faint glow of fluorescent lights.

Outside observers are equally in the dark over Kim's health and succession plans in Asia's only communist dynasty.

U.S. and South Korean officials said Kim suffered a stroke in August, raising questions about who was in control of the reclusive state and who was making decisions about the North's nuclear weapons programme.

In the past week the secretive North has announced it will close its few border crossings with the South and will refused to allow international inspectors remove nuclear samples from a plutonium-producing plant.