North Korea to hold key party convention next week

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea confirmed Tuesday that a major communist party convention will be held next week as observers speculated that the secretive' regime's aging leader was ready to give his son an important position to pave the way for his succession.

Kim Jong Il took control of North Korea in 1994 when his father died of heart failure in what was communism's first hereditary transfer of power. Now 68, and reportedly in poor health two years after suffering a stroke, Kim is believed to be prepping his third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, for a similar transition by appointing him to top party posts at the Workers' Party convention.

Delegates will meet Sept. 28 to elect new party leaders, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday in a dispatch from Pyongyang.

The report did not explain why the meeting, initially set for "early September," had been postponed. North Korea has been struggling to cope with devastating flooding and a typhoon that killed dozens of people and destroyed roads, railways and homes earlier this month, according to state media.

Delegates across the country were appointed "against the background of a high-pitched drive for effecting a new great revolutionary surge now under way on all fronts for building a thriving nation with the historic conference," the KCNA report said.