A U.S. official told CNN that there was no evidence to back up the rumors of the North Korean leader’s death. At the time, they said it’s hard to say for sure due to the country’s secrecy, but it was highly unlikely.

What did happen at the North Korean embassy then that caused such a ruckus in the first place? It apparently was a birthday party. The National Post is reporting that the large amount of cars all parked at the embassy were for the 70th birthday party of the late Kim Jong-Il. Chinese citizens were apparently not used to seeing so many people at the embassy and just assumed the worst.

Twitter has mostly stopped talking about Kim Jong-Un now that a real celebrity has died, but some people are still taking time out to make a few more observations.

[Lead image once again courtesy of the excellent Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things]

Users on Chinese microblogging site Weibo are messaging that Kim Jong-Un, son of Kim Jong-Il and new leader of North Korea, was assassinated at the North Korean embassy in Beijing this morning.

The major problem with this rumor is that it’s not easily verified to be true or false. It’s a sensitive political climate where the littlest thing could cause big shockwaves throughout Asia.

The only evidence we have for now is a picture of a lot of cars pulled up at the North Korean embassy. Chinese Weibo users are speculating that it could have been a military coup.

Twitter, like Weibo, has exploded with the news. A lot of people are just unsure and many are trying to confirm whether or not he has been assassinated. Nobody knows, but the Twitter reactions should help pass the time while we wait for any official news.

[Lead photo courtesy of the wonderful Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things]

Amnesty USA is reporting that Park Jeonggeun, a 24-year-old Socialist Party activist, was arrested for retweeting “long live Kim Jong-il” from North Korea’s official Twitter account. He is charged with helping “the enemy.”

Park, who claims that the re-tweet was meant to ridicule North Korea, has been in custody since January 11. He faces up to seven years in prison.

Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi says that this is “a sad case of the South Korean authorities complete failure to understand sarcasm.”

“Imprisoning anyone for peaceful expression of their opinions violates international law but in this case, the charges against Park Jeonggeun are simply ludicrous and should be dropped immediately,” Zarifi said.

What’s even weirder is that the South Korean Socialist Party doesn’t even like or support North Korea. They frequently criticize the communist state for exploiting its labor force, outlawing trade unions and forcing people to work under harsh conditions.

“Park is a member of a party which openly criticizes North Korea but the absurd case against him is not an isolated one. For too long South Korean authorities have been using the National Security Law (NSL) to restrict basic freedoms and gag civil society in the name of national security,” Zarifi added.

Park told Amnesty International that his intention was “to lampoon North Korea’s leaders for a joke. I did it for fun.”

Park has a history of poking fun at North Korea. He changes their propaganda posters on Twitter to replace a smiling soldier’s face with his own sad face and change the gun to a bottle of whiskey.

He disagrees with North Korean communism, but he demands he be allowed to know and learn about their culture.

“The NSL has a chilling effect on freedom of expression in South Korea. It is used not to address threats to national security, but instead to intimidate people and limit their rights to free speech. It should be reformed in line with human rights law, and if the government cannot do this, it must be abolished,” Zarifi said.

Zarifi claims that South Korea continues to use the NSL to silence opponents of the country’s view towards North Korea. Numerous arrests have allegedly been made against people for “propagating or instigating a rebellion against the state.”

There are other investigations under way in the country against those who have posted materials related to North Korea, where the police have deemed the materials to be “enemy benefitting.”

But using a cellphone? Um. Sure… at least, that’s the case in North Korea these days.

According to The Telegraph, the Worker’s Party in North Korea, in their crazy-pants logic, have declared that anyone found using a mobile phone during the 100-day mourning period of Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, will be tried as “war criminals” and punished in accordance to those trespasses. North Koreans will also earn the “war criminal” label if they’re caught trying to cross the border to China in order to flee the abject starvation ubiquitous in North Korea. Repeat offenders, the Telegraph reported, “can expect to be executed.”

Nothing, as far as this intrepid reporter could discern, was said about the dictate on the Worker’s Party’s official Twitter account, @uriminzok, but then again, would you expect them to plaster that all over the open media? I don’t read Korean well enough (read: not at all) to understand exactly what the tweets say and I’m skeptical of Google’s translation services to accurately deliver cogent statements (that, or the tweets from the government’s account really are that looney).

The only thing I can parse from these tweets (which were taken from the official account that translates the tweets from the Worker’s Party’s account) is that the DPRK may have the same speech writer as Newt Gingrich.

After years of trying to convince the rest of his world that the people of North Korea could merely sate their hunger pangs with the savory pride of a fledgling nuclear weapons program, “Dear Leader” was remembered today on Twitter and was actually still a trending topic as of this morning. Before getting to the Twitter reactions, though, I’d like all readers to prime themselves with the following video that depicts North Koreans literally crazed with sorrow at the news of Kim’s death:

Okay, ready? Set? Go!

The Central Court, the North’s highest court, held the trial of the two U.S. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them of "committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry," the North’s official news agency, KCNA reported.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were arrested by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," Ian C. Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said in statement. "We once again urge North Korea to grant the immediate release of the two American citizen journalists on humanitarian grounds."

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, were on reporting assignment for San Francisco- based Current TV, a media company co-founded by former vice president Al Gore. The pair was researching a story about North Korean refugees fleeing the country in hopes of finding food in China.

The sentenced cannot be appealed and analysts say the journalists are being used as pawns by North Korea.

Reporters Without Borders expressed shock over the sentence. "The sentence of twelve years is a terrible shock for all those who have repeatedly proclaiming the innocence of Laura Ling and Lee Euna. The verdict is even beyond what we feared. It is urgent that the Pyongyang authorities to return to this decision and allow the two to find their American family, "the organization said.

Clinton made the remarks at a graduation ceremony at Barnard College, a women’s university in New York City.

"We have two young women journalists right now imprisoned in North Korea and you can get busy on the Internet and let the North Koreans know that we find that absolutely unacceptable," Clinton told the graduation ceremony.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Clinton was speaking about using social media tools to raise awareness and fight injustices.

North Korea announced last week that it had set a June 4 trial for the two journalists, Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese American, but did not offer information about the charges against them.

In her address Clinton cited other examples of college students using social media as a political tool.

"You can unite your friends through Facebook to fight human trafficking or child marriage, like the two recent college graduates in Colombia – the country – who organized 14 million people into the largest anti-terrorism demonstration in history, doing as much damage to the FARC terrorist network in a few weeks than had been done in years of military action."

"And you can organize through Twitter, like the undergraduates at Northwestern who launched a global fast to bring attention to Iran’s imprisonment of an American journalist."

"These new tools are available for everyone. They are democratizing diplomacy."

After this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google became the second most recognized word in the world, in any language.

What’s the most recognized word? Coca-cola.

The company responded to Monday’s revelation of new North Korean nuclear testing with a Tuesday announcement outlining plans to open a new research and development facility on Korean soil.

I was told by a Google spokesperson that, “News of the recent nuclear tests do not have any impact on our decision nor our timetable for the new R&D center.”

The same source went on to add, “Google views Korea as one of the most technologically advanced markets in the world, and we would like to recruit the best Korean technical talent possible to develop innovative technologies to better serve our users locally and globally. ”

“The Korea R&D center is the latest addition to a growing number of global engineering offices, which include the UK, Israel, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, India, Russia, Australia, and the Americas.”

“At Google, we feel that there are great software engineers worldwide, and we want them to join us in delivering the best search experience for users. Continuous innovative R&D is an important underpinning in developing high quality search products.”

“Our primary goal is to recruit the highest quality technical talent in Korea, and this will be an ongoing investment as we grow our operations in Korea. ”

I have to admit, the company’s apparent lack of fear in the face of North Korean aggression inspires visions of a potential Eric Schmidt vs. Kim Jong-il steel cage deathmatch with Singapore cane rules.

With any luck, it’s being written into Master Plan 2.0 as we speak.

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Joe is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.