U.S. Senator John McCain has said the world is better off now that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is dead.
McCain, a Republican lawmaker who was his party's nominee for president in 2008, said that Kim subjected his people to 'dire poverty and cruel oppression under one of the most totalitarian regimes the world has ever known.'
'The world is a better place now that Kim Jong-Il is no longer in it,' McCain said.
But McCain, the top-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee who was tortured as a prisoner during the Vietnam war, didn't pull any punches.
He said, 'I can only express satisfaction that the Dear Leader is joining the likes of Gaddafi, Bin Laden, Hitler, and Stalin in a warm corner of hell.'
President Barack Obama's administration has been cautious in public
statements about Kim's death, calling for a 'peaceful and stable'
transition as the regime moved to appoint Kim's young son Kim Jong Un as
his successor.
Kim Jong Il, who threatened the world with his nuclear weapons ambitions and suppressed his own people with imprisonment and isolation, died suddenly on Saturday aged 69 from a heart attack.
His youngest son Kim Jong Un has been proclaimed as the new leader of North Korea.
As the Communist state began 10 days of intense public mourning, the country's authorities called for North Korea's people to back Kim Jong Il's third son as their new leader.
However, there are already fears the 28-year-old is too inexperienced and has spent too little time in the country to take on the top role.
And in a development likely to worry western observers following news of Kim Jong Il's death, the pariah state today test-fired a short-range missile on its eastern coast.
The world's last Communist dictator, Kim Jong Il collapsed and died on Saturday prompting a highly orchestrated display of public mourning across the country.
Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack while on a train. He had ruled the country since succeeding his father Kim Il Sung in 1994.
Observers also fear a behind-the-scenes power struggle, or nuclear instability, between the country's military and politicians - despite the announcement his third son is to be his successor.
There are also fears his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who is expected to rule behind the scenes as he trains on the job, could make a power grab.
Rod Lyon, a Korea expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, said: 'The reason people are watching closely is not because we expect the North to strike out, it's because events within North Korea could have unsettling ramifications.
'If there's a contested succession, it means there's a struggle over things like who controls North Korea's plutonium, not just who controls North Korea's army.' The other key regional player is China, the closest North Korea has to a major ally and which has a sometimes testy relationship with the United States.
'I think security will be stepped up in North Korea, and China is also likely to tighten security along the border. If (Kim's) death leads to chaos, we could see a flow of refugees across the (Chinese) border.' Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who said his country was bracing itself for the unexpected, and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed over the phone to cooperate closely.
And Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has made several high-profile visits to North Korea, said: 'The situation could become extremely volatile. What the North Korean military does in the next 24-48 hours will be decisive.'
The U.S. Defence Department said however the alert readiness for its forces on the Korean peninsula is unchanged after the death of Kim Jong Il.
Pentagon spokesman George Little also said Monday that no unusual North Korean military movements have been detected since Kim Jong Il's death on Saturday after 17 years in power.
Bill Richardson's thoughts were echoed across the world, because the death comes at a sensitive time for
North Korea as it prepares for next year's 100th anniversary of the
birth of founder Kim Il Sung - Kim Jong Il's father. The preparations include massive construction projects throughout the
city as part of Kim Jong Il's unfulfilled promise to bring prosperity to
his people.
Seoul and Washington will worry that Kim Jong Un 'may feel it necessary in the future to precipitate a crisis to prove his mettle to other senior leaders', according to Bruce Klingner, an Asia analyst at The Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration said it had been expected to decide on food aid and the re-engagement of North Korea in nuclear issues this week. But officials, worried about changes in the military postures of both North and South Korea, said Kim's death would delay the process.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said America hoped for improved ties with North Korea's people after Kim Jong Il's death.
'We both share a common interest in a peaceful and stable transition in North Korea,' Clinton said in an appearance with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said his death could be a 'turning point' for the country and urged his successors to recognise that engagement with the international community offered the best hope of improving the lives of their people.
He said: 'The people of North Korea are in official mourning after the death of Kim Jong Il. We understand this is a difficult time for them. This could be a turning point for North Korea.
'We hope their new leadership will recognise that
engagement with the international community offers the best prospect of
improving the lives of ordinary North Korean people.
'We encourage North Korea to work for peace and security in the region and take the steps necessary to allow the resumption of the Six Party Talks on de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.'
China said it was 'distressed' to learn of his death but remained confident North Korea would remain united and that the two neighbours would keep up their cooperation.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said: 'We were distressed to learn of the unfortunate passing of the senior-most North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and we express our grief about this and extend our condolences to the people of North Korea.'
Ma praised Kim as a 'great leader'
who made 'important contributions' to relations with China and added:
'We are confident that the North Korean people will be able to turn
their anguish into strength and unify as one.
'China and North Korea will strive
together to continue making positive contributions to consolidating and
developing the traditional friendship between our two parties,
governments and peoples, and to preserving the peace and stability of
the Korean peninsula and the region.'
And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent also sent his condolences to the North Korean people, expressing his 'sincere sorrow' and 'solidarity' with the country. He said he was confident North Korea would move toward a prosperous and peaceful future and that Venezuela was willing to 'continue fighting along with sovereign nations for the auto-determination of countries and world peace'.
The death came as a surprise for many North Koreans because Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008, had appeared relatively vigorous in photos from recent visits to China and Russia. His funeral is planned for December 28 in Pyongyang, with a mourning period to last until December 29.
Hong Son Ok shouted in an interview with North Korea's official television network: 'How could the heavens be so cruel? Please come back, general. We cannot believe you're gone.'
An official statement said: 'He passed away too suddenly to our profound regret. The heart of Kim Jong Il stopped beating, but his noble and august name and benevolent image will always be remembered by our army and people.'
North Korea is calling Kim Jong Il's son a 'great successor' to the country's guiding principle of self reliance, as the country rallies around heir-apparent Kim Jong Un as the next leader.
The official Korean Central News Agency said the country 'must faithfully revere respectable comrade Kim Jong Un', and urged its 24 million citizens to rally behind him as it mourns.
The U.S. dollar jumped, in response
to his death, as uncertainty in North Korea increased the country's
safe-haven appeal. Asian stock markets moved lower amid the news, which
raises the possibility of increased instability on the divided Korean
peninsula.
South Korea's Kospi index was down 3.9 per cent at 1,767.89 and Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 per cent to 8,331.00. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 2 per cent to 17,929.66 and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2 per cent to 2,178.75.
European markets also opened slightly down, with the FTSE down 0.2 per cent to 5,378.55; the CAC 40 down 0.13 per cent down to 2,969; and the DAX slightly up 0.07 per cent at 5,706.
The news of Kim's death came as North Korea prepared for a hereditary succession. Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.
In September 2010, Kim Jong Il introduced his third son Kim Song Un as his successor, placing him in high-ranking posts. Kim Jong Il had been groomed to lead the nation founded by his guerilla fighter-turned-politician father and built according to the principle of 'juche,' or self-reliance.
Few
firm facts are available when it comes to North Korea, one of the most
isolated countries in the world, and little is clear about the origins
of the man known as the 'Dear Leader.'
Kim Jong Un (pictured) the third son of Kim Jong Il, has been named as the 'great successor' by the ruling Workers' Party.
The first formal mention of the 28-year-old's name in official state communications came in October 2010, when he was promoted to the rank of four-star general.
He is said to have a fondness for James Bond and basketball star Michael Jordan - and is believed to have been schooled in Switzerland. Sources say he speaks some English, German and French.
Kim Jong Il's eldest son, Kim Jung Nam, was supposed to be his heir. But he fell out of favour after he was caught trying to sneak a trip to Tokyo Disneyland using a forged passport.
He since said he opposes the 'hereditary succession for three generations' but said he would like his younger brother 'to do his best for the people of North Korea and their true wealth'.
Experts have said Kim Jong Un is not ready to rule as he has only been groomed for the job for three years. His father was groomed for 14 years before taking control in 1994.
It is likely that Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, will rule behind the scenes as he trains on the job, the global intelligence firm Stratfor said.
North
Korean legend has it he was born on Mount Paekdu, one of Korea's
most cherished sites, in 1942, a birth heralded in the heavens by a pair
of rainbows and a brilliant new star. Soviet records, however, indicate he was born in Siberia, in 1941.
Kim Il Sung, who for years fought for independence from Korea's colonial ruler, Japan, from a base in Russia, emerged as a communist leader after returning to Korea in 1945 after Japan was defeated in World War II.
With the peninsula divided between the Soviet-administered north and the U.S.-administered south, Kim rose to power as North Korea's first leader in 1948 while Syngman Rhee became South Korea's first president.
The North invaded the South in 1950, sparking a war that would last three years, kill millions of civilians and leave the peninsula divided by a Demilitarized Zone that today remains one of the world's most heavily fortified.
In the North, Kim Il Sung meshed Stalinist ideology with a cult of personality that encompassed him and his son. Their portraits hang in every building in North Korea and on the lapels of every dutiful North Korean.
Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor. Even before he took over as leader, there were signs the younger Kim would maintain - and perhaps exceed - his father's hard-line stance.
South Korea has accused Kim of masterminding a 1983 bombing that killed 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, now known as Myanmar.
In 1987, the bombing of a Korean Air Flight killed all 115 people on board; a North Korean agent who confessed to planting the device said Kim ordered the downing of the plane himself.
Kim Jong Il took over after his father died in 1994, eventually taking the posts of chairman of the National Defence Commission, commander of the Korean People's Army and head of the ruling Worker's Party while his father remained as North Korea's 'eternal president.'
He faithfully carried out his father's policy of 'military first,' devoting much of the country's scarce resources to its troops - even as his people suffered from a prolonged famine - and built the world's fifth-largest military.
Kim also sought to build up the country's nuclear arms arsenal, which culminated in North Korea's first nuclear test explosion, an underground blast conducted in October 2006. Another test came in 2009.
Alarmed, regional leaders negotiated a disarmament-for-aid pact that the North signed in 2007 and began implementing later that year. However, the process continues to be stalled, even as diplomats work to restart negotiations.
North Korea, long hampered by sanctions and unable to feed its own people, is desperate for aid. Flooding in the 1990s that destroyed the largely mountainous country's arable land left millions hungry. Following the famine, the number of North Koreans fleeing the country through China rose dramatically, with many telling tales of hunger, political persecution and rights abuses that officials in Pyongyang emphatically denied. Kim often blamed the U.S. for his country's troubles and his regime routinely derides Washington-allied South Korea as a 'puppet' of the Western superpower.
U.S. President George W Bush, taking
office in 2002, denounced North Korea as a member of an 'axis of evil'
that also included Iran and Iraq. He later described Kim as a 'tyrant'
who starved his people so he could build nuclear weapons.
He said in 2005: 'Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And... there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon.'
Team America - the name of the 2004
animated film that lampooned Kim Jong Il - was trending on Twitter just
minutes after the announcement of his death.
The movie, from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, poked fun at the North Korean leader.
The film's plot revolves around a crack team of paramilitary police trying to foil an evil plot conjured up by Kim Jong Il.
References to the cult film, in which Kim's character sings a ballad about the lonely life of a dictator, quickly spread through social networks.
Kim
was an enigmatic leader. But defectors from North Korea describe him as
an eloquent and tireless orator, primarily to the military units that
form the base of his support.
The world's best glimpse of the man was in 2000, when the liberal South Korean government's conciliatory 'sunshine' policy toward the North culminated in the first-ever summit between the two Koreas and followed with unprecedented inter-Korean cooperation.
A second summit was held in 2007 with South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun.But the thaw in relations drew to a halt in early 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul pledging to come down hard on communist North Korea.
Disputing accounts that Kim was 'peculiar,' former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterized Kim as intelligent and well-informed, saying the two had wide-ranging discussions during her visits to Pyongyang when Bill Clinton was U.S. president.
'I found him very much on top of his brief,' she said. Kim cut a distinctive, if oft ridiculed, figure. Short and pudgy at 5-foot-3, he wore platform shoes and sported a permed bouffant.
Kim was said to have cultivated wide interests, including professional basketball, cars and foreign films. He reportedly produced several North Korean films as well, mostly historical epics with an ideological tinge.
A South Korean film director claimed Kim even kidnapped him and his movie star wife in the late 1970s, spiriting them back to North Korea to make movies for him for a decade before they managed to escape from their North Korean agents during a trip to Austria.
Kim rarely travelled abroad and then only by train because of an alleged fear of flying, once heading all the way by luxury rail car to Moscow, indulging in his taste for fine food along the way. One account of Kim's lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former Russian presidential envoy who wrote the book 'The Orient Express' about Kim's train trip through Russia in July and August 2001.
Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim's 16-car private train was stocked with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations.
McCain, a Republican lawmaker who was his party's nominee for president in 2008, said that Kim subjected his people to 'dire poverty and cruel oppression under one of the most totalitarian regimes the world has ever known.'
'The world is a better place now that Kim Jong-Il is no longer in it,' McCain said.
Dead: Kim Jong Il (left) died on Saturday and will now be replaced by his third son Kim Jong Un (right)
McCain's
political colleagues, including GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney,
have joined the prominent and outspoken senator in saying bluntly that
Kim will not be missed after decades of oppression and threatening the
world with his nuclear programme.But McCain, the top-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee who was tortured as a prisoner during the Vietnam war, didn't pull any punches.
He said, 'I can only express satisfaction that the Dear Leader is joining the likes of Gaddafi, Bin Laden, Hitler, and Stalin in a warm corner of hell.'
Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona has pulled no punches when expressing his 'satisfaction' with the death of Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il, who threatened the world with his nuclear weapons ambitions and suppressed his own people with imprisonment and isolation, died suddenly on Saturday aged 69 from a heart attack.
His youngest son Kim Jong Un has been proclaimed as the new leader of North Korea.
As the Communist state began 10 days of intense public mourning, the country's authorities called for North Korea's people to back Kim Jong Il's third son as their new leader.
However, there are already fears the 28-year-old is too inexperienced and has spent too little time in the country to take on the top role.
And in a development likely to worry western observers following news of Kim Jong Il's death, the pariah state today test-fired a short-range missile on its eastern coast.
The world's last Communist dictator, Kim Jong Il collapsed and died on Saturday prompting a highly orchestrated display of public mourning across the country.
Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack while on a train. He had ruled the country since succeeding his father Kim Il Sung in 1994.
Observers also fear a behind-the-scenes power struggle, or nuclear instability, between the country's military and politicians - despite the announcement his third son is to be his successor.
There are also fears his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who is expected to rule behind the scenes as he trains on the job, could make a power grab.
Rod Lyon, a Korea expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, said: 'The reason people are watching closely is not because we expect the North to strike out, it's because events within North Korea could have unsettling ramifications.
'If there's a contested succession, it means there's a struggle over things like who controls North Korea's plutonium, not just who controls North Korea's army.' The other key regional player is China, the closest North Korea has to a major ally and which has a sometimes testy relationship with the United States.
Too much to take: Women collapse in tears in the streets of Pyongyang as the nation mourned the passing of Kim Jong Il
Mourning: Pyongyang residents weep as they are told that their leader Kim Jong Il has died
Grief: Men and women have been reduced to tears with the news, which was announced by a weeping broadcaster on state TV (centre)
Cai
Jian, a Korea expert at Shanghai's Fudan University, said: 'China's
biggest worry will be over North Korea's stability, and China's aim will
be to ensure the country remains stable.'I think security will be stepped up in North Korea, and China is also likely to tighten security along the border. If (Kim's) death leads to chaos, we could see a flow of refugees across the (Chinese) border.' Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who said his country was bracing itself for the unexpected, and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed over the phone to cooperate closely.
And Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has made several high-profile visits to North Korea, said: 'The situation could become extremely volatile. What the North Korean military does in the next 24-48 hours will be decisive.'
The U.S. Defence Department said however the alert readiness for its forces on the Korean peninsula is unchanged after the death of Kim Jong Il.
Pentagon spokesman George Little also said Monday that no unusual North Korean military movements have been detected since Kim Jong Il's death on Saturday after 17 years in power.
Tears: Korean television has been playing images of people grieving ever since the announcement that Kim Jong Il had died
In mourning: A woman holding flowers walks
through a fence to enter the North Korea embassy to mourn the death of
Kim Jong-il in Beijing, China
Expressive: North Koreans have been breaking down in tears following the news that their leader has died
Seoul and Washington will worry that Kim Jong Un 'may feel it necessary in the future to precipitate a crisis to prove his mettle to other senior leaders', according to Bruce Klingner, an Asia analyst at The Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration said it had been expected to decide on food aid and the re-engagement of North Korea in nuclear issues this week. But officials, worried about changes in the military postures of both North and South Korea, said Kim's death would delay the process.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said America hoped for improved ties with North Korea's people after Kim Jong Il's death.
'We both share a common interest in a peaceful and stable transition in North Korea,' Clinton said in an appearance with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said his death could be a 'turning point' for the country and urged his successors to recognise that engagement with the international community offered the best hope of improving the lives of their people.
He said: 'The people of North Korea are in official mourning after the death of Kim Jong Il. We understand this is a difficult time for them. This could be a turning point for North Korea.
'We encourage North Korea to work for peace and security in the region and take the steps necessary to allow the resumption of the Six Party Talks on de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.'
China said it was 'distressed' to learn of his death but remained confident North Korea would remain united and that the two neighbours would keep up their cooperation.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said: 'We were distressed to learn of the unfortunate passing of the senior-most North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and we express our grief about this and extend our condolences to the people of North Korea.'
Wailing: The death of Kim Jong Il had prompted an outpouring of grief seldom seen before
Praise: North Koreans cry and scream in a
display of mourning at the foot of a giant statue of Kim Jong Il's
father Kim Il Sung, in the capital Pyongyang
Despair: Tears have flowed in North Korea following the death of the country's leader
Respect: Students of Pyongyang Secondary School No 1 gather as they mourn over the death of Kim Jong Il
Devastated: Employees of Pyongyang 326 Electric Wire Factory mourn Kim Jong Il's death
Despair: North Koreans have been pictured doubling over on the ground with grief following the announcement
Why? Men and women have fallen on their knees to show their grief at the loss of the their leader
Respect: Hundreds of North Koreans gathered to
mourn the death of their leader Kim Jong Il, in front of a giant statue
of his father Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang
Desperate: Two women hold their heads and wail
as they pay their respects to a portrait of Kim Jong Il (left) as a
mother and son look emotional (right)
And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent also sent his condolences to the North Korean people, expressing his 'sincere sorrow' and 'solidarity' with the country. He said he was confident North Korea would move toward a prosperous and peaceful future and that Venezuela was willing to 'continue fighting along with sovereign nations for the auto-determination of countries and world peace'.
The death came as a surprise for many North Koreans because Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008, had appeared relatively vigorous in photos from recent visits to China and Russia. His funeral is planned for December 28 in Pyongyang, with a mourning period to last until December 29.
Hong Son Ok shouted in an interview with North Korea's official television network: 'How could the heavens be so cruel? Please come back, general. We cannot believe you're gone.'
An official statement said: 'He passed away too suddenly to our profound regret. The heart of Kim Jong Il stopped beating, but his noble and august name and benevolent image will always be remembered by our army and people.'
North Korea is calling Kim Jong Il's son a 'great successor' to the country's guiding principle of self reliance, as the country rallies around heir-apparent Kim Jong Un as the next leader.
The official Korean Central News Agency said the country 'must faithfully revere respectable comrade Kim Jong Un', and urged its 24 million citizens to rally behind him as it mourns.
Coverage: A man watches the reporting of the death of Kim Jong Il through the windows of an electronics store in Tokyo, Japan
Breaking news: A South Korean woman watches TV
news reporting the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at Seoul
rail station (left) as a Vietnamese man places a funeral wreath in front
of Pyongyang Restaurant in Hanoi (right)
South Korea's Kospi index was down 3.9 per cent at 1,767.89 and Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 per cent to 8,331.00. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 2 per cent to 17,929.66 and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2 per cent to 2,178.75.
European markets also opened slightly down, with the FTSE down 0.2 per cent to 5,378.55; the CAC 40 down 0.13 per cent down to 2,969; and the DAX slightly up 0.07 per cent at 5,706.
The news of Kim's death came as North Korea prepared for a hereditary succession. Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.
In September 2010, Kim Jong Il introduced his third son Kim Song Un as his successor, placing him in high-ranking posts. Kim Jong Il had been groomed to lead the nation founded by his guerilla fighter-turned-politician father and built according to the principle of 'juche,' or self-reliance.
Reaction: Elderly South Koreans chant anti-North
slogans in Seoul (left) as police officers stand guard at the General
Association of Korean residents in Tokyo, Japan
Surprise: South Korean soldiers watch a news
broadcast reporting the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at the
Seoul train station
U.S. relations: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton made a surprise
visit to meet Kim Jong Il in 2009 to secure the release of two American
journalists (left). Kim also met Russia's then President Vladimir Putin
in 2002 (right)
WHO'S TAKING OVER THE REGIME?
The first formal mention of the 28-year-old's name in official state communications came in October 2010, when he was promoted to the rank of four-star general.
He is said to have a fondness for James Bond and basketball star Michael Jordan - and is believed to have been schooled in Switzerland. Sources say he speaks some English, German and French.
Kim Jong Il's eldest son, Kim Jung Nam, was supposed to be his heir. But he fell out of favour after he was caught trying to sneak a trip to Tokyo Disneyland using a forged passport.
He since said he opposes the 'hereditary succession for three generations' but said he would like his younger brother 'to do his best for the people of North Korea and their true wealth'.
Experts have said Kim Jong Un is not ready to rule as he has only been groomed for the job for three years. His father was groomed for 14 years before taking control in 1994.
It is likely that Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, will rule behind the scenes as he trains on the job, the global intelligence firm Stratfor said.
Kim Il Sung, who for years fought for independence from Korea's colonial ruler, Japan, from a base in Russia, emerged as a communist leader after returning to Korea in 1945 after Japan was defeated in World War II.
With the peninsula divided between the Soviet-administered north and the U.S.-administered south, Kim rose to power as North Korea's first leader in 1948 while Syngman Rhee became South Korea's first president.
The North invaded the South in 1950, sparking a war that would last three years, kill millions of civilians and leave the peninsula divided by a Demilitarized Zone that today remains one of the world's most heavily fortified.
In the North, Kim Il Sung meshed Stalinist ideology with a cult of personality that encompassed him and his son. Their portraits hang in every building in North Korea and on the lapels of every dutiful North Korean.
Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor. Even before he took over as leader, there were signs the younger Kim would maintain - and perhaps exceed - his father's hard-line stance.
South Korea has accused Kim of masterminding a 1983 bombing that killed 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, now known as Myanmar.
In 1987, the bombing of a Korean Air Flight killed all 115 people on board; a North Korean agent who confessed to planting the device said Kim ordered the downing of the plane himself.
Kim Jong Il took over after his father died in 1994, eventually taking the posts of chairman of the National Defence Commission, commander of the Korean People's Army and head of the ruling Worker's Party while his father remained as North Korea's 'eternal president.'
He faithfully carried out his father's policy of 'military first,' devoting much of the country's scarce resources to its troops - even as his people suffered from a prolonged famine - and built the world's fifth-largest military.
Kim also sought to build up the country's nuclear arms arsenal, which culminated in North Korea's first nuclear test explosion, an underground blast conducted in October 2006. Another test came in 2009.
Alarmed, regional leaders negotiated a disarmament-for-aid pact that the North signed in 2007 and began implementing later that year. However, the process continues to be stalled, even as diplomats work to restart negotiations.
North Korea, long hampered by sanctions and unable to feed its own people, is desperate for aid. Flooding in the 1990s that destroyed the largely mountainous country's arable land left millions hungry. Following the famine, the number of North Koreans fleeing the country through China rose dramatically, with many telling tales of hunger, political persecution and rights abuses that officials in Pyongyang emphatically denied. Kim often blamed the U.S. for his country's troubles and his regime routinely derides Washington-allied South Korea as a 'puppet' of the Western superpower.
Family values: The 1981 family portrait (left)
shows Kim Jong Il with son Kim Jong Nam, former wife's sister Sung Hye
Rang and her children Lee Nam Ok and Lee Il Nam, with the picture on the
right portraying the leader in more recent times
Celebration: Kim Jong Il has cult-like status in North Korea, with many myths cultivated about his personality and history
Dictator: Kim Jong Il rose began his reign of
the Communist regime after the death of his father Kim Il Sung in 1994.
There were rumours about his health, but he appeared relatively vigorous
in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in
numerous trips around the country
He said in 2005: 'Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And... there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon.'
TEAM AMERICA TRENDS ON TWITTER
The movie, from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, poked fun at the North Korean leader.
The film's plot revolves around a crack team of paramilitary police trying to foil an evil plot conjured up by Kim Jong Il.
References to the cult film, in which Kim's character sings a ballad about the lonely life of a dictator, quickly spread through social networks.
The world's best glimpse of the man was in 2000, when the liberal South Korean government's conciliatory 'sunshine' policy toward the North culminated in the first-ever summit between the two Koreas and followed with unprecedented inter-Korean cooperation.
A second summit was held in 2007 with South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun.But the thaw in relations drew to a halt in early 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul pledging to come down hard on communist North Korea.
Disputing accounts that Kim was 'peculiar,' former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterized Kim as intelligent and well-informed, saying the two had wide-ranging discussions during her visits to Pyongyang when Bill Clinton was U.S. president.
'I found him very much on top of his brief,' she said. Kim cut a distinctive, if oft ridiculed, figure. Short and pudgy at 5-foot-3, he wore platform shoes and sported a permed bouffant.
Kim was said to have cultivated wide interests, including professional basketball, cars and foreign films. He reportedly produced several North Korean films as well, mostly historical epics with an ideological tinge.
A South Korean film director claimed Kim even kidnapped him and his movie star wife in the late 1970s, spiriting them back to North Korea to make movies for him for a decade before they managed to escape from their North Korean agents during a trip to Austria.
Kim rarely travelled abroad and then only by train because of an alleged fear of flying, once heading all the way by luxury rail car to Moscow, indulging in his taste for fine food along the way. One account of Kim's lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former Russian presidential envoy who wrote the book 'The Orient Express' about Kim's train trip through Russia in July and August 2001.
Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim's 16-car private train was stocked with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations.
