"North Korea's Kim Jong-il is often portrayed as crazy or as a clown. In reality, although he is certainly eccentric, he is a clever politician who carefully follows world affairs and chooses his tactics accordingly. Most of the coverage given Kim Jong-il in the mainstream media deals with his nuclear ambitions and his threats to build weapons of mass destruction. But domestically he runs the most tightly controlled society in the world. While Kim Jong-il himself might watch satellite television news, most North Koreans have absolutely no access to information about the outside world. The normal kinds of political rights and civil liberties that are squashed to one degree or another by other dictators are simply non-existent in North Korea."
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David Wallechinsky, Tyrants: The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators (2006), p. 2
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-il
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Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from 1994 until his death, holding the offices of Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.
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