"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."