The world doesn't quite know what to make of North Korea's diminutive leader, Kim Jong-il.

He is considered to be a ruthless dictator who stands accused of heinous crimes, maintains a million-man army (the world's fifth-largest military) and hasn't backed down from his nuclear ambitions in the face of global opposition.

But he is also said to be a vanity-driven film buff who has a collection of 20,000 Hollywood movies, enjoys fine wines and is obsessed with his height.

The "Dear Leader" reportedly regularly orders his troupe of female dancers to strip for guests and dines on the finest imported foods while most of his countrymen starve to death in his famine-plagued land.

"He's an enigma, of course as the whole country is an enigma," said Dr. Chris Hughes, of the London School of Economics. 

"He very rarely travels abroad, he's been to China and even when he goes to China it's hard to know where he is."

"He's crazy like a fox, he's unpredictable, he's reckless but you have to take him seriously," said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN.

Diplomats who have spent time within the nation, and dissidents who have escaped its borders, describe an intriguing but volatile character who reportedly wears platform shoes to boost his diminutive 5-foot, 3-inch frame and prefers a bouffant hairstyle to make him look taller.

Khaki jumpsuits and sunglasses are his trademark attire and his portrait is found hanging beside that of his father in North Korean households and public buildings.

His writings and philosophy, which mainly praise his and his father's greatness, are reported and broadcast daily.

Kim is also thought to use at least two lookalikes, South Korea's Yonhap news agency has reported.

The lookalikes are said to have had plastic surgery and are so strikingly similar to Kim that even North Korean officials accompanying the fakes don't know it.

"I know I'm an object of criticism in the world, but if I am being talked about, I must be doing the right things," he is reported to have once said.

Though he was born in Siberia in 1941 while his father Kim Il-sung served as an officer in the Soviet military, the official version of his birth is much different.

According to the government, he was born in a cabin on North Korea's highest mountain. A double rainbow and a bright star in the sky marked his birth.

He graduated from the university named after his father in 1964, and after being groomed for the position, the state officially named him in 1980 as his father's successor.

In 1991, he got his first taste of power when he took control of the military.

After his father passed away in 1994, he took over as leader of the ruling Korean Workers' Party -- the position he still holds.

His status as a cult figure has been established among North Korea's 23 million people. They refer to him as 'Dear Leader' and celebrate his birthday every year with a designated holiday.

However, even the mildest acts of dissent can lead to punishment.

Defectors have connected him to terror activities around the world, including the bombing of a Korean Airlines jet in 1986 that left more than 100 people dead.

He reportedly also masterminded a 1983 terrorist bombing in Myanmar that killed 17 South Korean officials.

North Korean spy An Myung Jin told the BBC that terrorism isn't considered a crime under Kim Jong-il's regime but is looked at as "an essential tool for completing the revolution."

He said tactics included blowing up targets, kidnapping generals, members of parliament and students from South Korea -- all with the goal of bringing both Koreas under communist rule.

There have also been reports of torture, public executions, slave labour, and forced abortions and infanticides.

Although Kim Jong-il is purported to enjoy the trappings of power, such as dining on air-lifted lobster, his people have struggled with abject poverty.

Kenji Fujimoto, Kim's former executive chef, describes in his memoirs how Kim likes to wash down exotic sushi, Iranian caviar and gourmet shark fin soup with vintage French wines before treating himself to his favourite tipple -- Hennessy XO cognac.

Kim's 'Pleasure Group' of female singers and dancers are a staple attraction at all-night banquets prepared by dozens of highly-trained chefs, Fujimoto says.

On one occasion witnessed by Fujimoto, Kim ordered the girls to strip naked, then made his guests dance with them, but warned them to go no further.

"Dancing is okay but you can't touch. If you touch, it's theft," Kim told them.

Aid agencies estimate that anywhere from two million to three million people have died since the mid-1990s as the result of food shortages brought on by natural disasters and economic mismanagement.

While the country exists in almost hermit-like seclusion from the rest of the world, with all media tightly controlled by the state, it has relied heavily on foreign aid to feed millions of its own people.

The nuclear gambit

North Korea's apparent test of a nuclear weapon on Oct. 8 would make the country the world's ninth nuclear power (Israel is believed to be a member of that club, but it has never officially confirmed or denied having a nuclear arsenal).

Kim Jong-il studied the collapse of Soviet regimes in the early 1990s and noticed how soldiers stood on the sides. North Korea has a 'military-first' policy that gives soldiers preferential treatment in society. Analysts say the nuclear test will provide a morale boost for the military.

Analysts also suggest Kim Jong-il, in hopes of avoiding a similar fate to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, is also banking on the fact that no country with nuclear capabilities has been invaded by another such nation.

According to Carleton University history professor Jacob Kovalio, there are several other possible political reasons behind the action.

Kim Jong-il may have used the test to remind Japan and China, holding their first summit in five years, that his nation is still a major political presence in the region.

"There may have also been an internal reason, in the sense that with winter coming, the situation in North Korea is approaching a famine again," Kovalio told CTV's Newsnet.

"(Kim Jong-il) may have wanted to arm-twist, as it were, China and South Korea into increasing allocations of support to his nation."

Prior to the alleged test, observers saw Oct. 8 as a possible date of action since it marked the anniversary of Kim Jong-il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' party.

The test also coincided with the U.N. Security Council naming South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon as its candidate to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Some analysts say North Korea may have also had an economic incentive to push forward with the test. North Korea sells its missile technology to other countries, including Syria, sparking fears that the country could do the same with its nuclear technology.

While the test occurred now, North Korea has claimed for years to have nuclear weapons.

According to a CIA estimate given to the U.S. Congress in November 2002, the U.S. had been concerned that the North has "one or possibly two" weapons using plutonium that it produced before 1992.

The U.S. also believed that about 8,000 spent fuel rods put into storage in 1994 could provide enough weapons-grade plutonium to produce a few more weapons.

The country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and threw out IAEA weapons inspectors. North Korea also decided last year to boycott the six-nations talks meant to normalize relations and curtail its nuclear program.

In July 2006, North Korea launched seven missiles into the Sea of Japan, ignoring international warnings and drawing condemnation from the UN Security Council.

Other weapons

In addition to nuclear weapons, the communist state is widely believed to have a substantial number of chemical weapons deliverable by artillery against South Korea.

As early as the 1950s, the North reportedly acquired technology to produce tabun and mustard gas, and it now has a full arsenal of nerve agents with the capability to launch them via artillery shells.

North Korea agreed in 1987 to the Biological Weapons Convention and in 1989 to the Geneva Protocol, but it has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In March, 2006, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies Monterey Institute of International Studies expressed doubts about the North's ability to deliver these weapons of mass destruction.

Here are some of the missiles North Korea possesses:

• TAEPODONG-2: said to be North Korea's most advanced missile, with a range of up to 15,000 kilometres. Experts estimate it could potentially hit parts of the mainland U.S. with a small payload. However, the missile is unlikely to be accurate.
• TAEPODONG-1: North Korea is believed to have test-launched this long-range missile in August 1998. The second stage landed off Japan's eastern coast. The missile has an estimated range of up to 2,900 kilometres.

• The North Korean army parades missiles down a major city thoroughfare. (file)

  RODONG: the North is believed to have as many as 200 Rodong missiles, which can be fired from mobile launchers. Carrying a range of about 997 kilometres, the North's Rodongs would likely target Japan.
• SCUD: North Korea reportedly has more than 600 of these relatively short-range, inacccurate missiles that could potentially target South Korea.

History of the country:

• 1948: North Korea is established under the occupying Soviet forces in the chaos following the Second World War, and Kim Il-sung is named as head of the North Korean Provisional People's Committee. He would later be named prime minister.
• 1947: State control is established over 90 per cent of the country's productive assets -- a stranglehold that has been maintained until today on areas such as finance, manufacturing and trade.
• 1950: Joseph Stalin gives North Korea permission to invade South Korea, which it does. Forces capture Seoul, but are quickly pushed out by UN forces led by the U.S. and Kim and his government flee to China as the capital city, Pyongyang is captured.
• Dec. 1950/Jan. 1951: China enters the war, helping to retake Pyongyang and Seoul, but by March the UN has re-established control of Seoul.
• 1953: The permanent border is established between North and South Korea, the war ends and Kim re-establishes his grip on North Korea.
• 1954-1967: Post-war rebuilding plans bring the country back to economic viability through industrial and infrastructure development, though in the 1960s agriculture slows and the divide between urban and rural living standards widens.
• 1970s: The economy takes a downturn as oil prices increase, since North Korea has few commodities to trade for fuel.
• 1988: South Korea becomes a stable, well-armed democracy, and North Korea falls further behind, becoming more deeply isolated from the world. Rhetoric towards the west is also stepped up.
• 1994: Kim il-Sung dies and his son, Kim Jung-il takes over as General-Secretary of the Korean Workers Party.
• 1996 to 1999: North Korea is bankrupt and can no longer import goods to modernize industrial plants, and it experiences a large-scale famine that kills between 600 and 900,000 people.
• 2002: Currency is devalued, food prices are allowed to rise, subsidized-housing and food-rationing is phased out, and a family unit farming system is brought in for the first time since 1954 in an effort to stimulate agriculture.
• 2004: China increases investments to North Korea to $200 million, and continues to advise the nation to open the economy to market forces.
• 2005: North Korea pulls out of the six-party nuclear talks.
• 2006: North Korea conducts both missile tests and a nuclear weapons test.