North Korea's state media have said some 1,200 titles and phrases have been created by world leaders to refer to Kim Jong-Il, such as the "Guardian deity of the planet," "Sun of the 21st century," "Lode star of humanity" and "Saint of saints."
Now, Pyongyang has seized upon a recent Time Magazine report to validate its claims that its enigmatic dictator is adored as the "Dear Leader" both at home and abroad.
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Kim is listed in the subcategory: Leaders & Revolutionaries
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"Aside from Osama Bin Laden, there's probably no one George W. Bush would rather be rid of than Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's dictator," stated the Time article, "Dear Leader Goes Nuclear."
"Kim runs a Stalinist police state, with political prisons housing tens of thousands, many of whom, survivors have testified, are either beaten or starved to death," Time stated.
"North Korea is also a serial proliferator, selling ballistic missiles and, U.S. intelligence believes, peddling critical ingredients for making nuclear weapons."
But the North Korean state media read the article differently.
"The U.S. magazine, TIME announced the list of the world's celebrities, and the dear name of our leader Kim Jong-Il showing enormous ability in the global political community was contained in the list," boasted the North's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station.
"Media in other foreign nations also admired 'Great Leader' Comrade Kim Jong-Il as the world's most great and influential figure," radio reports said, citing a Peruvian newspaper and an Indian daily.
Time's top 100 list included Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the late Pope John Paul II and South Korea's business tycoon, Lee Kun-Hee, chairman of Samsung Group, among others.
Kim and his late father, Kim Il-Sung, have relied on their cult of personality to rule the hermit kingdom. Since its founding at the end of World War II, the communist regime has ruled the northern half of the peninsula as a veritable medieval fiefdom, justified by a pseudo-Confucian version of Marxist-Leninist ideology known as "Juche" (self reliance).
The decades-long cult worship has played a key role in keeping the troubled country afloat, despite the global collapse of communism and the abrupt death of Kim Il-Sung, a string of economic crises and famines followed by a mass exodus of refugees.
As many as 2 million people have died of hunger in North Korea since 1995.
North Korea recently intensified ideological and cult worship campaigns on behalf of the leader as the country is facing mounting external pressures over its nuclear program and human rights abuses.
Internally, the restive population is responding to gradually opening markets and exposure to the outside world by means of cell phones and smuggled videotapes.
But the rulers in Pyongyang have determined that a major magazine published in the reviled United States merits public notice.
