President - North Korea - Beyond the elaborate personality cult through which he rules, little is known about Kim Jong-il's character. He is rarely photographed and is almost never heard in radio and TV broadcasts. After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, Kim Jong-il did not immediately assume his father's titles; there were reports that Kim Il-sung's first choice as successor was the younger brother, Kim Yong-ju. Kim Jong-il eventually became head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997. He is credited with writing six operas in two years, and with personally designing the huge Juche tower in Pyongyang. In recent years he has met several world leaders, including the South Korean president and the Japanese prime minister. He has attended summits in Moscow and Beijing. Mr Kim is sometimes caricatured as a reclusive playboy with bouffant hair, platform shoes and a taste for cognac. There has been speculation about his health. Mr Kim is said to have gastric problems arising from his love of spicy food. Other reports suggest that he has liver problems. North Korea watchers believe that one of Mr Kim's three sons will become the dictator's anointed heir. Kim Jong-il was born in Siberia in 1941 during his father's period of exile in the former Soviet Union. But official North Korean accounts say he was born in a log cabin at his father's guerrilla base on the country's highest mountain - an event marked by a double rainbow and a new star in the sky.