The Man Who Brings Sunshine

Kim Jong Il Stops a Storm.

This is the title of an article carried in the Russian newspaper Trud, dated August 24, 2002.

The previous day, when Kim Jong Il was staying in Vladivostok while on a visit to the Russian Far East, a temperate low-pressure storm blew two times.

But by the next day, when he was meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, the storm had stopped.

The previous year, when he was visiting St. Petersburg, storm-clouds that had been gathering near the city, cleared away.

The Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda once carried an article, under the headline: Comrade Kim Jong Il Tames the Weather, which reads in part:

Early in the morning of July 26, 2001, as the train carrying the Korean leader was approaching the border railway station at Khasan, the fog was so dense that it was difficult to see an inch in front of you.

But when the train pulled into the station, it became clear and bright, and the sun beat down.

The same thing happened in Novosibirsk and Omsk, when his train was travelling to Moscow.

In Russia, people began calling the Korean leader, the man who brings sunshine.