Is this picture fake?

Three months after vanishing from public view, and after reports that he had undergone brain surgery following a stroke, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, has been touring military units and attending a musical performances, according to the state controlled North Korean media.

None of the images were conclusive, but together they are eroding the consensus among Pyongyang-watchers that the leader of the world’s most unpredictable nuclear power has suffered a serious health problem over the past few months.

North Korea analysts suggested that the release of the news was deliberately timed to coincide with the election of Barack Obama. “He’s sending a message to the US,” says Moon Chung In, a professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University, who has twice net Mr Kim in Pyongyang. “They’re saying our leader is alive and well, and we’re ready to talk.”

The Korean Central News Agency reported today that Mr Kim “waved back to the cheering performers and audience and congratulated them on their successful presentation”.

“He expressed expectation and conviction that all the artistes would conduct dynamic revolutionary art activities in the future too, to powerfully encourage the army and people in the drive for accomplishing the cause of building a great prosperous powerful nation,” the report continued.

The date of the performance was not stated and it was not accompanied by photographs. But on Wednesday, KCNA released pictures showing the “Dear Leader” posing for a group photograph with a military unit, wearing a light coloured winter coat, sunglasses and sporting his familiar pompadour.

On Sunday, in similarly undated photographs, he was shown apparently attending a football match.

Mr Kim ceased making public appearances in mid-August but it was only on September 9 that his absence from view became a matter of pressing concern. That was the 60th anniversary of the North Korean state, a day of almost sacred significance, when parades and celebrations were held all over the country. Despite having attended the 50th and 55th anniversaries, Mr Kim failed to appear.

There was speculation that he was ill, or had even died – an alarming possibility in a country with a million strong army, nuclear weapons technology, a hungry population and no formal system of succession.

The head of the South Korea spy agency, Kim Sung Ho, publicly confirmed media reports from unnamed US intelligence sources that Mr Kim had suffered stroke and been treated by foreign doctors. “Although he is not in a state to walk around, he is conscious,” he told South Korean MPs. “We understand that he can control the situation and he is not in an unstable condition.”

But if the recent photographs and reports are genuine, then either he has made a remarkable recovery or reports of his indisposition have been greatly exaggerated.

There has been much poring over the photographs for signs of fraud or fakery. Pictures released last month, for example, were dismissed because the state of foliage in the background suggested they had been taken in summer – perhaps before the alleged stroke.

In the photographs at the football match, Mr Kim is not making great use of his left arm, leading to speculation that he was suffering partial paralysis. But in the latest pictures of the military, he is seen to be clapping and raising both hands.

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