The first issue of "Korean Information," the magazine of the Sweden-Korea Friendship Association, carried a portrait of Kim Jong Il together with an article titled "Encouraging Leader."

The article said that Kim Jong Il's reelection as general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea was an expression of the Korean people's trust in him who united the people with his energetic leadership and greatly contributed to the struggle for accomplishing the socialist cause, achieving peace and security and defusing tension on the Korean Peninsula and the rest of Northeast Asia.

It was by no means fortuitous that many politicians and state leaders of the West were fascinated by Kim Jong Il's personality when they were received by him, it stressed.

The British Association for the Study of Songun Policy posted on its internet homepage on February 5 a photo of the three commanders of Mt. Paektu and an article dealing with the warm praises made by south Korean people and other progressive people of the world of Kim Jong Il.

The homepage cited facts that the world progressive people are expressing boundless respect and reverence for him.

February 16 is the only holiday common to humankind most significantly celebrated worldwide irrespective of race, language, system and ideology, the homepage said, adding that the world progressives are highly lauding him as a universally recognized great statesman and the most prominent leader in the 21st century.