Kim Jong-un's return to spotlight shows slightly more open North Korea

Just like that, Kim Jong-un was back. For weeks, the portly North Korean leader's sudden disappearance from public view was the source of wild theories ranging from gout, diabetes, and a brain haemorrhage to a leg injury which needed surgery, mental illness, a cheese addiction and being ousted in a military coup.

The mystery was the source of endless headlines around the world. Even by the standards of North Korea's bizarre personality cult, the global attention to Kim's whereabouts was remarkable.

Then, with no explanation, the third-generation leader of the world's only communist dynasty reappeared, smiling while giving his trademark "field guidance" at the Wisong Scientists Residential District and another new energy institute in Pyongyang. All that was different was a cane, evidence for one of the least exciting theories: that he simply had something wrong with his leg.

And with that, it was back to business as usual.

Despite these frequent disappearances, this latest incident does reveal something about the current North Korean regime; the present leader is relatively more open than his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung, who founded the nation in 1948 as a socialist rival to the South.

Neither ever publicly acknowledged so much as having a wife, let alone any other human frailties. The first Kim was always carefully photographed to avoid showing the huge goitre on his neck, while the second suffered a series of maladies - including an apparent stroke in 2008 - that were never mentioned in the North Korean press.