Friendship gathering marks February holiday
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- The Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries on Saturday arranged a friendship gathering with foreign embassy officials in charge of culture and friendship here on the occasion of the birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
The participants saw an art performance given by school children and conversed with each other in a friendly atmosphere.
Greetings to G.S. Kim Jong Il from Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il on February 11 received a message of greetings from President Fidel Castro Ruz of Cuba on the occasion of his 56th birthday.
In the message Fidel Castro Ruz said he, on behalf of the Communist Party, government and people of Cuba, extends wholehearted congratulations to General Secretary Kim Jong Il on his birthday.
World people congratulate G.S. Kim Jong Il on his birthday
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- The 56th birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il is being celebrated on a worldwide scale.
Colorful celebrations such as meetings, "evenings of culture", film shows, photo exhibitions and sports games were held in Russia, India, Poland, Madagascar, Tanzania, Peru, Nepal, Guyana and other countries.
Speakers at the meetings said the greatest feat of General Kim Jong Il, who is a great philosopher, a master of idea and theory, a great statesman and a veteran leader, is that he defended and more dynamically advanced socialism centred on the popular masses.
Praising him as a paragon of world communists and revolutionaries, they said that he wisely led the cause of world socialism and communism with his tireless ideological and theoretical activities and energetic guidance in recent years, thus enjoying absolute support and respect from the world people.
They stressed that the Korean people led by him, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, are a truly happy people and that under his distinguished leadership the Workers' Party and people of Korea will firmly defend and glorify their own socialism and win a great victory.
Congratulatory messages and letters to General Kim Jong Il were adopted at the meetings held in Russia, Poland, Madagascar and India.
General Kim Jong Il's birthday to be significantly celebrated in S. Korea
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- Members of the February 16 Fellowship Society recently met to discuss measures for significantly celebrating the 56th birthday of General Kim Jong Il, the Seoul-based radio Voice of National Salvation quoted the Seoul City Committee of the National Democratic Front of South Korea as saying.
At the meeting they proposed to form a preparatory committee for celebrating the February 16 and adopted a decision on significantly commemorating the February holiday.
According to the decision, a month from January 20 to February 20 was set as a celebration period, during which they will organize a commemorative lecture, an intensive study on "Exposition of the Juche Idea", a video show of documentary film from the north and dissemination of "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and other songs praising him.
Also a silk banner carrying best wishes for his longevity will be made and propaganda articles commemorating his birthday be printed in the name of the society and disseminated among people of all walks of life, it said.
DPRK orders awarded to Japanese public figures
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- A ceremony for awarding orders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to Japanese public figures was held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall on Feb. 14.
Present were Vice-President Pak Song Chol and other officials concerned.
A decree of the Central People's Committee of the DPRK was read out and order of friendship second class was awarded to Suekichi Koumoto, President of the All Japan Dockworkers' Union, and Tetsuya Sakano, President of the National Council of Dockworkers Unions of Japan.
Floral basket and gift to G.S. Kim Jong Il from CPC CC
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) - General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a floral basket from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the occasion of his birthday.
The floral basket was handed to Choe Thae Bok, alternate member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, on Feb. 14 by Li Chengren, Deputy Head of the International Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee, on a visit to Korea.
General Kim Jong Il was presented with a gift from the CPC Central Committee in connection with his election as the WPK General Secretary.
Foreign delegations here
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- Foreign delegations arrived in Pyongyang on Feb. 14 to congratulate General Secretary Kim Jong Il on his birthday.
Among them were a delegation of the New Democratic Party of Yugoslavia led by its General Secretary Tahir Hasanovic, Mauro Cazadio, General Secretary of the Struggle for the Peace and Socialism of Italy, a delegation of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China led by its deputy head Li Chengren, a delegation of the October 8 Revolutionary Movement of Brazil led by its International Secretary Eduardo Fernandez, Devendra Mishra, a delegate of the Nepali Sadbhavna Party and member of its central executive committee, Harchand Singh, General Secretary of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a congratulatory delegation of the Japan Society for the Study of the Juche Idea led by Kenichi Ogami, Secretary General of the International Institute of the Juche Idea, and a delegation of the High Institute of Political Science of Syria led by Afifi Haidar.
A delegation of the Democratic Party of Japan led by its deputy leader Takahiro Yokomichi arrived here on Saturday.
Symposium on Kimjongilia
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- A national symposium on scientific study and experience of cultivating Kimjongilia was held here on Saturday ten years after this immortal flower came into being.
The symposium introduced achievements and experience gained in studying the ecological characters of the flower, perfecting the method of its cultivation and widely spreading it.
Speakers proved in a scientific and theoretical way the academic problems related to the study and cultivation of the flower.
WPK CC gives banquet on February holiday
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- The Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea gave a banquet at the Mokran House on Feb. 14 on the occasion of the birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Invited to the banquet were delegations of China, Yugoslavia, Italy, Mongolia, Brazil, India, Iran, Nepal, Japan and foreign guests who are now visiting Korea.
Kye Ung Thae, member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the WPK Central Committee, delivered an address at the banquet.
National meeting held to celebrate birthday of G.S. Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- A national meeting was held at the 6,000-seat hall of the April 25 House of Culture here today to celebrate the 56th birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Choe Thae Bok, alternate politburo member and Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee, made a report.
The birth of the respected comrade Kim Jong Il as a great son of guerrillas on Mt. Paektu, the sacred mountain of revolution at the stirring times when the dawn of national liberation was breaking, was a great national auspicious event of the nation that ensured the future of successful succession to the revolution of Juche and promised a bright future of Korea, the reporter said, and continued:
Comrade Kim Jong Il is the destiny of our party, revolution and country and organizes and guides all the victories.
After he was acclaimed as a prominent leader in the period of a great worldwide upheaval when the international socialist movement were undergoing repeated trials, the Workers' Party of Korea and our own socialism could greet a heyday and enter a period of all-round flowering.
He has constantly maintained and applied the principle of the leadership that politics, the economy and culture should be developed in our own way, and the guiding method of solving all problems arising in the revolution and construction by setting in motion people's mind, thus bringing about a radical turn in political, economic, military, cultural and all other fields.
He has exceptionally strengthened the three major forces of the party, the army and the people into a harmonious whole and built them into the invincible revolutionary forces which reliably ensure the victorious advance of Korean socialism in any storms. It is his greatest brilliant feat of historic significance.
He also advanced reunification policy in keeping with the requirement of the developing revolution to give a powerful stimulus to the nationwide struggle to reunify the country.
Consistently adhering to the foreign policy in the idea of independence, peace and friendship, he has conducted external activities so energetically that the socialist movement could powerfully advance on the track of independence.
He is the supreme incarnation of fidelity to the great leader President Kim Il Sung. And he is a gifted, great man with matchless, distinguished leadership ability and noble virtues and an elder of world politics, who has performed immortal feats for the victory of the Juche revolution and the human cause of independence and opens a bright future of the nation and humankind.
The reporter called for strengthening the singlehearted unity of the revolutionary ranks around General Secretary Kim Jong Il as firm as a rock and upholding his idea and politics to glorify the new era of the Juche revolution with brilliant achievements for national prosperity.
Recalling the fact that General Kim Jong Il gave his on-site guidance to Jagang Province to start the forced march of all the people for a new great progress in socialist economic construction, he stressed:
The whole party, all the army and all the people should turn out to bring about a new advance in the socialist economic construction.
They should keep keyed-up and mobilized attitude toward the obtaining situation and continue directing big efforts to strengthening the revolutionary armed forces, true to our party's idea of attaching importance to the army.
We, under the guidance of General Secretary Kim Jong Il, will resolutely smash the moves of anti-reunification separatist forces at home and abroad through a nationwide struggle of all the fellow countrymen in the north, the south and overseas, upholding the banner of the three charters of national reunification and achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country without fail.
Our party and government of the republic will invariably pursue the foreign policy of independence, peace and friendship and further strengthen solidarity and unity with the world's progressive people under the banner of independence against imperialism and greatly contribute to accelerating the cause of global independence, the reporter concluded.
Memorial stamps
Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Ministry of Post and Telecommunications issued memorial stamps on the holiday of February.
Printed in the upper part of a sheet of stamp are letters "56th birthday of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il" and in the lower part is his native home in the secret camp of Mt. Paektu, a holy place, against the background of the sky above Jong Il Peak, with fizzling firecrackers.
Figuring large in stamps are letters "February 16" in gold color against blue background, beneath which are red bands of letters "Congratulations" and "56th birthday" on both sides of Kimjongilia, an immortal flower.