Military attache of Egyptian embassy gives party
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Military attache of the Egyptian embassy here Ahmed Salah Eldin Monayrie arranged a party on February 17 on the occasion of the birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Addressing the party, the military attache wished happiness and a long life in good health to General Secretary Kim Jong Il and hoped that under his wise leadership, Korea would further prosper.
He said: We know well that his excellency Kim Jong Il is successfully accomplishing the revolutionary cause of President Kim Il Sung. He enjoys full support from the Korean people and the people's army soldiers as the great leader.
First Vice-Minister of the People's Armed Forces Kim Il Chol stressed in his speech: our people's army will, in the future, too, uphold with loyalty the idealogy and leadership of Supreme Commander and display its might to the full as the main force and pillar of the revolution also in the forced march for the final victory under the uplifted banner of decisively defending Kim Jong Il.
Demonstration display of synchronized swimming
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- A demonstration display of synchronized swimming was given in Pyongyang on February 17 in celebration of the 56th birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Seeing the display together with working people in the city were president of the International Taekwon-do Federation Choe Hong Hui, overseas Koreans and foreign guests staying in Korea.
To the tune of the immortal revolutionary paean "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and "Confetti of Best Wishes", the performers presented splendid canvas on water, reverentially extending highest glory, longevity and greetings to General Kim Jong Il greeting his 56th birthday.
They showed well powerful rhythmic movements to the tune of the songs "The General Gallops a White Horse" and "Hoops on Mt. Paektu."
Gift to G.S. Kim Jong Il from Nepali party
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) - General Secretary Kim Jong Il was presented with a gift from the Nepali Sadbhavna Party on his birthday.
It was handed to an official concerned by Devendra Mishra, who is delegate and member of the central executive committee, of the party on a visit to Korea.
Second Kimjongilia exhibition closes
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- The Second Kimjongilia exhibition closed with due ceremony at the Pyongyang International House of Culture on February 17.
It opened on February 13 on the 56th birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il and the 10th anniversary of the appearance of the flower.
On show were more than 2,000 Kimjongilia plants produced by many units and people across the country, overseas Koreans and foreigners.
Excellent units and working people were awarded prizes at the ceremony.
Addressing the ceremony Vice Premier Jang Chol expressed the hope and expectation that more and more people of all strata, Koreans overseas and friends of different countries would take an active part in the traditional exhibition being held in Pyongyang on the occasion of February holiday every year.
Book "Lodestar of 21st Century" published in Russia
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- A book "Lodestar of 21st Century" was printed by the Paleya Publishing House of Russia on February 13 in celebration of the 56th birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
In the preface of the book the director of the Publishing House highly praised General Secretary Kim Jong Il as the sun of the 21st century and said that the Korean people and progressive people of the world desiring new society have greeted a new historical turn with his election as General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.
The book was published to introduce the great traits and exploits of General Kim Jong Il and boundless respect of the world progressive people for him, the director said.
Leaflets observing G.S. Kim Jong Il's birthday scattered in S. korea news service
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Leaflets highly praising General Kim Jong Il were scattered in Chongju city, north Chungchong Province, on February 16, according to a radio report from Seoul.
They were scattered around Chungbuk University and the students' hall of Chongju University and in residential quarters near the universities.
They congratulated General Kim Jong Il on his birthday.
Law on veterinary and anti-epizootic work adopted in DPRK
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- "Law of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on veterinary and anti-epizootic work" was adopted recently.
It, consisting of four chapters and 51 articles, clarifies the principles and ways of further improving and strengthening the veterinary and anti-epizootic work to meet the requirement of the developing reality.
"Basis of veterinary and anti-epizootic work," the first chapter with seven articles, clarifies the mission of the law and the important principles to be adhered to in veterinary and anti-epizootic work. The second chapter "prevention and medical treatment of animal diseases" with 17 articles contains institutional steps to build stock-breeding centres including stock farms and pastures to meet the veterinary and hygienic demand and raise domestic animals.
Seen in the third chapter "prevention of spreading of contagious diseases of animals" (16 articles) and the fourth chapter "guidance and control over veterinary and anti-epizootic work" (11 articles) are steps to prevent the contagious diseases of animals and tasks to establish the system of guidance, supervision and control over the veterinary and anti-epizootic work.
The adoption of the law is of great importance in the development of the stock-breeding industry and the protection of the people's health in Korea where a drive for raising grass-eating domestic animals is going on.
First target of "two wars" strategy in Korean Peninsula
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- The first target of the the United States' "two wars" strategy is the Korean Peninsula, says Rodong Sinmun today.
In an article the daily says:
The "two wars" scenario is the world war strategy the United States worked out after the end of the Cold War. Its keypoint is to make preparations for carrying out wars simultaneously on the Korean Peninsula and in the Persian Gulf region.
Since the termination of the Cold War, the United States has concentrated the strategy of strength on the Korean Peninsula and Persian Gulf and regarded the two regions as keys to the execution of its reactionary world strategy.
In the strategy the United States gives priority to a Korean war. The reason is that the Korean Peninsula has the "greatest possibility of war" in the world. It is an undeniable fact and the United States is responsible for the possibility.
The United States has massed huge combat forces in South Korea and its vicinity, going ahead with war preparations.
Since the Cold War came to an end, it has sought to take a military initiative and a strategic position in quarrel with powers over the sphere of influence in Asia with the Korean Peninsula as a main front, dominate the continent and easily execute the aggressive world strategy based on strength.
It will put its seventh fleet it describes as the "strongest fleet in the world" under the operational control of the U.S.-South Korean combined forces command in wartime. It is keeping 100,000 troops in South Korea, Japan and other East Asian regions. It has established the aggressive U.S.-Japan-South Korea "Collective Security System" and is pushing ahead with preparations for carrying the new "U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines" into effect.
All this indicates that it intends to raise the curtain of the "two wars" scenario anytime on the Korean Peninsula.
If the United States unleashes a war in Korea, however, it is as good as suicide.
The United States had better discard the conception of war and rewrite the aggressive Korea policy.
Unreasonable precondition
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Japan is reportedly linking the resumption of negotiations to normalize the DPRK-Japan diplomatic relations with the "suspected kidnapping," while abusing the DPRK over the hometown visit of Japanese-Korean women.
We cannot construe it otherwise than a sinister intention to realize their wild ambition by laying an artificial obstacle to an early resumption of the full-dressed governmental talks for the normalization of the DPRK-Japan diplomatic relations agreed by the two countries.
As we have already made clear, the "suspected kidnapping" has nothing to do with the DPRK. It was faked up by the notorious South Korean "Agency for National Security Planning".
Meanwhile, the hometown visit of Japanese-Korean women has been realized by a humanitarian step of the DPRK, and the investigation into "ordinary missing persons" requested by the Japanese side is being made by the Red Cross organisation.
Recently, the Japanese side, ignoring the agreement with the DPRK, has attached unreasonable conditions to the hometown visit and taken issue with the DPRK over the "suspected kidnapping."
"Precondition" in bilateral negotiations is viewed as a kind of pressure. If Japan does not know that pressure never works on the DPRK, however, it is really a deplorable thing.
The Japanese authorities must know that their double-dealing attitude will invite only a ridicule in diplomacy and they can get nothing with sinister intrigues.
Negotiations with S. Korean parties, organizations called for
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Political parties and organizations of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea held a joint meeting here today to discuss finding an independent way out for the nation with concerted efforts of the north and the south.
In a report Kim Yong Sun, Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee and Chairman of the Reunification Policy Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, said:
The Kim Young Sam regime, which has made the reunification timetable exist in a vacuum for five years and driven back the fellow countrymen's march toward reunification, will soon leave "Chongwadae." new politics aspiring after independence and national unity is a task which should be fulfilled immediately in South Korea.
The north and the south should seek independence and unity, regarding as guidelines the three charters of national reunification -- the three principles of reunification, the proposal for founding the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo and the "10-Point Programme of the Great Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of the Country" -- as General Secretary Kim Jong Il said in his historic work concerning national reunification published last year.
With South Korea remaining dependent on foreign forces, no genuine improvement of inter-Korean relations can be expected.
The improvement of these relations must be free from interference of foreign interests.
We must resolutely reject the shameful "international cooperation" which the Kim Young Sam regime established with foreign forces against the fellow countrymen and which leads to foreign interference in the internal affairs of the nation.
A pressing task facing us is to turn inter-Korean relations which are now in the worst phase into relationship of reconciliation and unity. Along with the end of the Kim Young Sam regime, the anti-north confrontation policy should be renounced and confrontation should be replaced with reconciliation with the north.
The institutional mechanisms hampering reconciliation should also be eliminated as early as possible.
Kim Yong Sun urged an unconditional abolition of the fascist, anti-reunification "National Security Law" (NSL) and "Agency for National Security Planning" (ANSP).
He further said:
As the present-day politicians of South Korea were also hurt seriously by the "NSL" and "ANSP" and called for their unconditional and total abolition, they have no reason not to do it.
We strongly demand that the suppressive tools, which have stood in the way of national reunification and killed a large number of patriotic-minded champions of reunification over the past 50 years, should be removed unconditionally now when the military fascist dictatorship already collapsed and the "civilian" fascist dictatorship has come to a miserable end.
The north and the south must promote co-existence, co-prosperity, common interests, mutual collaboration and unity between fellow countrymen.
All the political parties and organisations in the north and the south must respect each other's ideology, religious belief and social system, accept with an open heart and without prejudice whatever is good for national reunification and beneficial to both the north and the south and solve everything through mutual solidarity and unity.
We consider that the historic Ten-Point Programme of the Great Unity of the Whole Nation which opens wide the road to national reconciliation and unity is a valuable treasure of the nation and a common foundation for great unity. We earnestly call on all the political parties and organisations in south korea to fully support the programme and take joint action with us to carry it into practice as soon as possible.
We make clear that we are willing to have dialogue and negotiation with anyone in south korea including political parties and organisations if they truly want to open the way of national reunification on the principle of national independence and great unity, discarding their past conception.
The politicians of south korea must not follow in the footsteps of the criminal "civilian" dictatorship. They must promote a new change from dependence on foreign forces and inter-Korean confrontation to national independence and unity to meet the earnest desire of the South Korean people for a new reunification policy.
Following the report, representatives of political parties and organisations took the floor, expressing full support for the ideas of the report.
The meeting adopted a letter to the political parties and organisations of South Korea.
Present at the meeting were Vice-President Pak Song Chol, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Vice-President Kim Pyong Sik, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Korean Social Democratic Party, and others.
FM meets Indian Foreign Ministry delegation
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Vice-Premier and Foreign Ministry Kim Young Nam met and conversed with a delegation of the Indian Foreign Ministry led by T.C.A. Bangachari, Joint Secretary for East Asian affairs, on Feb. 18.