G.S. Kim Jong Il enjoys art performance
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) - General Secretary Kim Jong Il enjoyed a performance given by officers' family art circle members of the KPA unit no. 570 who participated in the contests of KPA officers' family art circles.
The art circle members put on the stage choruses "Our Sun's Day" and "Let Us Sing of Pride of Having the General" and other colorful numbers.
General Secretary Kim Jong Il expressed deep satisfaction with their militant and appealing performance which vividly represented their life and feelings. And he highly appreciated their successful performance and thanked them.
Very wonderful is the spirit and fighting trait of officers' families to share life and death with their husbands in the same trench for the sake of the party and revolution, he said. "The whole society should follow their example."
As they are fully aware of their being revolutionary comrades as well as wives of the husbands who are defending the country as firm as an iron-wall, they are working and living in the revolutionary spirit of servicemen, he said, stating: "Their readiness indicates how powerful our army is.
It is very good to conduct art activities of officers' families in the army, he noted, and put forward highly important tasks which will serve as guidelines in popularizing art activities.
DPRK ambassador to Laos appointed
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Rim Yong Gol was appointed Korean ambassador e.p. to Laos, according to a decree of the Central People's Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
National reunification-related book published in S. Korea
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- A Society for the Promotion of National Reunification Active in Seoul published a book containing the national reunification policy laid down by President Kim Il Sung to mark Sun's Day, Seoul-based radio Voice of National Salvation quoted the Seoul city committee of the National Democratic Front of South Korea as saying.
Carried in the book titled "Dawn of reunification" are some 30 famous works of the President, including "Let us achieve the great unity of our nation" and "10-Point Programme of the Great Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of the Country."
The book is popular among broad segments of the South Koreans, recalling them to boundless reverence for the President, who made tireless efforts for national reunification all his life, the radio said.
Wreaths laid before Kang Pan Sok's statue and grave
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Kye Ung Thae, Yang Hyong Sop, Choe Thae Bok and other senior party and government officials, working people and Korean People's Army servicemen Tuesday morning laid wreaths before the statue of Kang Pan Sok, an indomitable revolutionary fighter and outstanding leader of the communist women's movement of Korea, in Chilgol Revolutionary Site and her grave in Mangyongdae, on the occasion of her 106th birth anniversary.
The wreaths sent by General Kim Jong Il were laid before her statue and grave.
Wreaths were laid in the name of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee, DPRK Central People's Committee and the Administration Council and ac commissions and ministries, working people's organizations, KPA units, educational and the press organs, party and power bodies and administrative and economic organs and farms in Pyongyang.
Just struggle for existence
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today says the South Korean workers' struggle for democracy and vital rights is very just.
In a commentary the daily says:
On April 18, some 15,000 workers in thirteen cities including Ulsan, Taejon and Kwangju held rallies demanding rights to work.
The South Korean workers are now suffering from such oppressive and exploiting systems as the lay-off system and labor exchange system.
Their living conditions have been deteriorated by business bankruptcies and massive unemployment caused by the trusteeship by the International Monetary Fund.
What inflames them now is that the present regime, which styles itself a "people's government," pursues anti-worker policies, following in the footsteps of the preceding dictators.
Friendship gathering held on Syrian Independence Day
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- A friendship gathering marking the 52nd anniversary of the Syrian Independence was held Tuesday at the Korea-Syria Friendship Junghwa Senior Middle School in Pyongyang.
Invited to the gathering were charge d'affaires ad interim Bassam Al-Haj Hussein and officials of the Syrian embassy and Syrian students studying here.
After a souvenir tree planting in the compound of the school, the participants went round the educational facilities and appreciated an art performance given by schoolchildren there.
The participants chatted with each other in a friendly atmosphere.
NDFSK urges abolition of U.S. military base
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the National Democratic Front of South Korea (NDFSK) released a statement on April 18 accusing the United States of using Mt. Thaebaek area as a secret bombing training field, Seoul-based radio Voice of National Salvation reported.
The spokesman said:
Prompted by the United States, the South Korean authorities built the training field in the area covering about two million phyong in and around Nyongwol county, South Korean Kangwon Province, and allowed it to be used by the U.S. Pacific Air Force. They also take charge of the management of the field and such danperous follow-up work as putting out of forest fire and removal of unexploded bombs after trainings.
To the training field, which is called the second or third largest point of strategic importance in the world, strategic bombers belonging to the U.S. Pacific Air Force have flown from Guam, Okinawa, Yokosuka and other areas several times every week from the beginning of the 1980s for firing and bombing exercises. As a result, forests, ecological environment and cultural relics in the area have been destroyed. Damage by unexploded bombs is also terrible.
The United States must promptly abolish the training field and all other military bases in South Korea and withdraw its troops.
S. Korean workers' struggle for vital rights
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Public sector trade unions of South Korea are fighting for their vital rights, according to a radio report from Seoul.
Public sector trade unions including the federation of trade unions for common interests called a press conference at the conference hall of the South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (Minjurochong) on April 17 and urged the "government" to immediately cancel the program for the coordination of the public sector structure, which victimizes only workers under the pretext of "budget reduction."
They warned that if the "government" continues pushing ahead with the unilateral and unreasonable program, they will start a general strike around may 20.
Minjurochong vowed to launch a solidarity struggle with a general strike.
Trade unions of such businesses as the Kia Motor and the Ulsan Hyundai Motor manifested their willingness to continue fighting to prevent massive lay-offs and ensure stable employment and vital rights.
Foreigners pay homage to President Kim Il Sung
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Guinean President Lansana Conte sent a floral basket to the DPRK embassy in his country on April 15, Sun's Day.
The political and diplomatic advisor to the President, authorised by the President, visited the embassy and laid a floral basket before a portrait of President Kim Il Sung.
The African regional committee for the study of the Juche idea also visited the DPRK embassy in Guinea on the same day to lay a floral basket before President Kim Il Sung's portrait.
On the 13th and 14th, the General Secretary of the people's rally for socialism of Democratic Congo visited the DPRK embassy in his country, the chairman and leadership members of the enlightenment association of Pakistan, a deputy head of the Samarkand city administration and directors of companies of Uzbekistan, the family of Zhang Jinlu who is a daughter of Zhang Weihua who was related to the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, the chief of information of the organisation of socialists in the mediterranean visited Korean embassies in their countries.
They laid floral baskets and bouquets before portraits of the great leaders President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il.
The Secretary General of the Italian Institute of International Relations, the President of "C.I.S. Estero" group and other public figures of Italy sent floral baskets separately to the Korean permanent mission in the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation on April 14.
CPC supports independent and peaceful reunification of Korea
Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- A resolution "On supporting independent and peaceful reunification of Korea" was adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxism-Leninism) on March 31.
The resolution fully supported the three charters of the reunification of Korea clarified by General Kim Jong Il, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, and the principled stand of the WPK on promoting co-existence and co-prosperity between the north and the south, transcending difference in ideology and system.
It urged the South Korean authorities to give up the anti-north confrontation policy, pull down the concrete wall bisecting the north and the south, abrogate the fascist "National Security Law" and immediately dissolve the "Agency for National Security Planning", which are the first step for reconciliation and reunification.
The states concerned should play an affirmative role in putting an end to the ceasefire to ensure a durable peace on the Korean peninsula with a sincere stand toward the peaceful reunification of Korea and create a favourable circumstance for Korea's reunification and in building a new peace-keeping mechanism, the resolution said.
It called upon the working class, people and all the political parties of Canada to express full support and militant solidarity to the Workers' Party of Korea and the Korean people in their struggle to achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country.