Gift to Kim Jong Il from Cuban leaders
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a gift from Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, on the occasion of the New Year.
The chief of protocol of the Cuban Foreign Ministry conveyed the gift to the Korean ambassador to Cuba on January 14.
He said that Fidel Castro Ruz asked him to give Kim Jong Il best wishes for his good health and successes in the leadership over the struggle for the happiness of the Korean people in the New Year, too.
Meanwhile, Raul Castro Ruz, Minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, presented a gift to Kim Jong Il on the same occasion.
Achievements of Korean youth
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League.
On this day, the Korean youth look back with deep emotion on their achievements recorded in the annals of the Korean revolution advancing victoriously under the banner of Juche.
Young Korean communists and patriots waged the arduous anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle commanded by the President Kim Il Sung in the darkest period of the Japanese imperialist colonial rule, thus performing immortal exploits which will always shine in the history of the Korean nation.
Many revolutionary forerunners including Kim Hyok, Cha Kwang Su and Kim Jin took part in the anti-Japanese war with arms in their hands to set fine examples as a young vanguard.
The Democratic Youth League of Korea was founded on January 17, Juche 35 (1946), after the liberation of the country. It was a unified mass organization which could mobilize the Korean youth to devote themselves to the building of a new country.
Brilliant exploits were performed by them during the grim Fatherland Liberation War (1950-1953) fought to repel the U.S.'s armed invasion. During this period the indomitable spirit of the Korean youth was highly displayed by a large number of youths including heroes Ri Su Bok, Kang Ho Yong, Jo Kun Sil and heroine An Yong Ae.
It was in the same spirit that was displayed by them that those heroes in the 1990s including Kim Kwang Chol and Han Yong Chol dedicated their lives to save their comrades and heroes Kim Chol Jin and Jong Kwang Son came back to their units after emerging victorious in the fight against the enemy in its rear.
The Korean youth have performed labour feats in socialist construction, too.
Young men and women wrought such a miracle as completing the laying of over 80 km-long broad gauge railways from Haeju to Hasong in a matter of 75 days at the end of the 1950s.
Many monumental edifices, including the west sea barrage, the laying of railways in the northern part of the country, Kwangbok Street, Thongil Street are also associated with the exploits performed by the youth.
Many athletes including Jong Song Ok have demonstrated the nation's honor at international matches.
All this was the result of the devoted efforts made by the Korean youth to eternally remain loyal to the two great leaders and repay their trust with brilliant successes.
They are playing the role of a shock brigade in building a powerful nation.
They are performing feats in different fields of the national economy such as the Pyongyang-Nampho Motorway project under the slogan "Let all of us become heroes in a drive to glorify the 55th anniversary of the party foundation "
Carton paper workshop
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- A carton paper workshop has recently started operation at the Pyongyang Cigarette Paper Factory under the Korean Cigarette Industry Company.
Even though the workers at the factory were pressed for needed materials, they tried strenuously to set up a building on an area of thousands of square metres and manufactured highly efficient drafting paper machines and other facilities to succeed in installing the carton production process, the first of its kind in the country.
The completion of the project is a meaningful contribution to the strengthening of the material and technical foundation of the cigarette industry.
Happy event in islet village
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- A happy event was reported from an islet village at the West Sea of Korea.
Triplets were born in the family of Ro Pyong Hwan and Kim Hye Suk who are working at the integrated reed farm of Sindo county, North Phyongan Province, on January 13.
But people on the islet could not send the mother and her babies to a maternity hospital due to the frozen seaway.
Upon hearing this from a relevant organ General Secretary Kim Jong Il took such a benevolent step as instructing it to helicopter them to the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital. On arrival at the islet, its medical workers examined mother and her babies and took a first-aid measure. Meanwhile, the ministry of public health made full arrangements to receive them, keeping in frequent touch with them.
The mother and her triplets were thus safely helicoptered to Pyongyang.
Every step is taken for the treatment of them who are under profound care at the hospital.
Rodong Sinmun on "cabinet reshuffle" in S. Korea
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- Tthe recent "cabinet reshuffle" in South Korea is just like replacing rafters of a house supported by rotten pillars by new ones, observes Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary.
Upon assuming his office, the self-styled "people's" ruler scoffed at his predecessor's frequent "cabinet reshuffle" and committed himself not to do such thing.
However, there were a series of "cabinet shake-up" and replacement of "ministers" shortly after he came to power.
His recent appointment of a new "prime minister" and a partial cabinet reshuffle only go to prove his unstable position, the commentary notes, and goes on:
The self-proclaimed "government for the people" is in a serious crisis internally and externally due to the contradiction and conflict escalating among the ruling quarters over the "suspected deluxe clothes bribery," "the case of inducing the mint trade union to strike," "declassified documents on the gag on the press," "constitutional revision" and the issue of founding a new party, etc.
The "cabinet reshuffle" is aimed to bridge over such ruling crisis.
The South Korean chief executive's appointment of Pak Thae Jun, former "president of the United Liberal Democrats" as "Prime Minister" is aimed to divert elsewhere the people's resentment at the rulers who plunged economy into the mire of bankruptcy and put them under the yoke of the IMF mandate.
The "cabinet reshuffle" was a shocking drama orchestrated by him to save the political situation turning unfavorable to him in the run-up to the "National Assembly election" due in April.
However, the situation will not develop as he wishes. The days of the traitorous "government" are numbered as the people are fully determined to topple it.
Guideline of struggle for 2000 adopted in S. Korea
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- Seoul-based radio Voice of National Salvation quoted the north Kyongsang provincial committee of the National Democratic Front of South Korea as saying that the members of the society to greet the year 2000 formed in Andong city adopted a "guideline of struggle for the year 2000" at a meeting held on December 25, declaring that the year 2000 would be a glorious year, in which a new turning point would be made in the history of the struggle to transform the South Korean society and the reunification movement.
The guideline said that leader Kim Jong Il represents the destiny of the Korean nation and a great lodestar of the country's reunification, calling on the people to become true satellites following and upholding Kim Jong Il in any adversity and courageously pave the way for revolution, taking the Juche idea as a precious sword to carry it out.
It also appealed to them to devote themselves to the sacred struggle for reunification with the three-point charter for national reunification as the unique banner of reunification and intensify the struggle for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from South Korea holding high the banner of independence against the U.S.
S. Korean trade unions' struggle for wage hike
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- The South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a meeting on January 14, demanding 15.2 percent wage increase, a radio report from Seoul said.
It said that it is inevitable to increase the workers' wage as it is far behind the normal living costs.
Meanwhile, the "Federation of Korean Trade Unions" decided to turn out in the struggle for wage hike.
The unionists of the Seoul Subway declared the management side's "plan for restructuring" null and void saying it was worked out without the agreement of the trade union's negotiating members and demanded its withdrawal.
Cause of national reunification will surely be achieved
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- As General Secretary Kim Jong Il, who is best in ideology, leadership and virtue, is leading the Korean people's cause of national reunification, its victory is in store for them, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article.
Thanks to the outstanding leadership of the great leaders the Korean people could advance the reunification movement, smashing the maneuvers of the anti-reunification forces, the article says, and goes on:
The three-point charter of national reunification and the five-point policy of the great unity of the whole nation are the banner of national reunification that the Korean people should adhere to and carry through in the movement and the justest and realistic program of the movement.
Kim Jong Il's outstanding and tested leadership surely guarantees accomplishment of the cause of national reunification. It is the great fruition of his wise leadership that such a nationwide organization for the reunification movement as the national alliance for the country's reunification was formed and every year pan-national rally is held, stirring up the ardent desire of the entire Korean nation for national reunification.
His benevolent politics, all-embracing politics, has infinite attraction and influence which rouse all the Korean people to the movement for national reunification.
Love and trust are the essence of his politics. His is the all-embracing politics consistent with noble human love and patriotism. He embraces anyone who has national conscience and wants reunification even though he was an anti-communist element, a capitalist or a religionist. It is the specific virtue of the Marshal as a man of earnestness and justice that once he trusts in a man, he believes in him to the last.
The great unity of the nation is a credible guarantee for national reunification. Nationwide reconciliation and unity are being achieved under the banner of national independence and reunification held up by the Marshal.
Japan urged to honestly liquidate its past wrongdoings
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- Recently the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, when examining the issue of compensating foreigners in Japan who were either servicemen or civilian employees of the imperial army, adopted the policy of including those of North Korean origin in the category of the people to receive back pay.
Commenting on this, Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary says:
Japan's past wrongdoings cannot be liquidated through the payment of a petty amount of money. It is possible only when Japan makes a governmental apology and compensation for all the human and material losses brought by it to the Korean people in the past. It is preposterous for Japan to insist on paying money only to servicemen and civilian employees of the imperial army.
Japan has done nothing to mend its past wrongdoings against the DPRK.
During its more than 40 year-long occupation of Korea, it took away at least 6 million young and middle-aged people for slavery labour and killed some one million Korean people. It also drafted nearly 200,000 Korean women as "comfort women for the army," who were killed or crippled as sexual slaves. And it plundered Korea of hundreds of thousands of pieces of national treasure and cultural relics, which the Korean people had inherited from their ancestors, and huge quantities of natural resources and products. The amount of material loss brought by the Japanese imperialists to the Korean people ran into astronomical figures.
We will surely make the Japanese government pay for the human and material losses inflicted by Japan upon the Korean people regardless of the passage of time and the replacement of generations.
Japan-U.S. dangerous war exercise
Pyongyang, January 17 (KCNA) -- The Japan Defense Agency reportedly announced on January 14 that the "Self-Defense Forces" and the U.S. military in Japan will hold joint computer simulation exercise for a contingency in areas surrounding Japan for 9 days from February 16.
It is said that a contingency scenario in areas surrounding Japan will be adopted for the first time with the exercise, in which some 5,000 ground, maritime and air "Self-Defense Forces" personnel and some 1,350 U.S. military personnel in Japan will be participating as, a momentum.
Kyodo News reported that it is believed that a contingency on the Korean peninsula will be supposed in the upcoming exercises.
The Japanese reactionaries are scheming to complete a new plan for reconquest of Korea while holding the exercise in league with the U.S.