DPRK-Japan Red Cross talks held in Beijing
Beijing, March 13 (KCNA) -- Talks took place in Beijing on March 13 between the Red Cross Society of the DPRK and the Red Cross Society of Japan to settle humanitarian issues of mutual concern of the DPRK and Japan.
Present at the talks were a delegation of the DPRK Red Cross Society led by vice-chairman Ho Hae Ryong and a delegation of the Japanese Red Cross Society led by vice-president Tadateru Konoe.
Also present there were government officials concerned of the two sides.
According to the joint communique of the DPRK-Japan Red Cross talks held on December 21, 1999, the two sides made the following decision:
1. The two sides agreed to arrange the third hometown visit of Japanese women in the DPRK in April or May, and continue after that, while realising the hope of their relatives in Japan.
2. The DPRK side informed its Japanese counterpart of the start of a deep-going search by an organ concerned for "missing" Japanese nationals for which the Japanese side has already asked and said that it will inform the Japanese side if any missing Japanese are found through its investigation and take an appropriate step.
The two sides agreed to take up progress in the investigation at the future Red Cross talks.
3. The DPRK side will ask the Japanese side, according to normal methods of the Red Cross, to look into whereabouts of Koreans who went missing before 1945 and the Japanese side accepted this and promised to make an investigation and inform the DPRK of its results.
The two sides agreed to take up progress in the investigation at the future Red Cross talks.
4. The Japanese side conveyed the March 7 decision of the Japanese government to offer 100,000 tons of rice in food aid through the world food program.
The DPRK side expressed gratitude.
FM of DPRK meets new Nigerian ambassador
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- Paek Nam Sun, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, today met and conversed with Alhaji Daudu Sulaiman, new Nigerian ambassador to the DPRK who paid a courtesy call on him.
Kim Il Chol meets Vietnamese ambassador
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Il Chol, Minister of the People's Armed Forces of the DPRK, met and conversed with Vietnamese ambassador to Korea Do Thi Hoa at the Mansudae Assembly Hall today when the latter paid a courtesy call on him.
State symphony orchestra
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The orchestra of trio wind instruments of the State Symphony Orchestra is now giving a performance at the Moranbong Theatre in Pyongyang to mark its 30th anniversary.
The orchestra consists of over 120 persons.
Putting on the stage are orchestral music "Dear Home In My Native Village" and "Nostalgia", the fourth movement "We Make a Pledge" from symphony "the Leader Will Always Be With Us" and other numbers, acclaimed by the audience.
The State Symphony Orchestra (the then Central Symphony Orchestra) was founded in August Juche 35 (1946) after the liberation of the country.
Its formation laid foundations to bring a great turn in the music development of Korea.
With the orchestral composition of trio wind instruments in January Juche 59 (1970) in particular, the state symphony orchestra has developed into a group of veteran players and a well-known art troupe.
In the past 50 odd years it has made great contributions to developing Juche-based instrumental music of the country and orchestrated many folk songs and famous songs the Korean people are fond of.
Typical are orchestras "Rich Harvest Comes to the Chongsan Plain" and "Don't Advance, Night of Pyongyang".
It has also created and performed art works to suit the taste of the Korean people by wonderfully representing the characteristics and skill of orchestra with the combination of national music instruments with western music instruments.
It participated in international music festivals on several occasions to be highly appraised for its tested skill of playing and well-organized ensemble and has been known as an orchestra of the world standard.
It has given a total of 12,000 odd performances since it gave its premiere in the presence of the President Kim Il Sung in 1946.
It also performed in China, Romania, Japan and other countries on more than 60 occasions.
Leader possessed of noble modesty
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Il Sung Order is the highest one in the DPRK. This order was instituted and decreed on March 20, Juche 61 (1972) by the standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly on the occasion of the 60th birthday of the President Kim Il Sung.
When the conferment of Kim Il Sung Order was high on the agenda, the then Central People's Committee decided to award the order first to General Secretary Kim Jong Il reflecting the unanimous will and desire of the Korean people.
He has devoted himself to the Worker's Party of Korea and the President, the fatherland and the people, since he began his revolutionary activities, regarding the completion of the Juche revolutionary cause through generations as his lifelong mission.
He formulated the revolutionary idea of the President as an integral system of the Juche idea, theory and method and has steadily deepened and developed it, giving best answers to all the theoretical and practical problems in the era, history and the revolutionary struggle and the problems in accomplishing the human cause of independence.
Therefore, the Central People's Committee intended to award Kim Il Sung Order to Kim Jong Il in high recognition of his great immortal exploits made for the WPK, the revolution and the development of the world revolution.
One day of March 1972 he learned this and repeatedly declined this offer, saying that if the people led a happier life and the country appeared brighter and stronger this would be the greatest commendation for him and that he did not do work enough to receive such a high commendation. He added there were a lot of work to be done by him.
The Korean people's wishes to award the highest order in the DPRK to him came true in April Juche 68 (1979) seven years after the order was instituted, owing to his repeated decline.
Hanthongryon central committee meets
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The first meeting of the 7th central committee of the Federation of South Koreans in Japan for Democracy and Unification (Hanthongryon) was held in Tokyo on Feb. 27, according to the overseas Koreans' newspaper Minjok Sibo published in Japan.
The meeting defined it as an orientation of action to wage a more vigorous anti-U.S. struggle for independence, achieve reunification by a confederacy formula with national independence and great unity and struggle to protect national identity, rights and interests of Koreans in Japan, etc, in view of the U.S. war preparations against the DPRK and the strengthened military alliance involving the U.S., South Korea and Japan.
At the end of the meeting, its participants held an "evening of unity," at which they vowed to take the lead in the struggle to achieve independence, democracy and reunification.
U.S. troop pullout called for
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The "National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification" and other pro-reunification patriotic organizations in South Korea said that they would wage an anti-U.S. struggle with South Korea visit of the U.S. secretary of defence as an occasion, a Seoul-based radio reported.
The organizations will hold an anti-U.S. rally around the U.S. embassy in Seoul on March 14, stage a protest against GIs' crimes in South Korea and strongly demand their withdrawal, the radio said.
They would make clear the stand calling for the revision of the unequal and shackling South Korea-U.S. "status of forces agreement" and proving the justness of the struggle for U.S. troop pullout.
Working-level contact proposed to S. Korea
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The central committees of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea, the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, the Union of Agricultural Workers of Korea and the Korean Democratic Women's Union, the north headquarters of the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification (Pomminryon) and other public organizations in the DPRK on March 13 sent a letter in their joint name to the south headquarters of Pomminryon, the South Korean Federation of University Student Councils, the "National Alliance for Democracy and Reunification," the South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the "National Federation of Peasants Associations," the federation of women's organizations and other patriotic organizations in South Korea, proposing to have a working-level contact to form the "nationwide ad hoc committee for probing the truth behind the GIs' mass killings."
Underscoring the need to hold a meeting of patriotic organizations in the north, south and abroad to form the nationwide ad hoc committee, the letter proposed to have a working-level contact for this in Beijing as soon as possible.
It is the urgent task common to the nation to form the committee at an early date and investigate and indict the criminal atrocities the U.S. Imperialists committed against the Korean nation over the 50 years, it said, and went on:
The U.S.'s mass killings of Korean people which have been disclosed in the north and south are a product of their moves to obliterate other nation. Their thrice-cursed crimes should be liquidated.
If the committee is formed to start its work, all the criminal acts committed by the U.S. against the Korean nation for scores of years will be liquidated and the strong will of the Korean nation to make them pay for the blood shed by the fellow countrymen and restore the dignity trampled underfoot by them will be demonstrated to the world.
The letter expressed the expectation that patriotic organizations and people in South Korea would show all affirmative response to the constructive proposal of the DPRK.
"Headquarters of movement of student voters for general election" formed
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- General student councils and student representatives of 55 universities in South Korea, including Jeonbug National University, formed the "headquarters of the movement of student voters for general election" at Konkuk University in Seoul on March 12 and began to work in earnest, according to a radio report from Seoul.
The organization reportedly set itself the goal of activating a campaign to defeat corrupt politicians.
The Citizens Solidarity for General Election (CSGE) held an inaugural meeting of "action of one million young voters", its affiliated organization, on March 12 and vowed to conduct solidarity activities for political reform together with the headquarters.
At least 150 policy advisory professors of the CSGE decided to set the "week for grand debate on general election campaign" and conduct activities for political reform among students.
Stockbreeders' meeting held in S. Korea
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- At least 50,000 unionists of the stockbreeding cooperative association of South Korea held a stockbreeders' rally in Seoul on March 12, at which they opposed its amalgamation with the Agricultural Cooperative Association and import of foreign meat, a Seoul-based radio reported.
In a resolution they accused the authorities of failing to take any measure though there are so many problems to be solved in the agricultural and stock-breeding sectors owing to increasing damage done by market opening.
At the end of the rally its participants made a protest March.
GI's murder of another S. Korean woman disclosed
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- A GI present in South Korea murdered another South Korean woman in her sixties, according to a radio report from Seoul.
She was found dead with blood on the head in her house in Kosan-dong, Uijongbu, Kyonggi Province, in the daytime of March 11.
A quarrel with the gi was heard from her house on the night of March 10, the report said.
The consecutive barbarous atrocities clearly show that the U.S. aggression troops are the brutal murderers who mercilessly kill Korean people, considering them to be animals.
On February 19 the U.S. aggression troops strangled to death a Korean woman at a bar in Rithaewon-dong, Seoul.
Repatriation of unconverted long-term prisoners brooks no further delay
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Measure Committee for the Rescue of Unconverted Long-Term Prisoners in South Korea in a letter to the South Korean Committee for the Promotion of Unconverted Long-Term Prisoners' Repatriation called for making joint efforts for repatriation of those prisoners such as Kim In So, Ham Se Hwan and Kim Yong Thae who were taken prisoner during the last Korean War, before late June this year and return of all other unconverted long-term prisoners who want to come to the DPRK, until the 55th anniversary of the liberation of Korea.
The appeal proceeding from warm Pratriotic feelings, humanitarian stand and viewpoint of national reconciliation and unity is a positive initiative to solve the issue of their repatriation with the concerted efforts of the north and south of Korea at an early date, Minju Joson today in a commentary says, and goes on:
The repatriation of unconverted long-term prisoners in South Korea is an urgent matter which brooks no further delay in view of their misfortunes and pain as well as in view of humanitarianism and international law.
The present situation makes it incumbent upon all the fellow countrymen to pool efforts to smash the unjust moves of the South Korean authorities against their repatriation and resolve the issue of their repatriation without delay.
We express the belief and expectation that the South Korean committee will cooperate for their repatriation in response to the appeal of the DPRK measure committee.
The South Korean authorities should not block the repatriation of unconverted long-term prisoners to the north but take a decisive step for their early return home.
Kim Jong Il's greatness praised
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) - The great Kim Jong Il is a greatest statesman ever known in history.
Leader of the Palang Dharma (Righteous Force) Party of Thailand Chaiwat Sinsuwong said this, giving an impression of the DPRK, in an interview before his departure after visiting the DPRK as the head of the party delegation on the occasion of the February holiday.
Kim Jong Il has wisely led the worker's party, the state and the army of Korea for scores of years to triumphantly advance the cause of socialism and has applied the unique army-first revolutionary line in the realities of the DPRK, he said.
He said that witnessing the realities of the DPRK he could know well the might of the idea of giving great importance to arms and he could keenly feel that the army-first politics is, indeed, a great politics which makes it possible to bring prosperity to the country and successfully accomplish the cause of socialism.
He was deeply moved by the realities of Korean-style socialism which was advancing on the strength of the might of ideology, he said.
The DPRK, he noted, is an ideologically strong country in which men strong in ideology and faith, who are absolutely trusting and following the Juche idea, the revolutionary idea of the President Kim Il Sung, are rallied close around Kim Jong Il.
The imperialists can never undermine Korean-style socialism in which only the leader's idea is prevalent in the whole of society through the application of the Juche idea and all the people are united single-heartedly on the basis of the leader's idea, he said, adding: Korean-style socialism in which the dignity of man is measured by his thinking ideology and the unity and cohesion of all the people based on ideology is achieved will be always invincible.
S. Korea-U.S. military huddles
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA)-- The United States is reportedly going to stage "commemorations of the half centenary of the Korean War" together with the South Korean authorities and high-ranking U.S. officers are flying into Seoul to be closeted with them.
In this regard Rodong Sinmun today observes in a signed commentary: The commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces in the Pacific during his recent South Korean junket vociferated about "possible conflict" on the Korean peninsula and the U.S. Secretary of Defense is expected to tour South Korea soon to discuss "security issues" with its authorities.
This frequent South Korean trips of American brass hats bring their true colors as war maniacs into bold relief.
Referring to the mounting anti-U.S. feelings in South Korea, the commentary goes on: It is the U.S. intention to tone down the South Koreans' anti-U.S. sentiments and retain its grip on the South Korean authorities. In order to achieve this aim, the U.S. insists that its forces should stay in South Korea as "war deterrent forces' because of the possible start of a war by someone.
In other words, the United States seeks to convince the South Korean people of the need for the U.S. forces presence in a bid to perpetuate it and ignite a war at the best time.
The projected "commemorations of the half centenary of the Korean War" are to serve this purpose.
The U.S. bellicose elements' loudmouthed "possible conflict" and strengthened "military cooperation" with the South Korean authorities are intended to exacerbate the situation and increase the danger of war on the Korean peninsula.
The U.S. warmongers are the chief architect of the Korean division and arch criminal escalating tensions.
U.S. "disarmament" and "peace" assailed
Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- The United States is more loudly talking about the "disarmament" and "peace" than anyone. Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article describes this as a hypocritical act of covering up the true face of the U.S., a source of arms race and escalating tensions, and of trying to realise the policy of strength.
The author of the article says:
The U.S. President proposed to allocate 305.4 billion dollars as military spending in the government budget for fiscal 2001 recently submitted to the congress. If this is approved, the U.S. annual military spending will increase to the maximum for the second time after the Cold War.
It is the final strategic aim of the U.S. to obliterate the world's independent forces against imperialism and to reduce the world into the unipolar world under its control by pursuing the policy of strength. The U.S. plans to allocate a huge amount of money for military expenditure to this end.
The U.S. is engaged in the development of the "missile defence" system and tries to amend or repeal the "ABM" treaty it signed with the former Soviet Union in 1972. When things go as it wishes, the present international disarmament process will come to a stalemate.
The U.S. conducted another sub-critical nuclear test on Feb. 3 and is pushing ahead with the development of researches and development of new nuclear weapons. That is a vicious challenge to humankind aspiring after disarmament.
Though the U.S. is talking about "peace", it is escalating tensions to retake its position in various countries and regions around the world and to maintain and expand its domination.
The U.S has amassed armed forces in northeast Asia, staging war maneuvers and is attempting to stage a military adventure against the DPRK by mobilizing all the armed forces in the U.S. mainland and the Asia-Pacific region.
The U.S. is running amuck to dominate and subordinate other countries and nations with the loudmouthed "disarmament" and "peace" as the people's struggle against domination and subordination is gaining momentum and the moves towards the establishment of a new international order are strengthened.
The world's revolutionary people should have a good understanding of the U.S. changed method of aggression and its danger and heighten their vigilance against its loudmouthed "disarmament" and "peace".
Anniversary of publication of Kim Jong Il's work marked
Tokyo, March 12 (KNS-KCNA) -- A meeting took place in Tokyo on March 8 to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of General Secretary Kim Jong Il's famous work "On Bringing Up Young Korean People In Japan To Be Dependable Successors To Patriotic Cause".
The reporter and speakers at the meeting said that in the work Kim Jong Il with a scientific insight into the actual conditions and prospect of the movement of Koreans in Japan clearly indicated the way of carrying forward the patriotic cause.