Friendship meeting on National Day of Sweden
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- A friendship meeting was held at Moranbong senior middle school no. 1 yesterday on the occasion of the National Day of Sweden.
Invited to the meeting were charge d'affaires ad interim Svante Kilander and an official of the Swedish embassy here.
Present were officials concerned and teachers and students of the school.
The participants looked round practical training rooms of the school before enjoying an art performance given by schoolchildren.
Then they conversed with each other, deepening feelings of friendship.
Chollima movement
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- The Worker's Party of Korea vigorously conducted the Chollima movement during the period of lying the foundations of socialism.
It was a nationwide popular movement that called upon the masses to eradicate everything obsolete and bring about innovations in all spheres of economy, culture, ideology, and morality so as to keep socialist construction going ahead at the highest possible speed.
After the fulfillment of the three-year plan right after the war, the WPK set forth the five-year plan for national economy (1957-1961) in order to complete the work to lay foundations of socialism.
At that time there were not a few difficulties and bottlenecks in the country. Everything including equipment, materials, manpower and funds were short of needs.
The WPK called the December Juche 45 (1956) plenary meeting of the party central committee at which it put forth the policy to overcome difficulties and bring about a great turn in the building of socialism.
The President Kim Il Sung personally visited the Kangson Steel Plant at that time and explained in detail to the workers there the difficult situation of the country and said that if they produced 10,000 more tons of structural steel it would help the country greatly, calling upon them to struggle for increased production.
In hearty response to the President's call, the workers of the plant produced miraculous 120,000 tons of steel billets in a blooming mill which had been regarded as absolutely incapable of turning out more than 60,000 tons, shattering passivism, conservatism and mysticism of technology.
As a result, the torch of Chollima advance flared up over Kangson and spread across the land like a prairie fire.
Workers at the Kim Chaek Iron Works at that time produced 270,000 tons of pig iron with equipment whose maximum capacity had been rated at 190,000 tons.
The workers at the Hwanghae Iron Works at that time built a big furnace in less than a year by their own efforts and with their own technique.
Thanks to this revolutionary enthusiasm the 1957 plan for national economy was fulfilled at 127 per cent.
During the period of the five-year plan the Korean workers produced tractors, trucks, bulldozers, large-sized water pumps, 3,000-ton press and electric locomotives in the crucible of the Chollima movement.
The Chollima movement conducted under the wise leadership of the WPK was very instrumental in turning the DPRK into a socialist industrial-agricultural state from an agrarian country in a short period of 6-7 years after the war.
New stamps
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has recently issued two stamps, a souvenir sheet and a miniature sheet all featuring monkeys.
The stamps each depict a eythrocebus patas sitting erect on a tree trunk with a baby on its back a tarsius spectrum clinging to a branch on a moonlit night.
The miniature sheet has a rearrangement of the two stamps against the background of tropical jungle. The souvenir sheet has two cercopithecus moan sitting on a branch in the foreground and a host of monkeys and other animals on the move in a lush tropical rainforest in the background.
Projected revision of "law on Self-Defence Forces"
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today in its signed commentary assails the Japan Defence Agency for starting its specific examination of the motion to revise the "law on the Self-Defence Forces" in the direction of easing restrictions on the use of weapons.
This clearly indicates how desperately the Japanese reactionaries are working to realize their ambition for reinvasion, the commentary says, and goes on:
It is the same old trick of the Japanese reactionaries to invent a pretext by every possible method and means to achieve their sinister aim and persist in their moves to realize their black-hearted design under that pretext.
Now that the "SDF" is allowed to dispatch not only its troops but combat equipment such as planes and warships to any part of the world, it is the real intention of the Japanese reactionaries to use weapons as they please.
It was to this end that they worked out a foolish scenario called "guerrilla attack" and openly started the examination of the motion calling for the revision of the law.
Their loudmouthed "guerrilla attack" is nothing but a cheap farce intended to mislead world public and justify their preparations for reinvasion.
Noting that the Japanese reactionaries are not aware of the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their frantic moves for reconquest, the commentary warns: They are well advised to drop their wild design for reinvasion and come to reason.
Long spell of drought and heat persists in the DPRK
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- Drought and heat persist in all parts of the DPRK.
Plain areas on the west coast including north and south Hwanghae provinces, north and south Phyongan provinces and northern inland areas are hard hit by the heat that has lasted for over 10 days.
Average temperature in these regions is 30-33 degrees centigrade, 6 to 9 degrees higher than normal years. Due to a long spell of drought and heat paddy fields are parched and rice-transplantation is suspended in some areas. Maize and other crops in dry fields are also hard hit by them.
Drought has persisted in the country for the last several months of the year.
Rainfall in the granaries on the west coast including north and south Hwanghae provinces and South Phyongan Province was only 20 to 30 percent of the average record. In consequence, much less water than average years is stored in reservoirs and some of them are completely dried up and no water is to be seen in rivers and streams.
Due to this drought crops planted in spring could not sprout and crops are not doing well in this season.
As of the end of may drought hit a large area of paddy and non-paddy fields throughout the country.
A measure has been taken to plant non-paddy crops in paddy fields due to shortage of water. With pasture dried up, there is an acute shortage of fodder for domestic animals.
Drought and heat are also adversely affecting land management and city administration and other sectors.
According to weather forecast, drought and heat are expected to persist in the days ahead.
KCNA on GIs' mass killings
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- It was recently disclosed by a military document that the U.S. Army requested U.S. war planes to strafe South Korean refugees and the U.S. Air Force killed many civilians in cold blood during the last Korean War, according to CBS and AP of the U.S. and MBC of South Korea.
This is another shocking evidence showing the grave crimes the U.S. committed by barbarously massacring innocent South Korean civilians. It is now arousing great wrath and hatred among the Korean people.
As already known, AP last September reported that GIs killed more than 400 innocent civilians at the hamlet of Rogun-ri during the Korean War.
Since then, at least 40 cases of massacres of South Korean civilians by GIs have been brought to light one after another.
The recently declassified document irrefutably proves once again that the U.S. is chiefly responsible for the massacres of South Korean civilians.
Foreign embassy officials help Korean farmers
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- Foreign embassy officials and Syrian students studying in the DPRK visited cooperative farms to help Korean peasants in rice transplantation.
Lao ambassador Khamkheng Sayakeo and embassy officials visited the Korea-Laos friendship Taewon cooperative farm, Mongolian ambassador Damdiny Byamba and embassy officials the Korea-Mongolia friendship Jongbang cooperative farm and Syrian charge d'affaires Haissam Saad and embassy officials and Syrian students studying in Korea the Korea-Syria friendship Wonhwa cooperative farm.
During the breaks the visitors sang songs and conversed with farmers, deepening feelings of friendship.
Lao and Mongolian embassy officials handed aid materials to co-op farms they visited.
Document showing U.S. military order to fire on civilians found
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- A document showing that the U.S. Army ordered its troops to fire on South Korean refugees during the Korean War was recently found at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland of the U.S., according to a radio report from Seoul. CBS of the U.S. is said to have reported the news on June 5.
This fact was disclosed in the memo written by the then U.S. Air Force colonel Turner Rogers. The memo said, "the army has requested that we (air force) strafe all civilian refugee parties. To date, we have complied."
In another declassified document pilots said those strafed at the instruction appeared to be evacuees, the report noted.
Referring to this report of CBS, AP said: "The document adds to a growing body of reports reflecting that in the opening weeks of the Korean conflict, when American forces were in retreat, the U.S. military adopted a policy of deliberately firing on civilians."
U.S. occupation of S. Korea branded as cause of Korean War
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- The U.S.'s occupation of South Korea began with landing of the 24th U.S. Army corps at Inchon port on Sept. 8, 1945, which served as the cause of the war of aggression on Korea.
The U.S. issued "military government ordinance" no. 28 in November 1945 to set up a "defense command" and in December established a "military English school", the predecessor of the "Military Academy" of South Korea.
Saturday evening post of the U.S. March 1946 reported that the U.S. Army general staff office asserted, attaching importance to the "military strategical value" of the Korean peninsula, that "Korea is part of U.S. border at present."
The rigging up of Syngman Rhee's "government" gave a momentum to the preparations in South Korea for invasion of the north.
Coincidentally, a war slogan "northern expedition" appeared officially in South Korea. In late November 1948 the "law on organizing 'ROK' Army" was proclaimed and, under this "law," the "ROK" Army was built into a regular army equipped with arms and services in a short span of time. In may 1949 all its brigades were reformed into divisions able to deal with modern warfare.
In order to encourage the Syngman Rhee's "government" to the war against the DPRK, the U.S. provided more than 105,000 rifles of various latest types, over 2,000 heavy and light machine guns, more than 50 million bullets, a large number of artillery of various types and shells, 5,000 military vehicles, 79 warships and 20 war planes in 1949 alone.
The U.S. rounded off the war preparations in 1949 to invade the north and set 1950 as the year of provoking the war.
Defence of independence called for
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- Safeguarding independence is a factor decisive of the rise and fall of each country and nation, says Rodong Sinmun today in an article.
The issue of the destiny of the country and the nation is, in essence, related to that of independence, the article notes, and goes on: Any country and nation lacking independence can not escape colonial yoke and slavery.
It is an inviolable right of each country and people to independently hew out the destiny of its nation. Each country and nation should decide all the issues and independently carve out its destiny according to its own view and judgement.
But the imperialists are not pleased with this because of their dominationist nature.
Recently the imperialists are resorting to every conceivable move to violate independence of other country and nation and dominate the countries as they please, floating the brigandish sophism about what they call "monolithic world."
It is the challenge common to the world progressive people at present to smash the dominationist moves of the imperialists and safeguard independence of the country and the nation.
It is none other than the imperialists who throw great hurdles and create confusion in the way of the struggle of the people for independence, sovereignty and socialism and threaten the world peace and security.
The world progressive people should not be cheated by the honeyed words and deceptive propaganda of the imperialists, but advance under the uplifted banner of independence against imperialism.
They should strengthen international solidarity and cooperation between themselves to defend independence of each country and nation.
The people of each country, as a member of the international community, should struggle not only for their own national independence but also for the independence of the world.
Unless the imperialists drop their policy for aggression and war going against the trend of the times, there is no way for them to get rid of the present predicament and their doom is inevitable.
The article calls upon all the progressive people to put up an uncompromising struggle against the imperialists to firmly defend the sovereignty of each country and nation under the uplifted banner of independence.
Group for study of Kim Jong Il's works formed in Austria
Pyongyang, June 8 (KCNA) -- A meeting was held in Vienna on May 31 to inaugurate the Austrian Group of Communists For the Study of Works of Comrade Kim Jong Il.
Thomas Oberbichler, elected chief of the group, said that General Secretary Kim Jong Il authored many works to indicate the course of struggle for hastening the victory of the socialist cause and has made immortal contributions to the anti-imperialist struggle and cause of peace of the world's revolutionary people.
The group will make a deep study of his works and disseminate them to broad masses, he said.
A letter to General Secretary Kim Jong Il was adopted at the meeting.