Greetings to President of Sao Tome and Principe
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, President of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on July 8 sent a message of greetings to Miguel Trovoada, President of Sao Tome and Principe, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its independence and proclamation of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.
In the message he extended warm congratulations to the President, government and people of Sao Tome and Principe.
Expressing the belief that the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries would continue to develop, he sincerely wished the President, government and people of Sao Tome and Principe greater success in their work for the country's prosperity.
FM meets new FAO representative
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Foreign Minister of the DPRK Paek Nam Sun today received a letter of credentials from Omar Salah Ahmed, newly appointed representative of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization in Korea.
After receiving the credentials, Paek conversed with the representative.
Chinese ambassador hosts reception
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Wang Guozhang, Chinese ambassador to the DPRK, yesterday hosted a reception on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the Korea-China treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance.
The ambassador in his speech said that 39 years ago, the respected premier Zhou Enlai of the Chinese people and the President Kim Il Sung of the Korean people signed the treaty in the interests of the two peoples desirous of strengthening solidarity, deepening the friendship and promoting cooperation and defending peace.
He referred to the vitality of the treaty.
Recalling the General Secretary Kim Jong Il's unofficial visit to China in May last, he noted that the historic visit paid by him at the turn of the century carried weighty importance in further promoting mutual understanding, friendship, trust and cooperation between the two parties and countries and developing the traditional relations of friendship. The Chinese people are sincerely rejoiced over the great successes the Korean people have achieved by making the vigorous second great Chollima advance in the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude despite difficulties, united close around the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Korea headed by Kim Jong Il and wish them greater achievements, he stressed.
Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in his address said that Korea-China friendship is favorably developed under the deep care of the great leader Kim Jong Il and the respected Jiang Zemin.
Noting that Kim Jong Il paid the historic unofficial visit to China following his call at the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang in March last, which marked a landmark event in the development of the Korea-China friendly relations, he expressed the belief that the friendship provided and cultivated by the preceding leaders of the two countries would be developed on good terms thanks to concerted efforts of the two sides in the future, too.
Under the leadership of the communist party of China headed by the respected Jiang Zemin the Chinese people have made big successes in the work to achieve social stability and unity and realize the modernization of the country, he said, and continued: The Korean people are rejoiced over the Chinese people's achievements as over their own and sincerely hope that everything will go well in China in the future, too.
Maritime sports brisk in DPRK
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Maritime sports are brisk in the DPRK these days.
Opening ceremonies of the month of maritime sports were held in Pyongyang and local areas on July 2 and 9.
"Jonsung Cup" contests in 10 maritime sports events such as swimming, water polo and diving are at their height in Phyongsong, Tokchon and other areas.
The competition has brought together hundreds of players selected from sports groups in Pyongyang and every province.
Also brisk is maritime sports activities of school youth and children and working people.
Beaches, swimming pools and other maritime sports facilities are abustle with those who train their bodies and minds through such sports activities as swimming, diving, flying hand-flags and boating, etc.
Drawing particular attention are swimming programs for school youth and children. Swimming contests of various forms are organized according to the specific conditions of each local area.
Those in Pyongyang are distinguishing themselves in competition in swimming across the hundreds of metres wide River Taedong.
Lectures, workshops and experience sharing seminars are organized and posters pasted up to give momentum to maritime sports.
Maritime sports are greatly encouraged in Korea bounded on three sides by seas.
Every July and august are designated as months of maritime sports to popularize them. Seashores and rivers including Songdowon, Majon, Soho and Sinpho on the east coast and Wau Islet on the west coast are available for swimming and maritime sports.
Swimming pools are built at schools at all levels and maritime sports are disseminated among children according to their ages.
Maritime sports clubs built in different areas are also making a positive contribution to the popularization of the sports.
WPK's efforts for final solution of rural question
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- After the cooperativization of agriculture had been completed, the Worker's Party of Korea set a final solution of the rural question as an important strategic task of socialist construction.
The struggle for the final solution of the rural question was consistent with the work of carrying out the tasks laid down in the famous work of the President Kim Il Sung "Theses On the Socialist Rural Question In Our Country" published in Feb. Juche 53 (1964).
Clarified in the theses are the essential content of the rural question under socialism, basic principles and tasks to solve it, position and role of the county in building socialism in the countryside and so on.
The WPK adopted the theses as its program to build socialism in the countryside at the eighth plenary meeting of its fourth central committee and mobilized the whole party and all people to implement the theses.
Above all, the party pushed ahead with the ideological, technical and cultural revolutions as the main tasks of building socialism in the countryside. At the same time it intensified the working-class leadership of the peasantry, assistance of industry to agriculture, and support of towns to the countryside in every way. In order to consolidate rural position many hardcore workers and discharged soldiers were dispatched to the countryside and investments in the rural areas steadily increased.
Modern farming machines, chemical fertilizers and agricultural chemicals were increasingly supplied and many agro-technicians and experts trained at state expense. The agricultural tax in kind was annually abolished from Juche 53 (1964) to Juche 55 (1966) and capital construction in the countryside stepped up at state expense.
The party put big efforts to enhancing the role of the county, a regional base in the construction of a socialist countryside.
Therefore, a great change has been brought in the work for the final solution of the rural question.
The ideological, technical and cultural standard of agricultural workers was elevated and the number of agro-technicians and experts increased up to a level of one per ten farmers in 1990.
In more than three decades after the publication of the theses the number of tractors serving the countryside increased six times and trucks five times. The material and technical foundations of agriculture have been firmly laid with the successful promotion of industrialization and modernization of agriculture.
Fundamental changes have taken place in the material and cultural lives of the agricultural workers and conditions are ripe for converting cooperative property into all-people property.
S. Korean unionists stage protest
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- The South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) on July 8 held a rally with at least 3,000 unionists attending to vow to resist riot police crackdown and protect the right to strike, according to Yonhap News of South Korea.
Addressing the rally, KCTU chairman Tan Pyong Ho branded the repeated police crackdown upon the Lotte Hotel Trade Union and the strike of the Medical Insurance Trade Union as a premeditated operation to push "restructuring" and the retrogressive revision of the "labor standard law" in the second half of the year. He stressed that the KCTU would sustain its struggle in the days ahead.
The KCTU demanded the authorities totally amend the policy of "restructuring" based on neo-liberalism, stop the suppression of trade unions, unseat the "chief of the national police office" and the "Minister of Labor" and arrest the president of Lotte Group and the chief director of the Medical Insurance Public Corporation.
Earlier, the Federation of Banking Office Clerks Unions and the Public Transport and Service Trade Union staged rallies in Seoul to denounce the authorities for riot police crackdown.
Seminar on Juche idea in Indonesia
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- A seminar on the Juche idea was held at Bungkarno University in Indonesia on July 5 on the occasion of the 6th anniversary of the passing away of the President Kim Il Sung.
Present there were Rahmawati Sukarnoputri, president of the Indonesian Sukarno Foundation of Education, and academic figures.
Noting that the Juche idea founded by Kim Il Sung is a great idea, the speakers said he made clear the truth that any country should be built, believing and depending on the strength of its nation.
Everybody should believe in his strength, the strength of his people as the Juche idea requires and dependence on outside forces leads a country to division and to ruin in the end, they stressed.
They said that the Juche idea has been further developed and enriched as a great idea by leader Kim Jong Il.
Compensation for loss of electricity
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- At a recent executive council meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) held in New York a leading official of KEDO caviled at the DPRK's just proposal calling for the compensation for the loss of electricity caused by the delayed provision of light water reactors (LWR). He asserted that "the concept of compensation cannot be accepted" and "there is no idea to compensate."
An outright challenge to the DPRK's just proposal, this piffle clearly indicates that KEDO does not know where it stands.
The basic mission of KEDO organized by the U.S. under the DPRK-U.S. agreed framework is to perform its technical role of providing LWRs to the DPRK within the time limit.
In the final analysis, the U.S. is the DPRK's main partner in the work related to the LWR provision.
The U.S. is chiefly to blame for the indefinitely delayed construction of LWRs which it is committed to provide to the DPRK by 2003 under the DPRK-U.S. agreed framework.
The U.S. has dragged out the LWR construction on this or that pretext. In consequence, no one can tell when it will be completed and the DPRK has suffered a huge loss of electricity due to this delay.
The U.S., too, fully admitted this and expressed its willingness to discuss it at future talks.
As seen above, the issue of compensation for the loss of electricity caused by the delayed provision of LWRs should be solved between the DPRK and the U.S. it does not allow KEDO's interference.
KEDO had better stop meddling in other's affair and mind its own business. The U.S. should compensate for the loss of electricity caused by the delayed LWR construction.
If the issue of compensation for the loss of electricity fails to find a smooth solution, the DPRK will be left with no option but to restart its independent nuclear power industry.
Serial poem to Kim Jong Il published by Syrian figure
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Dr. Riyad Suleiman Iwad, member of the political bureau of the Socialist Unionist Party of Syria and director of its research department, dedicated a serial poem (five pieces) to General Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Noting that Kim Jong Il is an iron-willed commander, the poem says that thanks to the great courage of the commander the joy of life prevails in the happy DPRK and its people are demonstrating its dignity as a guardian of the world revolution with swords of justice in hands when the world is greatly disturbed by saber-rattling.
It sings praises of his bright smile, his great care and his revolutionary steps.
It is thanks to his sunny smile that the life in the DPRK is cheerful and its blessed people sing of their happiness.
The poem says: thanks to his smile the DPRK will be brilliant and eternal like the sun.
The poet praises Kim Jong Il's great care as a powerful sword to beat enemies, a bright beacon to steer the era and a red banner to lead humankind.
Pointing out that his revolutionary history began in the log cabin in the secret camp on snow-capped Mt. Paektu, the poem emphasizes that people, revolution, era and history are advancing as guided by him.
Praising Kim Jong Il as a guardian of the red flag, the poem notes that red flags flew high in the sky over the DPRK when those were brought down one by one in eastern European countries.
The red color represents a glow in the sky over Mt. Paektu and that is why the DPRK is called a country of red flag and strong faith which means socialist Korea, it says.
Floral basket laid before Portrait of Kim Il Sung
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- The Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America laid a floral basket before the Portrait of the President Kim Il Sung on July 5 on the occasion of the 6th anniversary of his passing away.
Present at the function were secretary general of the executive secretariat and members of the organization, the Korean ambassador to Cuba and embassy officials.
The participants laid a floral basket before the portrait of the President hung on a wall of the organization building and paid tribute to him.
The secretary general said that the revolutionary life of President Kim Il Sung who performed brilliant exploits for the cause of freedom and liberation of peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America will go down in the history of his organization.
Indian organizations support three-point charter of Korea's reunification
Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- The signature paper supporting the three-point charter of Korea's reunification was signed on July 4 by chairman of the All-India Youth Federation Sitaram Sharma on behalf of 2,500,000 members, by former member of the autonomous council of Delhi A. K. Chawhan on behalf of 50,000 residents in Kalyanpri, Delhi State, by general secretary of the All-India Veteran Committee A. P. S. Chawhan on behalf of 10,000 veterans and by the president of Namata Barati International School of India on behalf of teaching staff and students.