Message of condolence to President of S. Korean Red Cross

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- Jang Jae On, chairman of the Central Committee of the DPRK Red Cross Society, sent a message of condolence to So Yong Hun, president of the South Korean Red Cross, through Panmunjom on Feb. 20 in connection with a fire in the Taegu subway, South Korea. As compatriots we heard with profound sorrow and sympathy that many people were killed or wounded in a sudden fire that broke out in the Taegu subway on Feb. 18, the message said. It hoped that the victims and their bereaved families and people in Taegu would overcome the sorrow and recover from the disaster and their life return to normal as early as possible.

Fire in Taegu subway

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- At least 130 people were killed in a fire in Taegu subway, South Korea on the morning of February 18, according to South Korean KBS. The fire started on an electric engine when pulling in Jungangro station before spreading to another engine passing by the former, thus causing big casualties.
    The fire broke out when a passenger surnamed Kim sprayed inflammables on the floor from two bottles and set fire to it. Most of the victims were reported to have been suffocated to death by smoke and noxious gas as they could not escape from the sudden fire.
    This accident put the operation of the subway to a total halt.

Pakistani Ambassador hosts reception

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- Pakistani Ambassador to the DPRK Sultan Habib hosted a reception at his embassy on Feb. 19 on the occasion of the birthday of Kim Jong Il. He in his speech extended sincere congratulations to Kim Jong Il on his birthday. Noting that Kim Jong Il is a great thinker and theoretician who has developed and enriched the Juche idea founded by President Kim Il Sung, the ambassador stressed that the Korean people have achieved great successes in all fields of the country under his tested leadership.
    Referring to his wise leadership over the Korean people's struggle for the reunification of the country, the ambassador declared Pakistan would boost cooperation with the Korean people in all fields in the future, too.
    Yang Hyong Sop, Vice-President of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, said in his speech that the Korean people are fully demonstrating their dignity and honor as Kim Il Sung's nation to the world and successfully carrying out the cause of socialism to which he dedicated all his life as they have Kim Jong Il at the helm of the revolution.
    Recalling that the DPRK and Pakistan established friendly bonds and have firmly supported and closely cooperated with each other on the road of the struggle for sovereignty, independence and non-alignment, he stated that the DPRK would make all efforts to further expand and develop the bilateral relations in different fields in the future.
    Present on invitation were minister of foreign trade Ri Kwang Gun, Minister of Commerce Ri Yong Son, acting chairman of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Mun Jae Chol and other officials concerned.

Korean people ready to devotedly defend their country

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- In hearty response to the Joint New Year Editorial of the newspapers of the party, the army and the youth league the Korean people are firmly determined to win victory in the revolution in the same spirit of devotedly defending the country as displayed in the 1950s when they defeated the U.S. imperialists by carrying forward the traditions of the anti-Japanese struggle. This reflects the will of the workers' party and the people of Korea to emerge ever-victorious without fail by invariably carrying forward the noble spirit and traditions established by the revolutionary forerunners despite the complicated situation in the country and stern trials facing the revolution.
    The 1950s was beset with unprecedented ordeals in the history of the Korean revolution.
    The young DPRK had to win the hard-fought war provoked by the U.S. imperialists, the chieftain of imperialism, and defend the security and independence of the country. In the postwar period it had to build the country on debris.
    In the period when the destiny of the country was at stake the army and people of the DPRK honorably defended the country that was liberated by the anti-Japanese forerunners at the cost of blood and worked miracles in the era of Chollima (winged horse) by building everything from scratch.
    It was in that period that they displayed the spirit of devotedly defending the leader, the spirit of protecting the country and the spirit of creation and innovation.
    The fighting spirit and trait displayed in the 1950s are very precious for the Korean people as they have to ride out rigorous trials of the revolution generation after generation.
    The Korean people will certainly demonstrate their dignity and honor in the confrontation with the U.S. by fighting in the same spirit as displayed in the 1950s.

KCNA on U.S. hostile policy toward DPRK

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- The situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia is so alarming that a nuclear war may break out any moment. This is attributable to the U.S. extremely reckless hostile policy to stifle the DPRK. The Bush administration fabricated the fiction of the DPRK's "nuclear weapons development" and peddled it to the international community in a bid to internationalize the "nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula", the issue which should have long been settled between the DPRK and the U.S. It also instigated some members of the international atomic energy agency, a political waiting maid of the U.S., to refer the issue to the un security council while crying out for a "military counteraction".
    Then why is the U.S. styling itself the world's "only superpower" resorting to such a mean farce unbecoming for its status so desperately?
    Lurking behind this is a strategic aim sought by the bush administration to woo the international community to put political and diplomatic pressure upon the DPRK till it is disarmed and place the whole Korean Peninsula under its domination and, furthermore, establish its political and military supremacy over Northeast Asia.
    The heritage foundation in the U.S. already worked out an official report to the effect that success of the U.S. world strategy in the 21st century would depend on its policy toward the Korean Peninsula.
    It said that the U.S. absolute interests in Northeast Asia cannot be guaranteed nor can a new international order and the U.S. leading position and role be ensured in the world unless the Korean issue is settled.
    The foundation's assertion about the establishment of a new international order represents the Bush administration's universal view aimed to put its strategic rivals in Northeast Asia under its political and military domination.
    After the demise of the Cold War, the U.S. shifted the focus of its world political and military strategy from Europe to the Asia-Pacific. This was based on the calculation that it can put the world under its domination only when it keeps a firm hold on the Asia-Pacific, Northeast Asia in particular, a region of strategic importance and rich in natural resources.
    It is the view of the U.S. that Russia's military muscle has been remarkably weakened since the collapse of the former soviet union. So, it calculated that it can accomplish with ease its ambition for hegemony in the region only if it puts the Korean Peninsula, a strategic vantage in Northeast Asia, under its control.
    The Korean Peninsula is a very important forward strategic base for the U.S. whose world strategy in the 21st century is to put Northeast Asia under its control and establish an unchallenged domination over the world.
    When the balance of forces was upset and there occurred on the international arena such disturbing developments as the collapse of socialism in several countries and the break-up of the soviet union, the U.S. sparked a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula early in the 1990s and worked out a plan for a "military attack," calculating that the DPRK would collapse sooner or later.
    However, socialist Korea has been converted into a politically and militarily powerful country which no formidable enemy dares attack under the banner of the army-based policy. The U.S. had no option but to view a war with the DPRK as a "horror story" and agree on adopting the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework (AF), in the long-run.
    It was really a magnanimous measure taken by the DPRK to adopt the AF at the negotiations with the U.S. under which both sides made political, moral and legal commitments to remove the root cause of long-standing mistrust, confrontation and misunderstanding between the two countries and normalize bilateral relations.
    If American politicians were wise enough, they should have not missed that rare historic opportunity for the sake of the future of the U.S. but opted for fully normalizing its relations with the DPRK.
    However, no sooner had the Bush administration taken office than it went so arrogant as reviving the Cold War doctrine principally aimed at "setting right its territorial and social position unfavorable for the U.S. interests."
    What upset the hard-line hawks of the Bush administration was landmark political changes in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia in the new century.
    Thanks to active measures taken by the DPRK, its relations with several countries in the region witnessed rapid progress and a firm foundation was laid for peace, reconciliation and cooperation in the inter-Korean relations and such bold plans for reconnecting the inter-Korean railways and linking them with the Trans-Siberian railroad entered the phase of practical implementation.
    In the meantime, the U.S. keen on political and military hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region found itself in the danger of being completely eliminated from the political arena in Northeast Asia due to its hostile policy towards the DPRK.
    It was against this backdrop that the U.S. felt an urgent need to hatch a plot to set back the positive development in Northeast Asia. The fiction of the DPRK's "nuclear development" was to serve this purpose.
    That was why the U.S. projected "threat from North Korea" and its "nuclear development" and worked hard to internationalize them.
    To this end, the bush group was busy dispatching so-called "special envoys" to Northeast Asian and European countries and set in motion the IAEA. It totally scrapped the AF and even went the lengths of urging Japan and South Korea not to improve relations with the DPRK.
    The Bush administration's Korea policy was a defective product as it went amiss from the outset.
    It is proven through decades-long confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. that if the U.S. takes hostile attitude toward the DPRK and seeks to dominate the whole Korean Peninsula by means of war the U.S. itself will not escape catastrophe.
    Another purpose sought by the U.S. in peddling "threat" from the DPRK and its "nuclear development" and pushing forward the establishment of "Missile Defense System" (MD) and preparations for a war of aggression is to put its war industry in full-capacity operation in a bid to save the U.S. economy from depression and drive its strategic rivals to an arms race till their strength is neutralized.
    Much upset by a serious crisis as evidenced by recession, a slowdown in export and increase in unemployment, the bush administration is keen to help the munition monopolies rake up huge profits through ridiculous military spending and the establishment of md in a bid to consolidate its political foundation and reenergize the economy and, at the same time, draw its strategic rivals into the arms race.
    It is open secret that the declaration of the East-West Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and all other wars waged by the U.S. against humanity were to meet the interests of the U.S. military-industrial complexes.
    The national security strategy shaped by the Truman regime was to implement this plan and it has since served as a foundation of the foreign policy pursued by the successive U.S. administrations.
    The U.S. needs a new flashpoint for a war in order to save its economy from a crisis through escalated tensions and arms buildup. The U.S. views oil-rich Iraq and Korea, a strategic vantage, as those flashpoints.
    The administration's anachronistic Korea policy went amiss this time, too.
    Any U.S. provocation to the DPRK may put its interests in the Asia-Pacific in serious jeopardy.
    This may lead the U.S. economy to catastrophe and, moreover, put its position as a "superpower" in a peril.
    If the U.S. had dropped its hostile policy toward the DPRK and established friendly relations with the latter, the issue of transport route, the most important issue in its efforts to develop Northeast Asia, would have already been settled, doing those countries in the region and the U.S. good.
    Given that genuine economic prosperity is guaranteed by peace and free and fair world economic order, the Present Bush administration's recovery of war industry will only bring benefits to a handful of munition monopolies, while putting the majority of working people in destitution. this would make the prospect of the U.S. economy gloomier.
    It is by no means fortuitous that many people of the world assert that "a rogue state is the U.S., not the DPRK and the country which should undergo a change is none other than the U.S."
    As the DPRK has already clarified, it has willingness to clear the U.S. of its security concern if it assures the DPRK of non-aggression including non-use of nukes by concluding a legally binding non-aggression treaty and does not stand in the way of the DPRK's economic development.
    The U.S. will get nothing from talking about "military counteraction" against the DPRK and maintaining a hard-line stand toward it.
    The DPRK has never fired even a single shell at the territory of the U.S. if the U.S. dares start a war against the DPRK despite its warning, it will react to it with the toughest self-defensive measure.

DPRK order awarded to Mongolian figure

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- A DPRK friendship order first class was awarded to J. Tsevelma, vice-chairwoman of the Mongolian-Korean Friendship Association, in recognition of her positive activities to support the Korean people in their efforts for the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea and the building of a powerful socialist nation and develop the friendly relations between the two peoples. The conferee said at an awarding ceremony at the Mansudae Assembly Hall yesterday that she was greatly pleased to receive the order and would make all her efforts to develop the friendly relations between the two countries in the future too.
    Present at the ceremony were Vice-President of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly Yang Hyong Sop, Mongolian Ambassador here Janchivdorjyn Lombo and members of the Mongolian friendship delegation on a visit to the DPRK.

Machine-building industry of Korea

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- On February 20, Juche 60 (1971) President Kim Il Sung visited the Huichon Machine Tool Factory to kindle the flame of technical innovations. His field guidance signaled a radical turn in Korea's machine-building industry. In the past there were two rounds of the machine tool-begets-machine tools movement which was successful in improving the technical equipment of the national economy.
    Old machine plants were updated, the Taean Heavy Machine Complex and the then Ryongsong Associated Machinery Bureau expanded into ordered equipment producers and large and modern machine plants built.
    Machine plants have manufactured a 10,000 ton press, 125,000 KW hydroelectric generators, 210 ton boilers, large vessels, lorries, numerical control machine tools, 8-axis locomotives, etc. with their own designs, technologies and materials.
    In recent years all the sectors of the national economy has been seriously affected by the U.S. persistent efforts to isolate and stifle the country.
    Many machine factories and enterprises have suffered losses in production for shortage of electricity and raw materials.
    The country, in spite of the difficult conditions, has continued directing deep attention to the development of the machine-building industry to improve the technical equipment and the structure of production and consolidate the material and technical foundations of this sector.
    The Huichon and Kusong machine tool factories have produced NC machine tools, all-purpose lathes and other kinds of machine tools, greatly contributing to the industrial development of the country.
    The Rakwon machine complex has manufactured hydraulic excavators, hydraulic automobile cranes and other modern machines and equipment.

Anecdote about Kim Jong Il

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) --Kim Jong Il met some officials and made significant remarks concerning the issue of national reunification in September Juche 71 (1982). He told them that those who were not interested in the country's reunification had not an iota of patriotism and such insensible persons were disqualified from being members of the Korean nation and living in Korea.
    He also said only those who devoted their all to the efforts for the reunification of the country, lamenting over the division of the nation, were patriots and revolutionaries.
    Officials should always work, thinking of national reunification, and all their activities, whether they be economic or external activities, should be oriented towards the country's reunification, he added.

New technical inventions

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- Many effective technical inventions have been introduced in economic sectors in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The Chollima Steel Complex is keeping equipment in full-capacity operation by using a new material of electric switches.
    Technicians of the complex have established new melting and heat treatment processes with copper-chrome alloy as a material of electric switches.
    The Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex has developed new stainless spring material and used it in making plate spring for piston ring of oxygen compressor. The new material makes it possible to improve the quality of plate spring and lengthen its serviceable life 10 times.
    Many other factories and enterprises have also made technical inventions and introduced them in production, profiting greatly from them.

We will go our own way, says Rodong Sinmun

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- The U.S. is making absurd remarks that North Korea is resorting to "brinkmanship" and can't get concessions through "blackmail". Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary dismisses this as a sinister trick to shift the U.S. responsibility for causing the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula onto the DPRK.
    It goes on:
    We are not using the alleged "brinkmanship" nor "blackmailing" anyone. We are going our own way only.
    We could not but lift the measure for nuclear freeze to counter the U.S. suspension of the provision of heavy oil to us under the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework.
    Under the critical situation in which the U.S. was using the IAEA in threatening our supreme interests we had no other choice but to decide to withdraw from the NPT.
    It is quite clear to anyone that the decision can be neither blackmail to the U.S. nor a measure for seeking concessions.
    It is self-evident that we can't sit idle with folded arms while our sovereignty is threatened and encroached on. It is our unchangeable counteraction to respond to the enemy's hardline with the toughest stand.
    The U.S. had better stop making unreasonable pressure offensive against the DPRK while describing its just self-defensive measure and stand as "brinkmanship," "blackmail" and the like, and accede to the DPRK proposal to conclude a DPRK-U.S. non-aggression treaty.

Effective anti-imperialist class education called for

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- The touch-and-go situation now prevailing on the Korean Peninsula requires that the army and people of the DPRK maintain high anti-imperialist class awareness, says Rodong Sinmun today in an editorial calling for deepening the class education as required by the era of army-based policy. The editorial goes on:
    Intensified class struggle alone can ensure victory in every battle.
    Everybody should have a firm anti-imperialist class stand to fight a life-and-death battle and a high fighting spirit.
    The army-based idea serves as a treasured sword to win in the anti-imperialist class struggle.
    It is necessary to bear deep in mind that the great army-based idea and politics were set out against the background of fierce confrontation with imperialists and they are based on high revolutionary class consciousness and a transparent view on the struggle against the enemy.
    It is also essential to consider military affair as the most important state affair and deem it the supreme class principle to give priority to the army.
    It is necessary to intensify class education among the working people so they may always deal with all issues with high class consciousness and firmly maintain a revolutionary principle and class stand.
    Underscoring the need to conduct effective class education by various forms and methods as required by the developing reality, the editorial calls for intensifying the anti-imperialist class struggle to meet the needs of the developing reality under the banner of the great army-based policy and thereby protecting the destiny of socialism and the supreme interests of the country and nation to the end.

North-South joint exhibition opens

     Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- The north-south joint exhibition of materials on the crimes related to the Japanese imperialists' forcible drafting of Koreans opened here on the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the March 1 Popular Uprising, nationwide anti-Japanese patriotic resistance. Displayed at the exhibition are more than 200 photos, documented materials and at least 230 books disclosing the crimes related to the forcible drafting of Koreans, just part of the crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists against the Korean nation in the past.
    According to the materials, the Japanese imperialists hurled over 417,000 young and middle-aged and teenage Koreans into a war of aggression as cannon fodder, press ganged 7,784,839 Koreans into forced labour in coal and ore mines and the construction sites of railways, power stations, shipyards and airports and other military establishments and massacred them in cold blood to keep secret and took 200,000 Korean women to battlefields during their war of aggression as sexual slaves for the imperial Japanese army and killed them in cold blood.
    An opening ceremony took place at the people's palace of culture today.
    Present there were Ri Jong Hyok, vice-chairman of the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, Ho Jong Ho, chairman of the History Society of the DPRK, and Jong Chang Gyu, director of the History Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences.
    The members of the south side's delegation were also present there.
    Ju Jin Gu, chairman of the north side's preparatory committee, addressing the ceremony, said that during their military occupation and colonial rule over Korea the Japanese imperialists committed such hideous crimes as forcibly drafting Koreans ranging from old men aged 70 to teenage girls, forcing them to labor like beasts of burden and killing them.
    As the Japanese imperialists' forcible drafting of Koreans is a universally recognized historical fact, it is a bounden duty and a need of the times for Japan to honestly repent of and compensate for its part crimes, he noted, and continued:
    All the Koreans demand Japan adequately compensate for its wrongs. The north and the south of Korea are called upon to wage a nationwide joint struggle to this end.
    Chairman of the south side's preparatory committee Kang Man Gil, president of Sangji University, said in his opening address that if south and North Korean historians frequently meet and cooperate in the academic field and teach the present and future generations on the basis of one and the same history book, this will be greatly conducive to accelerating the country's reunification.
    Kim Won Ung and Kim Hui Son, South Korean assemblymen, in their speeches said that Japan is talking about the legitimacy of the war of aggression and the forcible drafting committed by it, far from making an apology and compensation to Asian victimized nations including the south and the north of Korea, while attempting to distort history. They called on the Korean nation to pool strength to solve the issue of Japan's past.
    At the end of the ceremony the participants looked round the materials on display.
    In another development, survivors of the Japanese forcible drafting in the DPRK were interviewed by media persons on the same day.

For Spanish-speaking people

un profesor frances revela acto criminal de ee.uu.

     pyongyang, 20 de febrero (atcc) -- segun el numero del dia 9 del periodico siriaco "tishrin", el profesor de la universidad de medicina de paris, henri aubert muller, en su libro "guerra biologica", revelo el acto criminal de ee.uu. que uso en la decada de 1950 las armas bioquimicas en la peninsula coreana. el autor revelo detalladamente con las cifras y datos los crimenes antieticos de que en el periodo de la guerra coreana los yanquis lanzaron las innumerables pulgas, ratones y otros contagiados por la peste, etc. y pulverizaron la enorme cantidad de los insectos venenosos.

no detendremos el camino que debemos seguir

     pyongyang, 20 de febrero (atcc) -- en estos dias estados unidos dice que la republica popular democratica de corea recurre a una "tactica al borde del barranco" y "con amenaza y chantaje no podra lograr ninguna concesion", lo cual no pasa de ser una artimana para imputarnos su responsabilidad como el autor del problema nuclear de la peninsula coreana. asi senala el periodico "rodong sinmun", en un comentario individual de hoy, y continua:
    no nos valemos de la supuesta "tactica al borde del barranco" ni hacemos "amenaza y chantaje" a nadie, solo vamos por el camino optado ya.
    no pudimos menos que anular la medida de congelacion nuclear para hacer frente a la presion de ee.uu. que interrumpio el ofrecimiento de aceite pesado a nuestro pais, que se realizaba segun el acuerdo basico concertado con la rpdc. frente a la situacion en que, usando la organizacion internacional de energia atomica, ee.uu. amenaza extremadamente a los intereses supremos de nuestro pais, decidimos inevitablemente la retirada del tratado de no proliferacion nuclear. es obvio que esto no puede ser ni amenaza ni chantaje sobre ee.uu. ni tampoco acto para obtener cualquier concesion.
    no podemos estar con brazos cruzados ante la situacion en que nuestra soberania se ve amenazada y atentada. responder con la sobredureza a la dureza de los enemigos es nuestro invariable modo de contramedida.
    ee.uu. debe abandonar su injusta ofensiva de presion contra la rpdc calificando nuestras medidas autodefensivas y posicion justas de la "tactica al borde del barranco" y "amenaza y chantaje" y responder positivamente a la propuesta de la rpdc de concertar un tratado de no agresion.