South Korean Government Arrests Two Individuals Suspected of Espionage

This is a bit dated, but according to Arirang News, reported on May 31st, the South Korean Government (ROKG) has arrested two people for suspicion of espionage in early May and a third in police custody for the suspicion of assisting in the said espionage efforts.

Apparently the two suspected of committing espionage against the ROK were working for North Korea to collect information on GPS-related technology, electronic jamming devices, and an air defense radar system.  While this is a complete speculation, after reading this bit of news, one cannot help but wonder if there is any relationship between the GPS jamming incidents that occurred earlier this year (April 28 - May 14) and the information that were alleged to have been sought by the two individuals who were arrested in early May.  I would think that it would certainly make sense that these two incidents are related....

The Latest Chapter of the North Korean Cyber Campaign against South Korea

The South Korean government (ROKG) believes it has sniffed out a genuine North Korean cyber campaign efforts against South Korea.  The Arirang News has reported on June 4th that the South Korean police has arrested a man identified as Cho on Sunday, June 3rd, for distributing mal-ware embedded computer games in South Korea.  The mal-ware is believed to be developed by the North Korean Reconnaissance Bureau, which oversees the North Korean cyber units such as Unit 121 (discussions of other cyber related units can be found here).  The Arirang News reports that Cho is suspected of purchasing the programs in Shenyang, China, which has been known for housing the North Korean hacker activities outside of North Korea.  It would be interesting to see what comes about with the most recent arrest although the ROKG is usually very sensitive when it comes to this type of events, and I suspect that it will be no different this time around, and probably will not put out too much information for the purview of the public.

On a side note, I discovered that there are quite a few cyber-related sites on the Internet that actually cites me as their primary source of information about the North Korean cyber capabilities (some of the hyper-links in this posting will take you to some of these sites).  While it was very nice to see that people are actually citing my work, I would like to take this opportunity to make one thing clear to everyone... it is not too important, but I thought I'd set the record straight for good.  Almost all of the sites say that they got the information from an "internal report" or an "internal document"; however, the work they are citing is NOT an "internal report" or an "internal document".  What they have the link to is the English translation version of the journal article that was published in the June 2009 issue of Defense and Technology, which is in Korean.

2012 North Korean Joint New Year's Editorial

Rodong Sinmun, Joson Inmingun and Chongnyon Jonwi, published this year’s Joint New Year Editorial, "Glorify This Year 2012 as a Year of Proud Victory, a Year When an Era of Prosperity is Unfolding, True to the Instructions of the Great General Kim Jong Il," as usual on New Year’s Day (Korea Time).

The full text of the editorial is as follows: Having seen out the year 2011 in bitter tears of blood, the service personnel and people of Korea are now seeing in the New Year Juche 101 (2012).

It was a long-standing tradition of our people to extend best wishes for good health to the great leader Kim Jong Il on every New Year's Day and set out on the advance of that year. His August name and benevolent image were a banner of victory that instilled in our people confidence in sure victory and will to achieve it and a source of their mental strength. Now our service personnel and people, turning the great sorrow into one-thousand-fold strength and courage, are embarking on a grand march towards the goal of achieving prosperity in the new century of the Juche era, following the leadership of their supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

That we parted too suddenly and unexpectedly with the great leader Kim Jong Il last year was the greatest loss our nation had suffered in its 5 000-year-long history and the bitterest grief our Party and people had experienced.

The great Kim Jong Il was an outstanding ideologist and theoretician, peerless veteran statesman and brilliant Songun commander who led the revolutionary cause of Juche along the road of victory by dint of his profound ideas and theories and unexcelled leadership, and a great patriot and the benevolent father of the people, who dedicated his revolutionary life entirely to his country and his people. Thanks to his leadership our nation has greeted a golden age of its prosperity unprecedented in its 5 000-year-long history; the Juche idea and the Songun idea, the immortal ideas authored by President Kim Il Sung, have become the ideas guiding the era of independence, the revolutionary traditions of Paektu have been resolutely defended, and the might of our Party, army and country has attained the highest level.

When our revolution was undergoing worst trials and hardships, he steadfastly safeguarded the gains of socialism, valuable heritage the President had bequeathed, and consolidated the political, military and economic foundations for achieving prosperity for all the generations to come; this is shining as the greatest of his achievements in the revolutionary cause of Juche.

Having keenly felt how great the leader, whom they had upheld as the sun of the nation and their father in making the revolution, was, our service personnel and people are now filled with a firm determination to carry through his lifetime intentions and cause.

Last year was a year of victory, featured by radical changes and leap forward taken place in the building of a prosperous and powerful nation under the energetic leadership of Kim Jong Il.

It was an ennobling intention of Kim Jong Il to celebrate the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung as the most auspicious and significant event, which would solemnly declare the victory in the Songun-based great upsurge. In order to bring about a proud victory in 2012, he displayed super-human energy in leading the all-people advance. He continued his on-site guidance tours, up until the last moments of his revolutionary life, to major fronts of the building of a thriving nation, the army posts at the front line and various other parts of the country, thus bringing the 100-year history of the Juche era resplendent with great victories and changes to a close.

Last year significant achievements were made in the great upsurge for improving the people's standard of living, and solid foundations laid for building the country into an economic giant in the 21st century.

Under the great General's tireless leadership, the torch of the industrial revolution in the new century was kindled and our national economy has entered the stage of building a powerful country with the knowledge-based economy. The Huichon Power Station and other monumental edifices to be dedicated to the grand festival in 2012 are being set up in many parts of the country, and the flames of Hamnam, the banner of a fresh grand march, are flaring up fiercely.

Amidst the great upsurge for improving the people's standard of living, many light-industry factories were renovated and modern livestock and fish-farming bases and large-size fruit-farming bases, prototypes of their kinds in the new century, were built in various parts of the country; these are great products born of our Party's strategy for achieving prosperity. Today we are confident in saying that we, with a great pride in being a victor, are at the epochal point of opening the gates of a thriving country.

The overall appearance of the country has been transformed to be appropriate for a thriving country. True to the far-reaching plan of Kim Jong Il, building up Pyongyang into a world-class city has been undertaken full steam, and Ryongnim, Taehung, Hoeryong and many other parts have been turned into socialist fairylands. Monumental works of performing arts, like the drama "We Will Recollect Today", which represents the art and literature in the Songun era, have been created one after another, and a new golden age of the mass-based arts has been ushered in.

Last year witnessed the demonstration on an ennobling high of the traits of our people who are ready to take the road of the revolution to the end following the great Party.

The situation was tense and complicated, yet the sentiments of our people who were keeping in step with their leader in onward advance remained unstained and invariable.

The period of mourning over the death of the great Kim Jong Il proved that the ties between him and his people sealed in aspiration and emotion are eternal and unbreakable. The tears our service personnel and people shed with greatest sorrow were tears of the unity, unaffected and crystal-clear, and tears of their firm determination to follow the Party to the end of the earth. The ideological and mental virtue of our people, who are possessed of the most ennobling sense of moral obligation, makes the enemy tremble with terror and strikes the rest of the world with admiration.

As long as there are the Party, army and state, which Kim Jong Il developed to be invincible, as long as Kim Jong Un, successor to the revolutionary cause of Juche, leads us sagaciously and as long as there is an excellent people who support their leaders faithfully through generations, the cause of building a thriving country is sure to emerge victorious?-this is an iron truth inscribed in our hearts as we set out on a fresh march.

This year, Juche 101 (2012), is the year when Kim Jong Il's plan for achieving prosperity will bear a brilliant fruit, and the year of a grand march, when a new century of Kim Il Sung's Korea begins.

The march in the new century of the Juche era is the continuation of the revolutionary march that started up on Mt. Paektu. Steadfast is the will of our service personnel and people to adorn our revolution, pioneered by Kim Il Sung and whose victory after victory they won following Kim Jong Il, with eternal victory following the leadership of Kim Jong Un. The guide of hope in the march in the new century is the great revolutionary ideas of the great persons of Mt.

Paektu, and the treasured swords for sure victory are the courageous mettle of the brilliant commanders of Paektu and their way of offensive. We must follow to the end the road of independence, the road of Songun and the road to socialism pioneered by Kim Il Sung, so as to ensure that the history of revolutionary activities of Kim Il Sung and the history of Songun-based revolutionary leadership of Kim Jong Il continue without interruption.

The centenary of the birth of Kim Il Sung is a major, important occasion for displaying the migh t of Korea, which is advancing bravely towards the world standards, and a grand revolutionary festival, which will demonstrate the steadfast continuity of the revolution in Korea, which stoutly carries forward one ideology and one bloodline. We must glorify this year as a year of grand general march for inheriting the history of great upsurge generation after generation under the leadership of the great guide, the Workers Party of Korea.

Today we are faced with the important task of scaling without fail the historical-stage targets of 2012 true to the lifetime instructions of General Kim Jong Il. By registering a brilliant success in this year's struggle for opening the gates of a thriving country, we must enter a new, high stage of building a thriving socialist country in an all-round way.

"Glorify this year 2012 as a year of proud victory, a year when an era of prosperity is unfolding, true to the instructions of the great General Kim Jong Il!"?-this is the militant slogan the whole Party, the entire army and all the people should uphold this year.

We must increase our political and ideological might, the might of our unity, to the maximum.

The first and foremost national power of Kim Il Sung's Korea was, is and will be the might of ideology and unity. The year 2012 is a year of single-minded unity, a year of burning loyalty, when our political and ideological might which has been consolidated generation after generation following the great leaders and the great Party, will be given full play.

Our people are all the descendants of Kim Il Sung who inherited his ideas and cause, and the soldiers and followers of Kim Jong Il. We must demonstrate to the whole world the noble outlook on morality we have cherished as we have the peerlessly great men as our eternal fathers and teachers. We should fully display our loyalty in greeting the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung with high political and ideological enthusiasm and brilliant feats of labor.

The revolutionary achievements and behests of the great Kim Jong Il are the lifeline we should hold fast to forever and the eternal precious assets of the revolution. We should staunchly defend the revolutionary heritage bequeathed by Kim Jong Il, whatever the storm and stress. It is the steadfast determination of our Party that it will make no slightest vacillation and concession in implementing the instructions and policies he had laid out in his lifetime and that it will allow no change in this process. We should maintain a thoroughgoing view that the road to socialism which Kim Il Sung had pioneered and Kim Jong Il had led along is the most correct choice and the principled stand that we will defend the people-centred socialism of our own style however others may say what.

We must develop our single-minded unity without interruption into the solidest one which is carried forward generation after generation. Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of our Party and our people, is the banner of victory and glory of Songun Korea and the eternal centre of its unity. The dear respected Kim Jong Un is precisely the great Kim Jong Il. The whole Party, the entire army and all the people should possess a firm conviction that they will become human bulwarks and human shields in defending Kim Jong Un unto death, and follow the great Party for ever. We must become true persons who keep pace with their leader and his true comrades who work untiringly to creditably realize his intentions however hard the times are.

We must vigorously launch an all-out drive to implement our Party's grand strategy for achieving prosperity.

Last year Kim Jong Il earnestly said that the whole Party, the entire nation and all the people should bring about great innovations and leap forward on all fronts of the revolution and construction following the banner of the industrial revolution in the new century and the flames of Hamnam. This instruction constitutes the most scientific and revolutionary policy he put forth on the basis of his incisive insight into the present undertaking to build a thriving nation and the inexhaustible potentials of the country. True to the pledge we took before the bier of General Kim Jong Il, we should devote all our energy, wisdom and enthusiasm to the struggle for translating into reality his plan of achieving prosperity.

The flames of Hamnam represent the banner of the general offensive for the great victory in 2012, a banner of fresh change. The flames embody the spirit of valiant offensive of accomplishing the tasks entrusted by the Party in the shortest possible period and on the highest possible level, the strong national self-respect of rising beyond the global standards by drawing on one's own strength, and the traits of a pioneer of opening before anybody else the gates of prosperity in one's own home town and at one’s own workplace.

The flames of Hamnam for great innovation should flare up more fiercely in the sectors of light industry and agriculture, the leading sectors for the building of a thriving country.

The sector of light industry should direct utmost concern to making the modern production bases, which are associated with our Party’s great care, pay off. It should produce in larger amounts quality goods which cater to people's tastes and are welcomed by them. The problem of raw and other materials necessary for this sector should be solved by relying on domestic resources, and the relentless drive be continued to develop the local industry.

At present, the food problem is a burning issue in building a thriving country.

Today Party organizations' militant efficiency and officials' loyalty to the revolution will be verified in solving this problem. They should implement to the letter the Party's policy of agricultural revolution so as to radically increase the per-unit area yield of grain both in lowlands and highlands. It is important to achieve cyclic production between farming and stockbreeding, introduce the organic farming method of our style in a proactive manner and take timely measures to satisfy the demand for farming materials and machinery needed to hit the target for agricultural production. They should ensure that the modern bases for stockbreeding and poultry farming and large-size fruit and fish farms, all having an important share in the improvement of people's living standards, run at full capacity.

The vanguard sectors of the national economy, the sectors of basic industries, are charged with making breakthroughs in the grand onward march for the next 100 years following the flames of Hamnam. We should solve the problem of power shortage at all costs and on a priority basis. The sector of electric-power industry should continue to press on with the building of large-size hydropower stations and improve the operation of equipment and technical management at the existing power stations, so as to keep the generation of electricity going on a high level. The sector of coal-mining industry should direct its efforts to meeting the demands for coal from thermal-power stations and chemical and metallurgical factories, and actively develop new coal fields. The officials and working people in the sector of metallurgical industry should increase the capacity of the Juche iron production system, introduce the techniques of high-temperature air combustion which rely on domestic fu! el, and accelerate the modernization of the rolled steel production lines. The sector of rail transport should give precedence to upgrading the railways of the country, increase rail transport capacity and consolidate its material and technical foundations. The sector of chemical industry should, while building up the Juche fertilizer production system, effect a radical increase in its capacity and normalize the production of vinalon and other chemical fibres and synthetic resins on a high level.

The industrial revolution in the new century, which is the grand strategic line of socialist construction advanced by our Party, is a sacred struggle for building ours i nto a powerful country with the knowledge-based economy of our style through the drive to break through the cutting edge.

We should raise the overall level of the technical equipment onto a new high with the pioneering spirit and creative spirit displayed by the developers at the Ryonha Machine in making a rapid progress in producing the latest CNC machine tools. All sectors and units of the national economy should drastically increase the capacity for developing new technologies and products of their own, and push forward in a far-sighted way the work of turning the national economy into a technology-intensive one.

Scientific research institutes should make greater efforts to develop the fields of core, basic technologies, including information and nano technologies and bioengineering, and promote technical engineering in major fields and produce more research findings that would beat the world. In developing science and technology, they should firmly establish the Juche-orientation, thoroughly apply collectivism, and bring science and technology close to production.

Talents in the field of science and technology, precious assets of the country, should be given prominence and the conditions for their scientific research should be provided at the highest standard.

We should glorify our country as a highly civilized, socialist one.

It was a patriotic will of the great General and is a unanimous aspiration of our people to surpass the standards of the world civilization in all spheres of social life. The sector of education should ensure a high level of its contents and form, conditions and environment, as required by the era of knowledge-based economy. The sector of literature and the arts should thoroughly implement the Party's policy of conducting creation, editing and representation in our own way, and produce a larger number of masterpieces that are perfect in all respects. Activities of mass-based art lifelike, easy to understand and based on the reality of a great upsurge should be conducted briskly, and the conditions for the youth and other people to lead an affluent cultured and emotional life be better provided. The heated enthusiasm for sports should be encouraged further by enhancing social interest in physical culture and sports and making them part of people's everyday life and habit.

The work of bringing into full bloom the most excellent culture and ethics of our nation and our way of life should be further intensified. We should wage an intense struggle to frustrate the manoeuvres of the imperialists' ideological and cultural infiltration and root up alien elements in the way of life, so that a revolutionary and sound atmosphere would pervade the whole society.

To improve the appearance of Pyongyang is an important project to greet in grand style the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il's earnest behest. We should step up the construction in the Mansudae area and other major projects under construction on the highest level and effect a radical turn in urban management and landscaping, thus ushering in a new heyday of Pyongyang in the Songun era. Every province, city and county should sustain its local peculiarities in its designing and construction, and drastically improve the appearance of its urban and rural communities.

We should consolidate the national defence capabilities in every way under the unfurled banner of Songun.

The Korean People’s Army is the pillar and main force of the Songun revolution and the vanguard in the building of a thriving nation.

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Kim Il Sung and the 80th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army; in this meaningful year, the KPA should bring about a radical turn in all aspects of military and political work by pressing ahead with the movement for winning the title of O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment, and thus demonstrate its heroic mettle and invincible combat efficiency as the army of the leader and the Party.

The officers and men of the KPA should cherish an unshakable faith that the great Comrade Kim Jong Il will always be with them and a noble moral obligation to him, and firmly defend his achievements for army-building and add eternal glory to them by force of arms.

The entire army should place absolute trust in and follow Kim Jong Un and become human rifles and bombs to defend him unto death, holding high the slogan Let us defend with our very lives the Party Central Committee headed by the dear respected Comrade Kim Jong Un!" At this juncture, when the Juche-oriented cause of army building has entered a new historic phase, the KPA should intensify the Party political work aimed at thoroughly establishing the unified command system of Kim Jong Un, Supreme Commander of our revolutionary armed forces. True to the lifetime intentions of Kim Jong Il, it should take the lead in supporting faithfully the Songun-based revolutionary leadership of Kim Jong Un, the brilliant commander born of Mt.

Paektu, and establish throughout it the revolutionary climate of carrying out his orders and instructions to the letter, without reservation and even unto death.

The security of our country and people, heritage bequeathed by Kim Jong Il, and victory in the building of a thriving nation, rest on the arms of Songun. Under the slogan "Training is also a battle!" the KPA should conduct training in an atmosphere of actual battle as befits the revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu, so as to prepare all the officers and men to be a-match-for-a-hundred combatants who could implement independently and actively the operational combat tasks assigned to them, a death-defying corps for national reunification. They should be fully ready to deal prompt and merciless blows at the enemy and achieve national reunification, if they dare infringe upon our dignity and sovereignty.

By pushing ahead with the work of strengthening the command and management of units and creating military ethos, it should thoroughly establish across it steel-strong military discipline, and possess looks required of a regular army and noble moral traits. It should direct constant efforts to the strengthening of companies, thus making them all competent combat ranks and dear homes for rank-and-file soldiers.

True to the intention of our Party, which set this year for the KPA as a year for the people, it should make devoted efforts to bring their happiness into full bloom, thus implementing with credit Kim Jong Il's idea of army-people unity.

The service personnel should achieve brilliant feats of labor that would be remembered for all ages by fully demonstrating their mettle of "At a go" on major fronts of the building of a thriving nation and with the charging speed, a-match-for-a-hundred speed, of the heroic KPA, which has no word impossible in its vocabulary.

The enormous potentialities of the defence industry Kim Il Sung created and Kim Jong Il consolidated through his tireless Songun-based revolutionary leadership should be given fullest play.

To strengthen the Party and enhance its leadership role to the maximum is the decisive guarantee for unfolding a new era of prosperity true to the behests of Kim Jong Il.

At present our Party and revolution are in an important, responsible period, when the revolutionary cause of Juche is being carried forward. The present reality demands that the Paektu spirit of march, the spirit of uninterrupted revolution, to carry out the revolution firmly rallied behind Kim Jong Un run through the building and activities of the Party.

The key point in our Party work at present and in the future, too, is to thoroughly establish the monolithic leadership system of the Party. We should strengthen and develop the whole Party into an integrated whole of organizational and ideological unity, which is run through with the unanimous will to follow the leader's intentions unconditionally.

Party organizations should fully get acquainted with the public sentiments as required by the Party's mass line, and effect a fresh turn in the work with the masses. They should respect the opinions of the masses and intensify Party work accordingly, so as to make the greatness of our Party's benevolent politics, all-embracing politics, demonstrated to the full this year that marks the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung.

The most powerful is a Party organization which translates into reality the lifetime wish of Kim Jong Il. Party organizations at all levels should concentrate their efforts on the struggle to make the flames of Hamnam flare up fiercely and push ahead with the industrial revolution in the new century. They should launch in a fresh and ambitious way the information and publicity work to inspire the people to live and work in the spirit and at the speed of forced march displayed by Kim Jong Il.

It is important to radically improve the way of work of officials and their leading abilities as required by the era of great upsurge.

What is important today for our officials is to actively learn from the militant temperament of the commanding officers of the KPA, who carry out the intentions of Kim Jong Un in a most swift and thoroughgoing way. Officials who buckle down audaciously and without any delay to what the Party is determined to do, who carry out any challenging task at lightning speed in a three-dimensional way and who finish anything to be impeccable even in the distant future as a thing of lasting value?-the current age of great upsurge demand such officials.

"Let us do many more things for the benefit of the people!"?-this must be the slogan of action and conscience for our officials in supporting the intentions of the great Party. Officials should be deeply aware that they exist for the sake of the people, have the steadfast standpoint of launching all undertakings in keeping with the will and interests of the people, and acquire an open-minded attitude of verifying their loyalty to the Party in front of the people. They should thoroughly effect the intentions of our Party of considering people's conveniences to be absolute and the highest priority and making devoted services for them.

It is an important key to emerging victorious in the general offensive of this year to give fullest play to the mental strength of the masses of the people.

The mental strength of the masses decides everything. It is necessary to emulate the mental strength and executive abilities displayed by the people in South Hamgyong Province who have proudly manufactured state-of-the-art machinery by their own efforts with a firm faith that Korea does what it is determined to do. Mass movement and socialist emulation drive should be launched vigorously in all parts of the country to enlist the mental strength of the masses.

As Kim Jong Il said, when the working people's organizations are afire with enthusiasm, the whole country will be enveloped with the same atmosphere. The youth league organizations should train all their members to be genuine young vanguard of Songun that will creditably carry forward the traditions of performing miracles and innovations and the traditions of revolutionary optimism displayed in every period of the Korean revolution. Young people should perform feats of labor at all sites of the building of a thriving country, and build many more monumental structures in the Songun era to be named after youth, singing aloud "March of the Korean Youth". The women's union organizations should actively conduct various forms of do-good-thing movement, including the women’s union shock-brigade campaign, and render tangible contributions to making a revolutionary and sound way of life prevail throughout the country. All the working people's organizations should fully discharge their mission and duty as organizations for ideological education so as to encourage all their members to highly display their honor of being participants and victors in the drive to build a great, prosperous and powerful country.

We must thoroughly carry out the instructions of President Kim Il Sung, eternal sun of the nation, and the respected leader Kim Jong Il on national reunification.

The reunification of the country was the lifelong desire of the great persons of Mt. Paektu and the greatest national task assigned to our generation.

General Kim Jong Il opened up a broad avenue for accomplishing Kim Il Sung's cause of national reunification by devoting his whole life. Today, the dear respected Kim Jong Un, another peerless patriot, stands in the van of the effort to carry out the cause of national reunification under the banners of the immortal three charters for national reunification and the north-south joint declarations. As solid foundations have been laid for national reunification and the whole of 70 million Korean people are burning with patriotic zeal, the long-cherished desire of the nation will be materialized without fail before long.

Last year, proceeding from a patriotic intention to open a new phase for reunification and prosperity, we proposed wide-ranging talks and negotiations to the South Korean authorities, and made consistent efforts to realize them.

However, running against the trend of the times and the public sentiments, the conservative ruling forces in South Korea responded by further intensifying worship of other countries, including the United States, confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north and war manoeuvres against the north. The acts contrary to morality and against the nation committed by the group of traitors in South Korea neglecting the greatest national sorrow and hindering in every possible way the offering of condolence triggered soaring indignation and denunciation on the part of all compatriots. The ruling forces have become an object of people's stern trial.

The developments of last year reaffirmed the truth of history that our nation's will for independent reunification, peace and prosperity can be broken by no force and the anti-reunification forces will surely be defeated.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of the October 4 Declaration, the action programme of the June 15 Joint Declaration.

In this meaningful year we must bring about a decisive turn in accomplishing the cause of national reunification as we hold high the slogan "Let all the compatriots open the gates of national reunification full of fresh confidence!" The stand of national independence and putting the nation above anything else should be maintained in a thoroughgoing way.

Solving the problems of inter-Korean relations by rejecting aggressive foreign forces and pooling the efforts of our nation itself is the demand of the June 15 reunification era. All the fellow countrymen in the north, south and abroad should open a broad vista for national reunification with the conviction that our nation should be of the first and foremost consideration and that they will have nothing they cannot do if they maintain the thoroughgoing stand of national independence. Marking the fifth anniversary of the publication of the October 4 Declaration, the atmosphere of supporting the north-south declarations and the will to implement them should prevail across the whole of the national territory. The South Korean people should wage a fierce mass struggle aimed at resolutely frustrating the schemes to sell the interests of the nation in collaboration with the foreign forces.

National reconciliation and unity is the precondition and guarantee for national reunification.

The common interests of the nation should be given top priority, and everything should be subordinated to them. Confrontation between fellow countrymen that is driving the inter-Korean relations towards catastrophe should be strongly opposed and rejected. Acts against reunification, acts that disgrace the dignity of the north and foster distrust and antagonism between the north and the south, cannot be tolerated in the slightest. All the fellow countrymen should wage a nationwide struggle to frustrate the anti-reunification policy hostile to compatriots pursued by the group of traitors, hindering national reconciliation and unity and escalating confrontation.

The prevailing situation urgently demands that the war moves of the bellicose forces at home and abroad be checked and frustrated.

The entire nation, under the unfurled banner of anti-war and peace, should smash every move of reckless military provocation, arms buildup and war exercises against the north. Constant vigilance against the danger of military collaboration of the bellicose forces within the country and without should be maintained, and the US aggressor forces, the main obstacle to peace in the Korean peninsula, should be pulled out from South Korea.

Today's struggle to implement the instructions of Kim Jong Il on national reunification is a patriotic one related with the destiny of the nation in the new century of the Juche era. All the Korean people in the north, south and abroad should unite closely under the banners of the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration and give further spurs to the reunification movement. By doing so, this year they should make a breakthrough for independent reunification.

The international environment was quite complicated last year, but the Korean revolution advanced invariably along the road of victory indicated by Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Il was a defender of justice; for long, he conducted energetic external activities under the unfurled banner of anti-imperialist independence, remarkably enhancing the position and authority of Songun Korea in the international arena and rendering immortal services to promoting the cause of independence of mankind. The historic visits he made last year to China and Russia served as important occasions for achieving peace in the world and security in Northeast Asia and developing the traditional relations of friendship. Whatever a sudden turn the international situation may take and however frantically the imperialists may behave, nothing can arrest our advance towards socialism. We will, in the future, too, hold fast to our Party’s principles of independence, friendship and peace, and strive to develop relations of friendship with countries that respect our country's sovereignty.

As they have entered the new century of the Juche era, having overcome the pain of the greatest loss, our service personnel and people are filled with a grim determination and confidence in sure victory.

Inscribed in the hearts of our service personnel and people, who have turned out in the new onward march, are lifetime appearances of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. As Kim Jong Un, a peerlessly brilliant commander, is leading our revolution in the van and the powerful revolutionary army and people united single-heartedly support faithfully their guide, the Workers' Party of Korea, the revolutionary cause of Juche is sure to emerge victorious. The advance of our revolution that started on Mt. Paektu will continue without interruption as a vigorous march towards the victorious Songun revolution, towards prosperity.

Let us all glorify the new century of Kim Il Sung's Korea as an era of prosperity and proud victory under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of our Party, our state and our army.

**Translation Source for the New Year’s Editorial: Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)**

China gives its "Thumbs Up" to Kim Jong-un?

According to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's heir apparent son, Kim Jong-un, has been confirmed to be visiting China. The junior Kim arrived in Tumen, in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, early in the morning of Friday, 20 May (KST),  but his next destination has yet to be confirmed, the source in Tumen told Yonhap News Agency. The source asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity. Security has been tightened considerably in Tumen and areas linking the Chinese city with North Korean border, the source added. A ranking government official in Seoul said that the North's presumed heir may have certainly arrived in China considering circumstances observed so far, noting he is unlikely to travel to Beijing."We believe that Kim Jong-un arrived in China early this morning, though it will take more time to confirm the visit," said the Seoul official. "It remains to be seen whether he was traveling alone or together with Kim Jong-il. But it is believed thus far that he was visiting China alone. His final destination doesn't appear to be Beijing."

This would mark the first confirmed trip to China by Kim Jong-un since he has been named the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission and a four-star general in September 2010.  Apparently, this visit has been widely seen as China showing its seal of approval for Kim Jong-un as the next possible leader of North Korea.

North Korea's New Year's Joint Editorial for 2011

The Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) carried this year’s New Year’s Joint Editorial at 9 AM on January 1, 2011 in Korean. The print version of the editorial was carried on Rodong Sinmun, Joson Inmingun, and Chongnyon Jonwi. What is interesting, however, is that the North Korean leadership decided NOT to publish this year’s joint editorial on the front page of these newspapers – the front pages of these newspapers carried large music scores with lyrics instead, and the editorial was carried on the second page. This is the first time North Korea has NOT carried the New Year’s joint editorial on the first page in 50 years.

This departure from the norm is significant since everything is choreographed and planned in North Korea for a change such as this to occur.  Given what we have been able to observe lately (for the past 12 months or so), I don't think moving of the Joint Editorial from Page 1 to Page 2 signifies the decrease in the importance of the editorial itself; rather, this change is quite telling in that everything is not business as usual in North Korea.  Additionally, given that the songs carried on Page 1 of the three above mentioned newspapers are quite revolutionary in nature, I would venture to assess that this change has something to do with the on-going succession situation in North Korea.

These New Year's editorials tend to be very long-winded, and if you are not into reading the North Korean art in rehtoric, or if you are simply pressed for time, North Korea Leadership Watch has a very nice summary of this year's editorial, which I provided a link to here.

Now then, without further a due, the full text of the joint editorial in English*: Today we are greeting the year 2011, a year filled with hope, a year of new prosperity, after glorifying the stirring first decade of the 21st century as a decade full of great victories.

The last was a decade when we invariably defended the ideas and cause of President Kim Il Sung, a decade full of creations and miracles when we built a solid springboard for achieving the status of a great, prosperous and powerful country. In the crucible of the complicated 21st century, our country has always stood in the limelight of the world, at the forefront of anti-imperialist independence.

Our service personnel and people, who have written a heroic epic of victory after victory under the energetic leadership of General Kim Jong Il, are full of ambition for a brighter future and confidence in sure victory.

Last year 2010 was a year of great changes, when miraculous events that provided a picture of a prosperous tomorrow took place one after another.

Our Party's strategy of the building of a great, prosperous and powerful country is the most scientific and realistic. Our onward march of last year for a great upsurge was propelled as General Kim Jong Il had planned and intended, and came to wonderful fruition as he had visualized. Korea does what it is determined to do this immutable truth was confirmed by the reality.

The promising future and invincibility of our Party and revolution were fully demonstrated through the grand political events of last year noteworthy in the history of our nation.

The Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea that was convened amidst the mounting political enthusiasm of our people and the great interest of the world proved to be a major milestone in the development of our Party eternally into the party of President Kim Il Sung and in the enhancing of its leadership authority to the maximum. That the fundamental guarantee for carrying forward and accomplishing the cause of the Party, the Juche revolutionary cause, was provided is a great glory for our service personnel and people.

The celebrations held on the highest standard and in a characteristic way greeting the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Party vividly demonstrated in front of the eyes of the world the might of the single-minded unity and invincible military strength that reached a new high. Notwithstanding the complicated situation, our public sentiment remained stable on a high level, and the will of the service personnel and people to stoutly follow the long road of revolution under the leadership of the Party grew stronger. There are no party and people in the world as great as ours, which have an ever-victorious history and a highly promising future.

In the crucible of the onward march of last year for a great upsurge, a road was opened definitely for remarkably improving the people's standard of living at an earlier date.

The Party's call for channeling everything into improving the people's standard of living stirred the whole country and brought about thrilling sounds of victory in all the hard-fought projects for a great upsurge. Under the wise leadership of the Party the projects for modernization were promoted dynamically in the industrial sectors related to the people's living, such as light industry, chemical industry and metal industry, opening a bright prospect of mass-producing the Juche-based steel, fibre and fertilizer. Hundreds of major projects including the Taegyedo tideland reclamation and Ryesonggang Youth Power Station No. 2 were brought to completion, and spectacular scenes in the Son gun era unfolded in various parts of the country. The establishment of foundations for realizing the ideals of a great, prosperous and powerful country we have so long desired is a precious achievement made in the onward march for a great upsurge.

Last year witnessed the spirit of Songun Korea dashing toward the world.

World-shaking, brilliant achievements were made in such fields of latest science and technology as information and nuclear technologies through the high-pitched drive to push back the frontiers of science and technology. Kim Il Sung University, Hamhung University of Chemical Engineering and other institutions of training talents were refurbished splendidly as required by the era of the knowledge-based economy. The mass-based culture and art were developed onto a new high stage, and works of art and literature with perfect ideological and artistic qualities, like the light comedy "An Echo among the Hills," were produced one after another. These are a source of great pride to our country, a socialist cultural giant. Infinitely bright is the future of our country as all the people are giving free rein to their thoughts and feelings in a bid to make their great Party and Kim Il Sung's Korea admired by the world.

Last year was a historic year, when the outstanding leadership ability of General Kim Jong Il, who is translating his grand plan for achieving prosperity into reality, was demonstrated on the highest level.

Our drive of last year to build a thriving nation was conducted under extremely tense situation and vicious sanctions of the enemy. Our Party's idea is that of offensive, and its mode of making revolution is also that of offensive. The will of the great General to defend the dignity of the nation to the last in any storm and stress remained steadfast, and his art of leading the whole army and all the people to a dauntless offensive was quite extraordinary and adroit.

Etched in the chronicle of General Kim Jong Il's leadership for a great upsurge in 2010 are on-site guidance trips of forced march beyond human imagination.

During the whole year from its outset, he continuously visited the battlefields for a great upsurge across the country, including the construction site of the Huichon Power Station, rousing Party organizations and officials to action and giving fullest play to the mental strength of service personnel and people.

Following the great General, who continued his field guidance trips day and night, braving the biting cold and sultry weather, heavy rain and snowstorm, the harmonious whole of service personnel and people rose up, kindling raging flames of great innovations and leap forward. Two rounds of his visit to China in the limelight of the world were historic, in that they put the traditional relations of friendship between Korea and China onto a new stage and created an environment favorable for our revolution.

Our cause of building a great, prosperous and powerful country will make steady progress toward the historic milestone set up by the respected General. This is the conviction our service personnel and people etched in their hearts in the worthwhile struggle of last year. The forthcoming decades of the 21st century will continue to shine as decades of great victories of sophisticated and experienced Kim Jong Il's style of politics.

New Year 2011 is a year of general offensive, when a radical turn should be brought about in the building of a thriving nation by kindling more fiercely the flames of great upsurge in improving the people's standard of living.

General Kim Jong Il said: "We should bring earlier the bright future of a thriving nation by making continuous innovations and advance, full of confidence in victory."

Our people's struggle to put up the plate of a powerful nation at the gate of the dignified Kim Il Sung's Korea has entered an important phase.

Next year we will be greeting the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung. President Kim Il Sung is the founding-fat her of socialist Korea and the pioneer of the cause of building a Juche-oriented powerful nation. His lifetime instructions are tantamount to the programs of the Party that must not be contravened to the slightest degree. We should launch an all-out, vigorous offensive for a breakthrough to realize the wish of the President to build a prosperous country, and thus greet the centenary of his birth as the greatest holiday of Kim Il Sung's nation and a great event of humankind.

Ours are a heroic people who carry out without fail whatever they are determined to do, and an indomitable people who never mark time even for a moment in the struggle to realize their lofty ideals. The world is now witnessing what great miracles are being wrought by our service personnel and people who, full of great ambition, are rushing toward the status of a powerful country, invincible and prospering.

This year's general offensive is a continuation of the grand onward march for improving the people's standard of living, and its new, higher stage.

We have already made a big stride in implementing our Party's ambitious strategy for improving the people's standard of living. We are now faced with the urgent task to consolidate and develop the already achieved successes in order to raise the people's standard of living to the level appropriate to a great, prosperous and powerful country. It is a steadfast stand of our Party that the improvement of the people's standard of living should be regarded as the most important issue, the highest goal of its struggle, and carried through to the end. We should make the whole country reverberate with the echoes of continued innovation and advance, echoes of general offensive, for a bright future, when people will enjoy all kinds of blessings to their hearts' content.

"Bring about a decisive turn in the improvement of the people's standard of living and the building of a great, prosperous and powerful country by accelerating the development of light industry once again this year!"?this is the militant slogan we should uphold in speeding up the onward march for a great upsurge in the New Year.

Light industry is the major front in the general offensive of this year.

Now we have built up key industries and a strong force of scientists and technicians that support the revolution in light industry, and we have accumulated valuable experiences of putting light industry on the stage of upturn against all odds. To accelerate the development of light industry is a mature requirement and most pressing task for building the country into an economic giant.

Today the stand on light industry is an important matter directly related with the attitude toward the people and the Party and with the viewpoint of the revolution. We should make sure that this year, a year of light industry, the whole country seethes with efforts to give priority to and concentrate everything on the sector of light industry.

The modern light-industry factories, splendid producers of consumer goods serving as models in the new century, all of which our Party built at great cost, are precious assets for the improvement of the people's standard of living. The sector of light industry should pay first and foremost attention to making the factories and enterprises associated with the Party's warm care keep their production running at a high level. It should focus on the production of primary consumer goods and other necessities widely used in life, and expand and augment the overall production of other consumer goods. Respect for people and patriotism find expression in bringing about a radical improvement in the quality of consumer goods. The sector of light industry should turn out commodities that would be favored by people, immaculate by any standard and competitive on the world market. It is also necessary to increase the kinds of consumer goods to meet people's diverse demands and tastes.

Continuous efforts should be directed to putting the production of consumer goods on a modern, scientific basis. It is our Party's plan to press ahead with the upgrading of light industry, not partially but in an all-round way, not on an ordinary standard but on a standard of cutting edge, and with a sight set far ahead into the future. The upgrading of light industry should be carried on effectively by employing the finish-one-by-one method. Officials and workers in this sector should steadily improve the level of their technical skills so that they can adeptly operate CNC-based and other modern equipment and meet the scientific and technological requirements in their production and business activities.

Local industry has a considerable share in the country's output of consumer goods. Upholding the torch of a revolution in local industry General Kim Jong Il kindled in Changsong, all the people should launch a campaign to bolster up the local-industry factories across the country. It is important to follow the examples of Hoeryong and Kanggye in developing local industry as suited to one' s actual conditions and tapping all the locally available raw and other materials to run local-industry factories at full capacity.

Public and nationwide concern for light industry should be heightened. True to the Party's policy of attaching great importance to light industry, raw and other materials, fuel and funds necessary for this sector should be provided in good time and in sufficient amounts. A great effort should be channeled into putting the production of raw and other materials on a Juche-oriented, domestic basis. The drive for August 3 consumer goods production, which is demonstrating its vitality in making a revolution in light industry, should be more vigorously conducted, and units, as many as possible, should launch a drive to markedly increase the production of daily necessities. A revolution should be brought about in commodity supply and public catering service to make the people-oriented policies of the Party pay off.

The present grand onward march for the improvement of the people's standard of living demands that a full-scale offensive be launched in the overall economic front.

Now our Party expects the officials and working class in the vanguard sectors of the national economy, the sectors of basic industry, to become the starting fire, like the heroic working class of the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex, in making the flames of the great upsurge flare up more fiercely in improving the people's standard of living. Achieve the victory of the great upsurge with the faith, mettle and practical abilities of the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex. This is a call of our Party. Rapid increase in coal production leads to the mass-production of fertilizers, fibres, electricity and steel. The sector of coal-mining industry should concentrate effort on the coal mines with large deposits and favorable mining conditions and develop new coal fields in order to radically increase the output of coal. The whole country should assist the coal-mining sector with a sense of responsibility so as to inspire the coal-miners' morale. The sector of electric-power industry should direct efforts to running the generating facilities at full capacity at all times, and improving and perfecting the system of power transmission and supply. The officials and working class in the sector of metal industry, while consolidating the great victory achieved in perfecting the Juche-based steel-making system, should attain without fail the high target of iron and steel production. Railway transport is the pilot of the national economy. A drive for increased transport should ! be more vigorously conducted to satisfy the growing, overall demand for transport by the national economy, and the whole country should turn out in upgrading railways radically.

A revolution in light industry is just a revolution in chemical industry. The renovated large-scale chemical-industry bases in the Hamhung, Namhung and Sunchon areas should put their production on a normal track, thus turning out more fibers, plastic goods, various kinds of basic chemical goods, fertilizers and agrochemicals indispensable to improving the people's standard of living.

The agricultural front is the lifeline for solving the problem of people's living. We should take bringing about an innovation in agricultural production as the key to giving full play to the advantages of our style of socialism and opening the gates of a thriving country. The agricultural sector should thoroughly implement the Party's policies of seed revolution, double cropping, revolution in potato farming and soybean farming, and actively introduce advanced farming methods and techniques including organic farming. Competition should be vigorously pressed on to drastically boost unit-area grain yield by learning after the model units that are realizing with credit the Party's far-reaching plan of rural construction. Today, our Party appeals for a revolution in aiding the countryside. Upholding the intention of the Party to solve the food problem without fail, state investment in the agricultural sector should be radically increased. All sectors and a! ll units should give priority to the provision of materials necessary for farming in advance of farming processes.

The Songun era of great upsurge is a thrilling age, when monumental structures for people's happiness are being set up in a way larger than ever before. The construction of the Huichon Power Station, the coal gasification project in Hungnam, the construction of 100, 000 flats in Pyongyang and other major construction projects should be accelerated to the maximum for their completion at the earliest date possible. It is essential to ensure the quality of structure on the highest level cherishing the lofty feeling of patriotism to take responsibility for the safety of the projects and guarantee their absolute quality for all eternity. Production of building materials should be radically boosted, and the work of building modern bases for building-materials production vigorously pushed ahead.

An important way to accelerate the speed of the onward march for a great upsurge in the whole of economic construction is to continue to intensify the drive of breaking through the cutting edge.

It is our Party's idea of breaking through the cutting edge that all sectors should surpass in the shortest time the scientific and technical standards the world has reached and stand in the van of the age of knowledge-based economy, on the basis of experience of having secured supremacy in the CNC technology.

It is necessary to actively learn after the Huichon Ryonha General Machine Factory which is rushing forward in the van of the drive to push back the frontiers of science and technology. The intense drive of breaking through the cutting edge should be waged not only in the machine-building industry but in all other industrial sectors and not only in central industry but in local industry. The fields of core, basic technologies and cutting-edge science and technology, including information technology, nano-technology and bioengineering, should be developed radically, and science and technology brought close to production. Strong national self-respect that we will! beat others in the competition of science and technology and self-confidence that we can crush the enemy's blockade of science and technology by dint of the campaign for pushing back the frontiers of science and technology should overflow in our hearts. Scientists and technicians should vigorously wage a campaign of brains, a technological campaign, to produce research findings of great value that are conducive to the revolution in light industry and the development of the national economy, and everyone should take an active part in the mass technical innovation movement.

The principle of self-reliance should be applied thoroughly. Structures built with our own efforts and wisdom are soundly based, highly profitable and surely prospective. We should be persons strong in the spirit of self-reliance, who make a sturdy dash only in reliance on the ir own strength, like the Taegyedo tideland reclaimers who carried out the instructions of President Kim Il Sung despite the shortage of everything. We should develop and harness underground resources abundant in our country as much as we can to secure raw materials and funds needed for the improvement of the people's standard of living and the building of the country into an economic giant.

Improving the economic management becomes more urgent at the moment, when the national economy is put on the trajectory of revitalization. Enterprise management should be undertaken in a scientific and profitable way and in line with the principles of the socialist economic management of our own style, and a strict discipline observed in planning, finance and labor administration in all the units.

Greater efforts should be made to spruce up the overall looks of the country as appropriate to a thriving nation.

Those who transform their sectors and units in a revolutionary way with a broad and innovative vision of looking out over the world while keeping their feet firmly planted on their own land are the genuine builders of a thriving nation.

The sector of education should raise the quality of education and improve the teaching conditions and environment in line with the requirements of the IT era, so as to develop ours into a world-class country of intellectual elite.

The sector of literature and the arts should ensure that many excellent works of the times which are clear in the ideological principle and political stand and are down to earth, which can serve as textbooks for socialist education, are produced. The medical workers should add further brilliance to the advantages of the socialist free medical service by rendering sincere devotion to the care for the people's health and developing the medical science. A hot wind of sports should be raised in all parts of the country to make Songun Korea widely known as a football and sports power.

Boundless devotion to the cause of building a great, prosperous and powerful country is displayed in the undertakings to spruce up the country including land development and city management. The landscaping and afforestation should be done on a long-term basis and in a scientific way, and everyone should turn his or her native place and workplace into a socialist fairyland. Nationwide efforts should be channeled into drastically improving the roads. Cities should be designed and built in our own style as suited to the local characteristics and the global trend of development.

Pyongyang, the capital of the revolution, should be built into a pollution-free city covered with verdure, into a magnificent world-class city.

A decisive guarantee for this year's successful general onward march is in raising the Party's leadership role in every way.

This year will be the first worthwhile year since the Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea.

The spirit of the conference is a spirit of single-hearted unity to invariably defend the centre of unity and leadership despite the passage of time, an indomitable spirit of forced march to brave a multitude of hardships and build a prosperous and powerful nation and a spirit of continuous revolution to accomplish the revolutionary cause under the leadership of the great Party. At present the building and activities of our Party should be conducted with this spirit as a starting point and be consistent with it.

The Party's leadership system should be established more thoroughly in politics, the military, the economy and all other sectors. The entire Party should be built up into an ideologically pure entity and an organizational whole, which shares life and death with the leader to the last and into the ranks of death-defying vanguards who translate the leader's intention into brilliant reality.

Our Party wants all its organizations to be powerful and lively organizations that lead the onward march for improving the people's standard of living in the van. The habit of the Party organization and the administration carrying out revolutionary tasks as a harmonious whole and the principle of conducting all the economic activities in a way of doing political work should be applied thoroughly to Party work. The Party organizations should fully get acquainted with the public sentiment as required by the revolutionary mass line, intensify the work with people accordingly and deal with problems arising in the people's living in a responsible manner.

It is our Party's way of work to conduct ideological work more vigorously when the tasks to be tackled are huge and the enemy's moves become more vicious. The Party organizations at all levels should undertake education in the Juche idea and Songun idea in a consistent and intensive way to make the ideological position of our style of socialism rock-firm. They should train the Party members and other working people to be stalwart revolutionaries in the Songun era who are possessed of the spirit of defending the leader unto death, the spirit of national self-respect, the spirit of self-reliance and the love of and devotion to the future. They should briskly conduct mass-based cultural and artistic activities that are very appealing and refreshing, and continue to conduct the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement.

We should further strengthen the militant might of the People's Army as we hold fast to our Party's line of the Songun revolution.

At present the Juche-oriented cause of army building is making dynamic progress on a new, high stage.

The People's Army should bring about a fresh radical turn in all military and political work by faithfully supporting the leadership of the great Songun commander Kim Jong Il this year that marks the 20th anniversary of his assumption of the KPA supreme commandership and the 15th anniversary of the launch of the movement of winning the title of O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment.

The People's Army should firmly carry forward the precious tradition of absolutely trusting and following the Party and the leader and defending them unto death under the slogan "Let us defend with our very lives the Party Central Committee headed by the great Comrade Kim Jong Il!" We should establish more soundly the monolithic command system of the Supreme Commander in the whole army, and deepen the Party's political work incessantly to defend and add brilliance forever to its revolutionary character as the army of the leader and the Party.

Today's training is a forge that produces tomorrow's war hero. The entire army should conduct intense combat training in an atmosphere of actual battle as required by the tense situation so as to reliably prepare all the officers and men to be all-round officers and a-match-for-a-hundred combatants who support our Party's will of Songun by force of arms.

It is necessary to improve the command and management of units by giving priority to the strengthening of company and amply demonstrate the militant spirit and looks of the revolutionary elite army by enforcing strict military discipline. The entire army should achieve unity between officers and men and combination of military work with political work more thoroughly under the slogan that calls on it to become one comrade, and always take the lead in strengthening unity between army and people in every way. The People's Army should remain highly alert with the Juche-oriented view of war and the fighting spirit with which to annihilate the enemy.

The spirit of the People's Army resemblant to its great Supreme Commander is the Paektu spirit of offensive, and the mode of its counteraction of justice is the prompt, merciless and annihilatory action. It will not in the least pardon those who impair our absolute dignity and socialist system even a bit and violate our airspace, territory and waters even an inch, but discharge at any cost the historic mission it has assumed on behalf of the country and the nation with matchless arms.

When the People's Army rushes forward holding banner a s befits the main force of the revolution, the whole of society will be vibrant with life and seethe with the spirit of great upsurge. It should build monumental structures of lasting value and be a model that leads civilians with the revolutionary soldier spirit, soldier temperament and soldier culture in the major theatres of the campaign to build a great, prosperous and powerful country.

The defense industry is a source of the mightiness of Songun Korea and a reliable guarantee for the improvement of the people's standard of living. The sector of defense industry should continue to admirably perform its mission as a pacemaker in the campaign to break through the cutting edge and a locomotive that leads the overall economy.

It is necessary to radically improve the style and way of work in line with the requirements of the new era of the Songun revolution.

"Fight and create as befit the descendants of President Kim Il Sung!"--this is our motto. We should work optimistically with lofty aims, high ideals and great courage as our President did. We should add luster to each moment of the age of great upsurge with the indomitable disposition to perform without fail even what others say is impossible, the daring spirit of creating world-shaking things and the revolutionary way of work of doing everything perfectly so that it can bring benefits even to the coming generations. Success in the grand onward march for improving the people's standard of living depends on officials, the leading personnel. They should not merely support Party policies but be doers who translate them into reality and fighters who carry out the tasks assigned by the Party most excellently, most sincerely, most faithfully and most perfectly and at the risk of their lives. Like the officials of the March 5 Youth Mine, they should set ambitious, long-term goals and plan every type of work methodologically so as to revolutionize the administration of their respective units. Everyone should realize his or her beautiful ideals to the last with boundless attachment to his or her province, county, village and workplace.

The robust contingent of young people is the main force for national defense and socialist construction. Young people should display mass heroism to the full in every theatre of the campaign for the building of a great, prosperous and powerful nation, flying high the flag of Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League. Young people in the Songun era should burn their hearts with the great ambition and passion to shoulder the heavy burden of the motherland and seize supremacy in the cutting-edge technologies.

The working people's organizations should concentrate their efforts on ideological education for enlisting the mental strength of their members, and intensify a variety of mass movements including socialist emulation and shock-brigade movement.

Last year our nation's movement for the country's reunification made dynamic progress even in the face of the vicious challenges of the separatist forces inside and outside.

The 10th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration and the 30th anniversary of the proposal for founding the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo were marked significantly in the north, south and abroad, powerfully demonstrating the ardent desire of the nation for reunification. The more time passes by and the more ordeals and hardships crop up, the stronger the fellow countrymen's will to reunify their country independently is growing.

Last year the South Korean conservative authorities revealed their true colors as the minion of war and anti-reunification, confrontation maniac. In collaboration with the outside forces they incessantly hatched anti-DPRK plots and perpetrated north-targeted war moves, scuttling the inter-Korean dialogues and national reconciliation. Their reckless and wild behavior stirred up surging indignation of the whole nation. It is entirely thanks to our Songun politics of love of the country and the nation and our persevering efforts that war was deterred in the Korean peninsula and a series of humanitarian activities were conducted between north and south even under the touch-and-go situation.

The new decade of the 21st century is the years of hope, years of reunification and prosperity, when the tragedy of national division must be brought to an end.

Today there is no more vital task than national reunification for the Korean people. The stand of attaching importance to the nation, the stand toward independent reunification, is the touchstone by which to distinguish patriotism from treachery.

This year we should launch a more determined campaign to improve inter-Korean relations and reunify the country under the slogan, "Let all Koreans in the north, south and abroad join efforts and bring a new phase of independent reunification!" Confrontation between north and south should be defused as early as possible.

The South Korean authorities should scrap the anti-reunification policy of confrontation with the fellow countrymen, which is subjected to unanimous denunciation and rejection at home and abroad, and take the road of respecting and implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration.

They should immediately discontinue the anti-DPRK smear campaign and the crackdown on the patriotic forces aspiring after reunification, which are hindering national reconciliation and unity and which run counter to reunification.

The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean peninsula.

If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust. The entire nation should rise up as one in the sacred, just and patriotic struggle against war and for defending peace in the Korean peninsula.

It is imperative to check the north-targeted war exercises and arms buildup of the bellicose forces at home and abroad that seriously threaten national security and peace. Collaboration with outside forces leads to war and national ruin. The entire nation should never tolerate the criminal moves of pro-US war hawks who stake their fate on foreign forces and drive the situation to the brink of war in collusion with them.

Dialogue and cooperation should be promoted proactively.

Active efforts should be made to create an atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation between north and south by placing the common interests of the nation above anything else. Free travel of and exchanges between people from all walks of life should be ensured and cooperation projects encouraged, to contribute to improving inter-Korean relations and to achieving reunification.

The North-South Joint Declaration is a banner of independent reunification which all the fellow countrymen should invariably hold high and a milestone of national prosperity. A rosy future will be in store for our nation when all its members in the north, south and abroad hold fast to the declaration and the ideal of By Our Nation Itself, its basic spirit, as the lifeline of the national reunification movement, and thoroughly implement it.

The developments last year witnessed in the international arena show that the imperialist high-handedness and arbitrariness cannot make sense any longer and nothing can check the current of the times moving along the road of independence. The DPRK is consistent in its stand and will to achieve peace in Northeast Asia and denuclearization of the whole of the Korean peninsula. We will, in the future, too, strive to develop relations of friendship and cooperation with countries that are friendly towards us and achieve global independence under the ideals of independence, peace and friendship.

The cause of our Party that has followed the victorious road generation after generation and century after century is now registering one victory after another with greater vigor and vitality. To review the one-hundred-year history of Kim Il Sung's Korea, there has been no era like today when our nation's dignity is exalted so highly and confidence in the future is so absolute in the hearts of our people.

The gates of final victory are in sight. Our Party's militant appeal for putting spurs after spurs to the general onward march of the revolution is a banner of great innovation to rise up to the world by jumping at one go over the stages which have been followed by others, a banner of patriotic loyalty to realize without fail in our generation President Kim Il Sung's desire for building a thriving nation. We will staunchly advance till the day of final victory by uninterruptedly setting spurs to Chollima in the Songun era for a leap forward and general offensive.

Let us all bring about a decisive turn in the building of a great, prosperous and powerful country in high spirits, firmly rallied around the Party Central Committee headed by General Kim Jong Il.


* This translation taken from the USFK Korea Open Source Digest, Vol. III, Issue 250, 30 Dec 2010 – 03 Jan 2011, a daily publication of US Forces Korea Open Source Intelligence Branch.

North Korea Fires Coastal Artillery at South Korean Island of Yeonpyeong

Following Thread from our Friends at KGS Nightwatch

On 23 November (Korean Standard Time), North Korean coastal artillery fired dozens of rounds at a village on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island (aka, Y-P Do). Four South Korean soldiers were wounded and multiple houses were set afire.

South Korean artillery returned fire and scrambled combat aircraft. The armed forces are on high alert and promised to respond strongly to any further shelling, according to the National Defense Ministry.

Comment: The shelling is ex officio an act of war and starts another round of crisis. YP-Do is one of the five South Korean island in the Yellow Sea, northwest of Seoul. It is within easy artillery range from the North Korean coast.

The few facts suggest this is another provocation, like the sinking of the corvette Chonan in March, to show the temerity of the heir apparent. He supposedly was the brilliant mastermind of the sinking, to demonstrate his leadership worthiness. His handlers apparently intend to use these kinds of provocation to be the signature of Kim Jung-un's leadership so that the Allies do not try to take advantage of his youth and inexperience, presumably.

Ironically, earlier during the Watch, news services reported North Korea offered to negotiate the termination of one of its nuclear arms programs, most likely the now terminated plutonium program.

The sequence of three significant developments in 72 hours suggests a plan to switch international attention back to North Korea. The North's behavior during the long nuclear crisis that began in 1993 is punctuated with provocative spikes of this nature. They occurred whenever the leadership judged North Korea was not receiving the attention they thought it deserved and when their initiatives were not generating the cash and aid commitments they expected and which they need for regime survival.

The periods of tension have been of varying duration, but they invariably ended with talks and promises of aid and cooperation. That is the usual patttern.

Occurring just two days after South Korea declared the Sunshine Policy a failure, the shelling also probably is part of the North's response to South Korea's official end of its conciliatory engagement policy and programs. The message is that the North will reciprocate hard-line actions for hard-line actions, which is the customary symmetrical formulation in the North's threats. But in this competition, the North can be annoying, but is too weak in every respect to be a match for South Korea and will not have Chinese backing for any offensive provocations.

Thus at a time when the US has committed to expand the war in Afghanistan and China is busy building is sphere of influence in Southeast Asia, the North has sent reminders about a very different and vastly more lethal war that is still possible in northeast Asia, despite being increasingly pointless.

The risk of large scale fighting remains low because North Korea lacks the energy - human and otherwise - to sustain it. The North can start a conflict and kill lots of people, but has no ability to sustain a war; cannot defend itself or its population from an overwhelming Allied counterattack and will lose everything built by Kim Il sung since 1953 in a war. Most importantly, the highest leaders know it.

However, the risk of more shelling remains high for now. After the shelling stops, meetings with the UN Command at Panmunjom should clarify what the North wants now.

US Nuclear Weapons on South Korean Soil?

Below thread from our friends at KGS Nightwatch.

South Korean National Defense Minister Kim Tae Young said today that South Korea will discuss redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil with the United States at the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee meeting in December. The context of the statement was the news that North Korea has an industrial scale and operational uranium enrichment plant of 2,000 centrifuges.

The United States does not have immediate plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, a Pentagon spokesman said on 22 November. The United States is consulting international partners to decide how to proceed in light of a report by a US nuclear scientist describing a small, industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant he was shown during a visit to North Korea in November, the spokesman said.

Comment: This is saber rattling. Meanwhile officials in South Korea and the US declared the weekend report about the new North Korean nuclear facilities does not create a crisis because the US and South Korea knew it all along. Japan, a bit more realistically, declared the facility an intolerable threat to security; apparently Japanese officials did not know about this all along.

There is no crisis yet. Most countries that have plutonium processes for making fissile material also have uranium enrichment processes. The original reactor at Yongbyon produced plutonium, but the North has been attempting to build a uranium enrichment cascade, with Pakistani help at one time, for over a decade. The news is that it succeeded pretty much in plain view, according to the US scientists.

There have been two schools of analytical thought about the North's weapons programs. One school holds that the weapons programs may be negotiable if the right package of incentives and sanctions may be found. The other school is that North Korea will never negotiate away its nuclear weapons because it has no other leverage over the US. To date, the hard line school is far ahead of the negotiators. Japan is more aligned with the hard line school of thought and that may be as worrisome as North Korea's antics.

Regional Update for 28 October

China/Taiwan-US: Taiwan will ask the United States to postpone the sale of two advanced weapons systems to save money, a senior legislator with ties to the military said on 28 October, Reuters reported.

Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: A decision to not spend money usually and obviously means that money will be saved. However, the timing of the announcement is propitious because it neutralizes temporarily an issue that might have blemished the US President's visit to India late next week. Taiwan will want something in return.

North Korea-Cuba: Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, left Pyongyang on 28 October to lead a delegation to Cuba, The Associated Press reported.

Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: Reports of a close relationship between North Korea and Cuba extend for decades in the past. They include allegations of large North Korean troop deployments to Cuba.

Nothing significant has ever been proven. Still the visits have continued. Cuba and North Korea share the distinction with Vietnam and Laos of being the last surviving Marxist-Leninist states.

China-Pakistan: Chinese Major General Yang Hui, director general of the Intelligence Directorate, visited Chief of Army Staff General Kayani at General Headquarters on 28 October, Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The two discussed matters of professional interest, according to Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations.

Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: A visit by a Chinese intelligence general to Pakistan usually signifies a problem. The usual problem is that Pakistan is harboring, aiding, training and abetting anti-Han Chinese Islamic terrorists in the 42 terrorist camps that Pakistani intelligence sustains in Pakistani Kashmir.

Chinese intelligence officials seldom visit unless there is a problem. The Chinese do not seem concerned that Pakistani-trained terrorists kill Indians or Americans, but they do object to Pakistan providing or tolerating training of Xinjiang Uighurs who want to kill Han Chinese.

Regional Update for 27 October

At a meeting in Kaesong to discuss family reunions on Wednesday, North Korea demanded South Korea provide 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer n return for concessions in the reunion program.

"North Korean delegates linked the issue of separated families and the aid, indicating that they could make concessions if rice and fertilizer aid are given," an unidentified South Korea official said. In response to the request for aid, South Korean representatives replied that they were not in a position to give an answer and would refer it to government authorities.

Comment from our friends at KGS NightWatch: A reunion event will begin Saturday at the jointly-run Mount Kumgang resort on the North's east coast and will last six days, linking 100 people from each side with long-separated family members. Seoul wants to hold similar reunions once a month between March and November, since many elderly people die before getting a chance for such a meeting.

The North's choice of venue for presenting an enormous demand leaves no doubt that the country has a severe food shortage (so, what else is new?). Moreover it does not anticipate good harvests in 2011 without South Korean aid (again…nothing new here).

Curiously, the North's version of communism stresses a home-grown, mythical notion of self-reliance. The facts are that since the Korean War the North has never been self-reliant in anything Without Soviet and Chinese aid of every kind and South Korean and Japanese trade, the country would have imploded decades ago.

Today's demand made no mention of "chuche," the North's term for self-reliance. The North is desperate for help.