North Koreans mark Kim Il-sung's birthday

North Korea marked yesterday's birthday of its late founder and eternal president with acrobats, street dancing and boasts of building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

For North Koreans, the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung is a time for festivities and perhaps a little larger rice ration than usual. For regional powers, though, it serves as a reminder of the difficulties of ending Pyongyang's atomic ambitions that were launched decades ago under his leadership.

North Korea calls the holiday the Day of the Sun. Kim, known as the "Great Leader," died in 1994 and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-il, establishing the world's only communist dynasty.

At an event to mark the anniversary, the man considered to be the North's current number two leader said the US would try at all costs to bring down the communist state, known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"It is the legitimate right of the DPRK to self-defense to bolster up its military deterrent in every way to cope with the prevailing grave situation," Kim Yong-nam said in a report carried on the North's official KCNA news agency.

In numerous official media reports, North Korea has said it is building a nuclear deterrent to counter what it views as Washington's hostility towards it.

Kim Yong-nam also told the gathering the country was still trying to find its way out of a food shortage that plagued the final years of Kim Il-sung's reign.

"In this year, too, we should regard agriculture as the main front of the economic construction and mobilize and concentrate all forces on farming once again and thus bring a bumper harvest to the land of socialist Korea to fully solve the food problem."

North Korean TV footage showed an unending crowd of uniformed soldiers and neatly dressed civilians visiting a low hill in Pyongyang to pay homage to the late leader, where a 23m statue of him stands, overlooking the capital. Visitors laid bouquets of flowers and made deep bows, according to the footage, seen in Seoul.

In a lengthy editorial marking the holiday, the country's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun called on all North Koreans to rally around Kim Jong Il, saying it was the "most lofty will" of the late founder.

"Our unity is mightier than nuclear weapons ... It is our oath of faith to complete the great feat of building a powerful nation by rallying with one mind around the revolutionary leadership headed by Comrade Kim Jong Il," said the editorial.

The paper also exhorted North Koreans to "sternly crush the vicious US plots aimed at ideological and cultural infiltration" into the country, apparently referring to Washington's efforts to send radio broadcasts into the communist state that keeps a tight control over outside information.

North Koreans also took pilgrimages to Mangyongdae, the late leader's birthplace, and the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where his embalmed body lies in state, both located in Pyongyang, KCNA said.

People also lined up to watch an exhibition of kimilsungia, a kind of orchid named after the late leader. Kim Jong Il has a rose-like flower named after him: kimjongilia.

Also yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin send a congratulatory message to Kim Jong Il, saying "the friendly relations between the two countries, which developed under the deep care of President Kim Il Sung, have made progress with fresh energy in recent years," KCNA said.