InternalAffairs
Internal Affairs
o Through a repeated visit to military units, chairman Kim Jong-il exhorted a strengthening of combat capability as well as ideological education programs and acceleration of rear-area provision programs.
- Kim toured companies of military units 1292 and 1701, the Three Revolutionary Red Flag Company of unit 776, unit 3993, a company of unit 138 honored with the title Geumsung lifeguard and unit 1925 honored with the title Geumsung lifeguard on December 13, 15 and 17, according to the Central Radio Station.
o Through the decisions made by the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly December 11, North Korea adopted three regulations on the Gaeseong Industrial Region. They are Regulation 11 on the Establishment and Operations of a Management Agency; Regulation 12 on Entry/Exit and Stay and Residence and Regulation 13 on Customs. The regulations are anticipated to accelerate exchanges and cooperation between South and North Korea.
* Thus, the number of subordinate regulations issued after the Act on the Gaeseong Industrial Region was proclaimed in November 2002 has come to seven, the rest are concerned with the development, creation of enterprises, labor and tax affairs of the region.
o North Korea held the sixth National Science Technology Presentation on the Fish Farming Sector in Pyongyang December 10-11 in an effort to solve its food shortages by raising productivity in fish breeding. In a related development, the Rodong Sinmun reported December 6 that fish hamburgers were provided to Kim Il-sung University and others in what it called the introduction of Western food culture.
o Saying genuine nationalism should always be distinguished from bourgeois nationalism; North Korea contended that the ideal "Korean People-First Principle" constitutes genuine nationalism. The claim, aired by the Pyongyang Broadcast Station on December 15, was intended to highlight Korean people's pride with a view to boosting morale of the population depressed by economic difficulties and to cementing internal unity.
o North Korea has moved to strengthen its regime's unity by idolizing Kim Jong-il and his late father Kim Il-sung. North Korea set up an overseas "joint preparatory committee" in Ecuador on November 23 to mark the birthday of the senior Kim on April 15 and that of his son February 16. In addition, its Central Broadcasting Station reported December 12 that oversized murals describing the two Kims were erected in Yomju and Yongbyon counties in North Pyong-an province.
Relations with South Korea
o Three inter-Korean working-level economic meetings covering the economic cooperation system, clearances and settlements and certificates of origin between South and North Korea were under way in Pyongyang December 17-20. The leader of the North Korean delegation said that economic cooperation will be accelerated between the two sides if participants to the meetings discuss all matters with a mindset between the Korean people.
o North Korea demanded the release of those put under arrest on charges of violating the National Security Law and demanded that the repeal of that law in connection with the arrest of student activists of an outlawed campus organization and two other seditious bodies. The demand came in the form of a report on December 14 by the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland and the statement by the Pyongyang-side spokesman of the National Alliance for the Country's Unification four days later.
External Affairs
o North Korea, in a commentary carried by the Rodong Sinmun December 16, demanded that Japan respond quickly to its call for North Korea-Japan government-level talks to discuss reparations, saying that only Japan has failed to show intention to apologize and compensate for the war crimes committed against it, when other war crime nations had all recognized their faults.
In another Rodong Sinmun commentary on December 17, North Korea denounced that Japan's dispatch of self-defense forces to Iraq was aimed at realizing Tokyo's ambition for overseas expansion and paving the way for self-defense troops to participate in foreign aggression war on their own.
o Kim Young-dae, vice chairman of North Korea's presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, propagandized in the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society held in Geneva December 10-12 that his country concentrated on the information technology sector as a national project in line with its policy of taking a serious view of science and IT.
o On the occasion of the third anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Britain, North Korea's Central Broadcasting Station introduced Britain's technology and culture on December 12.
